Open Source Requirements Management at Eclipse

At Eclipse, we have a healthy collection of open source projects that span the entire software lifecycle, including modeling, test, development and even process methodologies.

The one area where no one seemed interested in starting an open source project was requirements management. I was never sure why not but this might be now changing.

A new proposal has been submitted to start the Open Requirements Management Framework (ORMF). Joel Rosi-Schwartz, one of the people proposing the project, has posted a demo of the useme project that will be used as the initial contribution for ORMF. There is also some discussion on the ormf newsgroup.

The ORMF folks are organizing a BOF at EclipseCon, so it will be a great opportunity to discuss the details.  If you are interested in requirements management, this should be a great opportunity to get involved.

EclipseCon: An International Event

Last night I was looking at the registration data for EclipseCon.   Eclipse is a great global community, so I was really pleased to see individuals coming to EclipseCon from 37 different countries, including:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Crotia, Czeck Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Normay, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, USA.

Looks like EclipseCon will be a truly an international event!

Ganymede M5 Packages Now Available

For those that like to live on the bleeding edge, the Ganymede M5 packages are now available for download.   We would appreciate people downloading these and providing feedback.

Two notable new and noteworthy items:

1. Two new packages are now available, a package for ‘Software Architects and Modeling’ and a package for ‘Reporting’
2. The Usage Data Collector is now included by default in all the packages.   We hope people will opt-in to telling us how you use Eclipse.   Wayne’s command horse race should get interesting.

Blogger Party at EclipseCon?

EclipseCon is just 3 weeks away, so it is time to organize the annual EclipseCon Blogger Party.   In previous years, we have had the party on Sunday evening in Hyatt lobby bar.   So if you are a blogger and are interested in attending, send me an e-mail or better yet leave a comment, so I can get a sense for how many people will be coming.

If we are lucky, the official photographer of PlanetEclipse will attend and take some shots of the event.

Sprint Titan Platform Includes Eclipse and OSGi

Nice to see Sprint’s next generation platform embracing Eclipse and OSGi. From the Titan web site:

Titan is a next generation Java platform for Sprint Windows Mobile devices. In addition to supporting existing MIDP Java ME applications, it includes the more capable CDC/Foundation Java Virtual Machine and OSGi framework. This combination provides a powerful platform for dynamic distribution and collaboration of independent software components and applications. Support for the Eclipse embedded Rich Client (eRCP) application model means this platform can run generically written rich GUI applications that can run across a broad range of devices and desktop computers.

Also check out the presentation (ppt format) that describes the technical architecture. It really seems like Eclipse is becoming the pervasive platform for mobile tools.

The Titan tools, which install into the Eclipse IDE, provide best of the breed development and source level debug capabilities for the platform. 3rd party tools are available providing advanced visual development and profiling functionality.

A Solution for Sun’s OS Community Problems

Once again a Sun open source project is having a revolt in their community. Last December, Sun was accused of playing hardball with an ex-employee over the governance structure of OpenDS. Now it seems the OpenSolaris community is in turmoil due to Sun’s decision over the use of the OpenSolaris trademark and the resulting resignation of a Ray Fielding, a longtime Apache member who was trying to help the OpenSolaris community get started. Stephen O’Grady and Michael Dolan have some excellent commentary.

There is a very simple solution that I offer to Sun. Stop setting up community governance boards for your projects. They are causing confusion and setting the wrong expectations within the community you are trying to build. Instead, follow the MySQL/JBoss model and be a true open source company that employs all of the committers, sets the project roadmap, owns and protects all of the trademarks and is focused on making a profit from your open source projects.

There is nothing wrong with this. You actually spent $1 billion on a company that was very successful doing this.  Your communities and employees will appreciate the honesty. They will understand you own and intend to profit from the trademarks. Your employees will also know that their involvement in the project is due to their employment with Sun.

Right now it seems Sun is trying to be like Apache, Linux, or Eclipse but acting like MySQL or JBoss. Both models have proven to build great communities and successful open source projects. However, trying to be in between is just plain confusing.

Higgins 1.0 – Solving Identity Management

Today we issued a press release announcing the 1.0 release of Eclipse Higgins. You can download the brand spanking new release from the project download site.

Higgins is one of those Eclipse projects that has been quietly building a community but outside the core Eclipse community, ie. the identity management community. The vision of Higgins is to create a framework designed to integrate identity, profile and social relationship information across multiple sites, applications and devices. In other words they want to make it easier for developers and end users to manage their identity in the world of unlimited username/password combinations you need to exist on the Internet.

When I first heard about Higgins I was impressed with the ambition. I use to work for a security company in the identity space so I had an appreciation for the size of the task and more importantly the ‘politics’ of getting the different players to participate in such an initiative.

Therefore, it is wonderful to see the progress Higgins has made. A 1.0 release is a great milestone but what is even more impressive is that the community includes the big guys in the identity space – Novell, IBM, CA, Oracle, Serena and yes even Google. Microsoft has also been very supportive of the effort. A tip of the hat to Paul Trevithick and Mary Ruddy the Higgins co-project leaders. It is a great achievement.

Eclipse RCP Training Series – 2008 Edition

Today, we are launching a new series of Eclipse RCP training classes.   Thanks to the participation of 8 Eclipse member companies, you can now attend a 4-day RCP course in one of 19 cities around the world.

Last Fall, we ran a similar series of classes and the response was great, so we are doing it again.  This time I am very pleased that courses are being offered in places like Bangalore and London; both hot-beds for Eclipse development.

The courses will run between May 19 and June 13.   Individuals that register before March 31 will get a 10% discount, so I hope you will consider registering today.

Last chance to vote for Eclipse Community Awards

The deadline to vote in the Eclipse Community Awards is this Thursday, Feb. 21 at 5pmET. Vote now for the individuals you believe deserve to be recognized as one of the leaders in our community.

btw, one of the races is a virtual tie, so every vote counts. It takes less than one minute, so do it now.

IDE Usage Study

Jeffrey Hammond from Forrester Research has just released a new report on IDE Usage. For those people that are Forrester clients, it is an interesting read. You can also purchase the report but it is $995.

Eclipse continues to be one of the primary IDEs and is dominate with Java developers. Forrester reports ‘70% of Java developers use either Eclipse or an Eclipse-based IDE.’

Nice to see.