Eclipse Ecosystem

Back to Oracle!

2011-04-28T14:57:00.001-04:00

Summary: I’ve loved my last five years at the Eclipse Foundation. It’s time for me to move on. I’m going to Oracle to work on OpenJDK and other things.

The longer version:

It was over five years ago that I joined the Eclipse Foundation. I had just finished an MBA and was working at Oracle in a well regarded technical swat team in Java middleware. The Eclipse Foundation had launched in my hometown of Ottawa, and here I was, eager to learn about open source, the rapidly changing business model of enterprise software, ecosystems and to do something fresh. So I took advantage of this unique opportunity and convinced Mike that I should help run the Eclipse Foundation membership.

My 5+ years at Eclipse were incredibly rewarding both personally and professionally. I’ve made countless new friends and acquaintances from all the organizations that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I was privileged to be working directly with many great thinkers in the software industry, and learning about how big ideas, like Eclipse, happen.

All the staff at the Eclipse Foundation that I’ve ever worked with have been high performing and maniacal about driving the Eclipse Ecosystem forward. I believe the Eclipse Foundation has done great things by helping hundreds of organizations keep pace with evolving business models and to make available a lot of high value free software. I leave the Eclipse Foundation with complete respect and admiration for every single person there. They do incredible things with limited resources and many constraints. I will continue to be a fierce advocate and supporter of all things Eclipse.

I believe strongly that we are at the beginning of a renaissance period for Java. Once again there is real investment and participation in Java. There is a roadmap that has an immediate impact with Java SE 7, and plans far into the future – with many organizations and stakeholders keen to see it happen. Moreover, I’m convinced that once a world class modularity solution becomes part of core Java, we will see even more and faster innovation. It means great things from the biggest cloud, to the smallest device.

I have a matching skill set to help Java evolve for the decade to come, so I decided to jump at an opportunity to join the Oracle Java SE team. I will be working with OpenJDK and other things. I am truly proud to be working with folks like Dalibor Topic, Henrik Staal, Mark Reinhold and Adam Messinger.

The team I’m on has one simple mandate – keep Java the number one computing platform in the world. Period. I start May 9th, and will post some pointers when I land.

- Don

Announcing EclipseCon Europe 2011, and EclipseCon North America 2012 Program Chair

2011-03-24T16:36:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned this morning at EclipseCon, we're proud to announce EclipseCon Europe, 2011. New name, but same great conference. We wanted to demonstrate the equal importance of both our major events, and decided to unify on the "EclipseCon" brand. Bernd Kolb will be reprising his role as Program Chair and we hope he makes great use of the extra space. We sold out early last year, so plan to register early to avoid disappointment!

Also, we'd like to announce Doug Schaefer (CDT Project Lead) as the Program Chair for EclipseCon North America 2012 (exact dates and location TBA). We've had an excellent run of great Program Chairs who put their own touch on EclipseCon and we're looking forward to Doug's perspective and leadership.

- Don

EclipseCon QR-CodeBreakers Game

2011-03-09T19:36:00.004-05:00

The fun diversion game at EclipseCon this year is EclipseCon QR-CodeBreakers. Grab a QR Code Scanner for your favorite mobile device before the conference to make sure you're ready to play.

Once again there will be some great prizes for those playing along including an XBOX 360 courtesy of Microsoft, and Droid Pro (Global capable) courtesy of Motorola and a bevy of Amazon Gift Certificates courtesy of the Ecl i pse Foundation.

Full details of the game can be found on the EclipseCon website. Not sure what you're looking for? Here's a sample QR-Code, how many can you find at EclipseCon?

- Don

Did I mention EclipseCon is four days?

2011-03-07T10:35:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty sure I did last year, but it bears repeating - EclipseCon is a four day conference. The reason I point that out is that many conferences are 2.5 or maybe a full three days, but we take full advantage of bringing hundreds of people from around the world and pack the week. You won't want to roll in and miss Monday morning (some of the best Tutorials start then), and you won't want to leave early on Thursday and miss the closing sessions.

EclipseCon starts in just 2 weeks, register today!

