[ews.eclipse.technology.desk] Re: What else is out there?

["Mike Milinkovich" <mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have cross-linked this to eclipse.foundation and propose that any 
follow-on conversation in this branch of the thread happen there.

>> Is there some requirement for the Eclipse Foundation to single-handedly
>> re-invent every wheel,
>
> Great question. The answer is absolutely NO!

This thread has me just a little bemused.

First, let me agree that the Eclipse Foundation is not interested in, or 
required to, re-invent every wheel.

But the original assertion could be read to imply that the Eclipse 
Foundation is perhaps running a command-and-control economy. We're not :-) 
New projects usually happen in a bottom-up fashion.

In the Technology PMC in particular, we try to allow ideas to be explored 
and researched with relatively little oversight. In many cases (not all) the 
goal is that once a project has been matured there, it will migrate to 
another PMC. Recent examples include WSVT (now part of WST in WenTools) and 
XSD (now part of EMF in Tools).

I have not looked at JDIC at all, and Desk only superficially. But in 
general there could be many reasons to have projects which appear to overlap 
initiatives at the JCP or elsewhere. Open source licensing comes to mind as 
one example. Open source rules for development could be a second. Or just 
someone's stubborn interest in building their own darn project as a third.

Especially in the latter case, it is useful to remember some of the criteria 
for success for an Eclipse project. E.g. the ability to create a community 
interested in and contributing to the project, and the demonstrated ability 
to ship software that works. Not every project proposal we get in the 
Technology PMC will ultimately succeed. But I am not very interested in 
seeing the Foundation attempt to guess ahead of time which ones will work 
and which ones won't.

The flip side is that we also don't want to become a SourceForge, which 
support a truly huge range of projects with no common theme. (That is not in 
any way meant as a slight on SourceForge. Eclipse is just different.) That's 
why we have a Development Process (see 
http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20Development%20Process%202003_11_09%20FINAL.pdf), 
and that's why projects have to be consistent with the Purposes (see the 
Bylaws) and the Roadmap (see 
http://www.eclipse.org/org/councils/roadmap.html)

Mike Milinkovich
Executive Director
Eclipse Foundation