How big is the Europa release?

In the process of collecting stats for the Europa release I was referred to a really cool web site called Ohloh.net. It essentially collects stats on open source projects. Most of the 21 projects in Europa, last count 16 of the 21, are listed on Ohloh so I built a stack that represents Europa.

So according to Ohloh, Europa has;

• 17 million LOC,
• 290 contributors,
• 5055 person years of effort, and 
• $278,041,377 estimated cost of development.
  

Of course we are missing 5 projects but I think the Platform numbers are high, so I think the 17 million LOC is pretty accurate.  The $278 million number is also a pretty impressive number.

Besides the metrics, I find the concept of a ’stack’ pretty interesting.  It allows people to define what open source software they use and then recommends other software they might want to use, based on other peoples stacks.  An interesting way to determine what is popular and what works together.

If Ohloh does get some traction I think it could be a great value to the Eclipse and open source community.

Help Promote Europa Part 2: Write a Review; Win a Shirt

Thanks to everyone that has linked to the Europa graphic.  It is helpful to getting the word out.

People seem to like the Eclipse shirts, so I thought it might be a good idea to give people another opportunity to win a shirt.  Hence, part 2 of requesting your help to promote the Eclipse Europa release.   All you have to do is write a review of one or more projects in Europa.   It is pretty simple.   We are even going to give away 3 Eclipse jackets to the ‘top’ reviews and a grand prize of a conference pass to EclipseCon 2008 or Eclipse Summit Europe 2007.

See the details here.  Let the reviewing begin. 

Help Wanted: Test the new download page and packages

Something we would like to accomplish during the Europa release is to make it easier for our user community to download Eclipse. The existing download model requires you to start with the SDK and then start adding projects and features. However, for the millions of Eclipse users the SDK is a bit of overkill, if you are really just are using Eclipse as a Java IDE. Or if you want to use Eclipse as a C/C++ IDE it is not that obvious what to download when you visit our download page.

To improve on the situation, there are two related activities on the go: First and most important is the Eclipse Packaging Project. They have defined four user profiles and packages, including: 1) Java Developer, 2) JEE Developer, 3) C/C++ Developer and 4) RCP/Plugin Developer.

The second activity is a new download page. Nathan has created a draft version and opened a bug soliciting feedback. The new download page maps to the four user profiles, so you can use this page to actually test out the new packages. See, I told you they were related.

Feedback is key here. Please take the time to download the packages and provide feedback to the EPP project via bugzilla. We really need help testing to make sure these packages are solid and something we want distributed to the entire Eclipse community.

Feel free to leave a general comment here but please don’t leave detailed feedback; use bugzilla.

What is cool in Europa?

June is Europa month. Denis is getting the IT infrastructure ready and I need to get started on the press plans. I am interested in the communities opinion on what is cool in the Europa release. Is there a new project or new feature that you think will be a big thing for the Eclipse community?

Some of my favourites include DLTK and their Ruby support, Mylar is always cool :-), SWT support for Vista and WPF, some of the new server side services in Equinox, and there seems to be a lot of interest in SOA Tools.

What do you think? I would ideally like to get 5-7 key cool new projects or themes that we highlight at the launch.