- Don

Eclipse RoadMap v6 for Review

2011-03-02T15:47:00.001-05:00

Version 6 of the Eclipse Roadmap is ready for community review and feedback. It is currently scheduled to be discussed and approved at the March 21st board meeting in Santa Clara. Please feel free to send any feedback via email, my first.last at eclipse.org.

- Don

...and Amazon make an even Eight.

2011-02-25T09:51:00.002-05:00

I'm very pleased to note that Amazon has gone gold at EclipseCon, making us an even eight for EclipseCon 2011.

Amazon joins Cloudsoft, IBM, Jasmine Conseil, Oracle, SAP, Sonatype and Xored as Gold Sponsors.

The Silver sponsor list is impressive as well as we have Birt Exchange, Amazon Web Services, BSI, Google, Nuxeo, OnPositive, BlackBerry and ZeroTurnaround. Our Bronze sponsors include AccuRev, Froglogic, Genuitec, GitHub, Itemis, JBoss, Juniper, Microsoft, Paremus, Soyatec and TOTVS.

We can't give our sponsors enough thanks and kudos - without them, EclipseCon would not be possible and I look forward to seeing them and learning the cool things they're doing with Eclipse!

- Don

EclipseCon Keynote #3 - On Jeopardy Playing Computers

2011-02-23T15:06:00.002-05:00

The third and final EclipseCon keynote is confirmed, it will be David Gondek, from the IBM Watson Strategy Team. You may have caught him recently on the Nova Documentary called "The Smartest Machine on Earth". Or on countless blogs and geek shows.

We're thrilled to have David speak -- stay tuned for more details shortly!

EclipseCon is just under 4 weeks away! Register now and save $200.

- Don

Eclipse Hot New Product Showcase Filling Up!

2011-02-10T10:24:00.003-05:00

We have some very cool organizations and products participating in the Hot New Products Showcase at EclipseCon, and space is limited. Please let us know if you have a hot new product you'd like to show off!

- Don

Announcing the Second EclipseCon Keynote

2011-02-10T09:16:00.002-05:00

Some of the best EclipseCon Keynotes have been when highly technical, very smart people, who write great code, speak about projects they are passionate about.

In that theme, I'm pleased to announce our Second EclipseCon keynote - "On Apache Hadoop". Todd Lipcon has agreed to come give an in depth look at "big data", something that I know many of us in the Eclipse Ecosystem are bumping into regularly. Our own experiences trying to analyze the UDC data from Eclipse has shown what a challenge this can be.

EclipseCon is March 21-24 at the Santa Clara Convention Center (and Hyatt!) Early bird registration is just a couple days away, so register now!

- Don

EclipseCon Hotel Sellout

2011-02-08T07:13:00.001-05:00

Just a heads up / warning that the Hyatt Santa Clara has 9 rooms left for one of the nights of EclipseCon. We're obviously trying to boost the room block, but there are other events happening in Santa Clara and it's not a certainty.

If you haven't booked your hotel yet, you should do so right away here.

- Don

PS - One of the shortest nights is the Saturday before EclipseCon because of all the European attendees who tend to arrive on Saturday afternoon. You need to act quickly as we have no pull at the hotel once things sell out.

EclipseCon Keynote #1 - "The Java Renaissance"

2011-01-26T10:27:00.003-05:00

I'm pleased to announce the first of three EclipseCon keynotes this year called "The Java Renaissance".

I'm personally glad to see the investment in the Java SE platform growing again, and we asked technical leaders John Duimovich (Java CTO and distinguished engineer at IBM) and Mark Reinhold (chief architect of the Java Platform group at Oracle) to come and speak about OpenJDK and some of the upcoming plans for technical innovation.

- Don

EclipseCon 2011 Tentative Program Posted!

2011-01-13T11:58:00.004-05:00

For those of you who check on EclipseCon.org every day (and I mean, who doesn't) - you may have noticed the program has quietly appeared in increments over the past couple weeks. There are still a lot of tweaks to make, a couple more rooms to put into play and the evening schedule is still being fleshed out. But the bulk of the program is there to explore, and you should do so!

We still haven't notified speakers formally of the dates and times, because we are still making major changes and don't want people to get too tied to a particular time. If you are a speaker, you should still be prepared for your talk time to change. We'll set this schedule in stone around the first week of February.

If you have any feedback, please do send us a note or comment here!

- Don

Eclipse 2011 Board Elections

2011-01-10T14:42:00.002-05:00

Nominations are now open for the 2011 Eclipse board members. Members are elected to represent both the Sustaining (Solutions and Enterprise) Members and Committers.

The final number of representatives depends on the number of Strategic Members as of February 1st this year, but it appears as though there will likely once again be three of each kind of board representative elected.

Nominations must be received by January 28th, 2011. For more information, see the Eclipse 2011 Board Elections page.

- Don

EclipseCon 2011 Submissions AKA "4 Ways to Make Zx's Life Miserable"

2010-11-12T13:18:00.002-05:00

EclipseCon 2011 Submissions are off to a strong start. A couple dozen are already received, and we're awaiting our inevitable hockey stick towards the end. As program chair, Chris Aniszcyk's life in December is going to be miserable - trying to prune and select the best of the best from what I'm sure will be a great set of submissions.

To make Chris' job even more challenging, there are 4 key things you should know about:

Lynn Gayowski likes the idea of making more work for Chris. So she's found a cool Eclipse jacket, fleece or shirt - (depending on your size requirements and availability) - to the 42nd submission to EclipseCon 2011. Keeping in mind we've already received a couple dozen submissions, you should probably submit over the weekend or early next week for a chance. Luck number 42!
The Program Committee often struggles with new topics or speakers that we've not heard before. The EclipseCon Audition Sessions will help address that. It's a great way for people to present a quick 5 minute overview of an idea they have, and give the PC some insight as to if we think it will be a good fit or not. The winner will get a slot in the program, but we'll also be giving other presenters some extra weighting if they do well. The deadline to submit to the Audition Session is Monday, November 15th! Full details can be found here. Even if you're a long time EclipseCon presenter, showing up and presenting a great idea will definitely boost your chances with the PC.
Studying several hundred submissions for each Eclipse event is a lot of work, so we try to break things up with an Early Bird submission deadline. The PC will go through all the submissions made before Wednesday, November 17th, and choose 5 that we think are good representatives for EclipseCon - those 5 early bird sessions are guaranteed to be in the program.
Finally, the absolute submission deadline is November 30th. Given the sheer volume and quality of submissions, it is extremely rare we accept submissions after the deadline -- so don't delay, don't submit to fate, if you've got an idea please submit it today!

- Don

ESE - Whoa!

2010-10-07T07:49:00.002-04:00

I've spent some time over the last day or two digging into what's happening at ESE (Nov 2-4)this year, and I can hardly believe my eyes. All I can think to say is "whoa!!"

Not only are there two great keynotes - but with a bit of star-alignment I see that Jeff Norris has been confirmed as a third keynote. Jeff's keynote at EclipseCon 2010 was regarded by many as not only as the best keynote ever at Eclipse conferences, but by some as the best keynote they've ever seen. I don't want to over-hype poor Jeff because I'm not sure he'll be able to coordinate a Goliath robot running around Europe without causing an incident at NATO. But it is sure to be awesome.

Next, I couldn't help but notice some of the very cool sponsors. BMW? Bosch? That's pretty cool, having more and more consumers of Eclipse technology showing up in force at our events.

I also noticed that after years of being a "2+" days event, we've thrown in the towel and are officially a full 3-day conference. The program is diverse and detailed to be of interest to just about everyone in the Eclipse Ecosystem.

All of this in very friendly, easy to get to Ludwigsburg, Germany, and at a very attractive and friendly registration rate. Unfortunately, our venue is not expandable - there is a very real chance of running out of space. If you are planning to attend, you should confirm right away.

- Don

Eclipse Government Day and Eclipse Enterprise Days

2010-08-17T14:43:00.002-04:00

We're organizing two events this fall in Reston, VA. Reston has the convenience of being a mere 15 minutes from Dulles (IAD) airport.

The first event is Eclipse in Government Day. This event is for individuals working for, or contracting with, Government agencies and departments. This is where I could use your help -- if you happen to have any friends or colleagues that are using Eclipse in Government, please do forward a link to the event wiki page or to this blog. This event takes place on Tuesday, October 12th.

The second event is Eclipse in the Enterprise Days. This is a 2 day event (ending 3pm on second day to give people a chance to catch dinner time flights out) and is focused on IT, Architect and Development manager individuals who are responsible for Eclipse in Organizations with hundreds, or even thousands of developers. The agenda on this event is still quite fluid and I have a few folks representing the enterprise helping me shape out the content -- if you have content suggestions, and/or are able to speak yourself, please do let us know! Details are on the events page. This event is Wednesday/Thursday October 13th, 14th.

- Don

Undisputable Best e4-Rover Mars Challenge Client

2010-03-22T18:23:00.002-04:00

Well, except for the fact I don't qualify for the challenge because I'm a Foundation Staff member, I would say the contest is over.

If you activate Chuck Norris mode in my client, the rover collects all the RFID tokens, beats them into submission, and then runs back and forth over them building a score of Infinity - twice in one turn.

Can you do better? See Lynn for a key and information on how to participate.

- Don

e4-Rover Challenge - So Simple, even an MBA Can Play

2010-03-18T16:52:00.007-04:00

Wow. I was just part of a beta test of next weeks e4-Rover Challenge at EclipseCon, and this is pretty cool stuff. The NASA and e4 teams have clearly been working hard on this. I suspect it's going to become a major distraction for a lot of people next week.

Here's the best part - if I can do it - I can only imagine what you can do with it. And I'm not just talking about getting the instructions and doing a basic run around. I was just hacking around e4 for the first time, adding new controls, writing a lag management API (lag is part of the game, remember - you're controlling something on Mars!) Impressive stuff all around.

Now, where did I put that Prolog-Java code I once had, and can I hook it up to the telemetry API...

Hmmmm, I'm thinking I might not be eligible for the Grand Prize trip to NASA JPL, but it would still be good to teach the whippersnappers a thing or two...

- Don

EclipseCon Trivia

2010-03-15T10:08:00.002-04:00

I wish I was able to pull off Kim's excellent "Committer Collector Cards" idea in time for EclipseCon this year, but alas, it was not meant to be. Hopefully with some extra lead time and agreeable committers to share their likeness, we'll see something in that vein for EclipseCon 2011.

We do have what I think will be an interesting social game again this year - EclipseCon Trivia. A few starter cards will be part of your registration packet, and more become available through the week at lunch, through sponsors, and just having a bit of luck. Trade cards with others to complete sets (Color or Category) and enter to win some cool prizes.

Most questions were designed to make it difficult to find in a search engine, so hopefully you're not bashful about asking around. Prizes include Android devices from both Google and Motorola as well as Blackberrys from RIM and an XBox from Microsoft. For those willing to go the extra mile, there's a full conference pass for EclipseCon 2011 up for grabs.

Full details can be found here.

- Don

Eclipse RoadMap v5 for Review

2010-03-04T14:31:00.001-05:00

Version 5 of the Eclipse Roadmap is ready for community review and feedback. It is currently scheduled to be discussed and approved at the March 22nd board meeting in Santa Clara. Please feel free to send any feedback via email, my first.last at eclipse.org.

- Don

Are you ready for EclipseCon?

2010-03-03T09:47:00.004-05:00

I've noticed an increase in chatter on the #eclipsecon tag on twitter about people getting prepped and ready. We're experiencing our usual late surge in registrations that come in from sponsors and straggling co-speakers who finally have the chance to complete their registrations and make travel arrangements. Here are a few reminders for those of you just pulling things together:

EclipseCon is four days. Four *full* days. There is a programming contest kick-off at 8:15am Monday, and the closing plenary goes until 5:45pm on Thursday. If you coast in late Monday and leave Early Thursday, you're going to miss a lot of cool stuff.
There's only a couple dozen rooms available on the peak nights of the conference at the conference hotel (Hyatt Santa Clara). Moreover, the room block is now open to the public, so it will certainly sell out -- act now, we can't help you after it's sold out. If you're looking for a purely economy room and OK with commuting after the long busy days, the Biltmore and Holiday Inn are popular choices.
There is a Taxi/Ride share wiki set up for those of you looking for a lift.
No matter what Oisin has made you do the night before, get up for the keynotes - lots of coffee will be served, I promise. The future of the Java Community, Eclipse and NASA, and the incredibly popular Uncle Bob teaching us how and when to say "NO" professionally are things you won't want to miss.
Take some time for the activities. We're sure you're going to want to attend every single session - but you'll notice a lot of 25 minute sessions that you can use to take a break if something doesn't catch your fancy. Play some of the conference games (TBA), visit some of our sponsors, and socialize with your peers. For those of you looking for the complete experience, your days will start very early with the EclipseCon Exercise group!

- Don

EclipseCon 2010 - Let's own the Hotel!

2010-02-16T08:53:00.004-05:00

Valentines day has come and gone, and we are well ahead of pace to one of the best EclipseCon events yet.

The next date on everyone's calendar should be February 24th - that's the date that we loose our exclusive room block at the Hyatt Santa Clara. After that, any remaining rooms at the hotel are made available to the public, prices go up, and it will certainly sell out in short order.

Every year we get asked by the stragglers to find a loophole to get them into the conference hotel (with 4 extremely busy days and 3 great receptions, who wants to deal with commuting?) Be forewarned, it's just not possible! The only way to ensure a room, is to book it now.

- Don

EclispeCon Keynotes Overview

2010-02-15T10:03:00.000-05:00

There's a bit of a story to each of this years EclipseCon Keynotes.

One of the goals of the EclipseCon program committee this year was to put together a program that had a stronger appeal to Eclipse Users than past years. In other words - the millions application developers that use Eclipse based products every day.

The strength of the "Making With Eclipse" sessions speaks to our success. But to really appeal to the enterprise application developer we needed a great keynote. A great keynote from a power user of Eclipse technologies. A blue chip brand. "Sharks with Laser Beams" kind of stuff. Robots. Space. We hit a grand slam when Dr. Jeff Norris, from the Planning Software Systems Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory agreed to demonstrate some of the latest systems that NASA has built on top of Eclipse and the technologies they are leveraging from the platform in he keynote "Rocket Science and the Republic".

The second keynote represented an opportunity of great timing. Several people from the program committee had just seen Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin keynote at RailsConf 09, and suggested that "we need someone like him keynoting at EclipseCon". It was a fantastic keynote, and you can see it from RailsConf online, You'll doubly like it if you have Smalltalk on your resume. He has broad appeal to both application developers and tools developers. We were thrilled when he agreed to keynote for us, and his proposal to speak on 'Software Professionalism, and the Art of Saying "No"' seems very appropriate for our group.

The final keynote this year represented a bit of luck in the business side. EclipseCon happens to be a mere 55 days after the close of the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle. Oracle has been a great supporter of Eclipse for a number of years, and the EclipseCon audience is ideally suited for a keynote on the future of enterprise Java. The title of the keynote "Community and Adaptation" is a great fit to our "Making Community" sessions, and I'm confident we'll have a room packed with attendees keen to learn about the adaptation plans of the Java community.

It should be another year of fantastic EclipseCon Keynotes, thanks to all our speakers.

- Don

EclipseCon Early Bird Registration Date Extended to Today

2010-02-15T03:00:00.002-05:00

Because the usual EclipseCon early bird deadline (Valentines Day) was on a Sunday this year, we decided to push the deadline out to the end of business today, Monday February 15th, Pacific time.

Last chance, registration prices go up overnight Monday!

- Don

EclipseCon Keynote on the Future of Java

2010-02-14T06:45:00.002-05:00

I love the abstract for the EclipseCon keynote titled "Community and Adaptation" from two executives responsible for Java at Oracle - there are some great lines in there.

"The dust has not yet fully settled. But the roar of the stampede has faded in the distance, outlines of broad forms are visible, and apocalyptic anxiety is giving way to rational optimism."

Indeed! This this, and other great content at EclipseCon 2010. Today is the last day to register at early-bird rates.

- Don