Skip to main content

WTP Incubator Project

Purpose

This proposal is to create a generic, general purpose WTP Incubator Project. It is similar to the Proposal for Eclipse Project Incubator which was reviewed and approved in March, 2007.

The WTP Incubator Project would be the home for any incubating component work from any project in the WTP Top Level Project. See Eclipse Web Tools Platform Projects for the current description of the 11 WTP Projects. In the table of 8 primary projects below, I've omitted ATF, since it itself is incubating and RDB, since it is quiescent, and Release Engineering since, well, since it's release engineering.

Please send all feedback to the http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.webtools.platform newsgroup.

Primary Projects and Project Leads

Project

Project Lead

Common: tools and infrastructure not directly related to web tools, but required by web tools

Konstantin Komissarchik, BEA

Server Tools: tools and infrastructure to define and interact with servers.

Tim Deboer, IBM

Source Editors: xml, dtd, xsd (and sse infrastructure) html, css, javascript, jsp

Nitin Dahyabhai, IBM

Web Services: wsdl, axis1, axis2, web services framework, web services explorer

Kathy Chan, IBM

Java EE Tools: Common Project Infrastructure, jee models, preferences, classpath model, publish api, refactoring

Chuck Bridgham, IBM

EJB Tools: EJB creation wizards, preferences, future annotation tools

Naci Dai, eteration

JSF Tools: infrastructure and tools for JSF

Raghu Srinivasan, Oracle

Dali (JPA Tools): infrastructure and tools for JPA applications

Neil Hauge, Oracle

Expected Advantages

The following are some of the primary motivations for formalizing a WTP Incubator Project.

Agile IP Policy

The new (2007) Eclipse Foundation IP guidelines for projects under incubation have taken into account the special needs of projects in incubation. See section 1V of the Intellectual Property Policy (DUE DILIGENCE AND RECORD KEEPING) given the project well identifies itself as incubating, see Guidelines for Using the Parallel IP Process.

Lower barrier for new contributors

Potential for improved community involvement as it can make it easier to get started with contributions.

Improved Cross-Project work

Can potentially provide an area for experimental work to be conducted and reviewed for improved cross-project operation, before firm commitments made to main line code.

General Examples

  • Dependencies on external IP that has not yet cleared the full Eclipse Foundation IP process

  • Experimental work that needs many iteration and much investigation

  • Potentially destabilizing work that requires extended community review

  • Long term work that can not necessarily be contained within the next planned release

  • Work from potential new committers which have a start with some new code, but not necessarily yet a long track record of sustained high quality Eclipse development

Specific examples

Even though this is seen as a long term, ongoing need, there are a few current cases where this WTP Incubating Project could be helpful:

  • XSL Tools (bugs 89469, 201954, 201951)

  • TLD Editor (bug 196418)

Scope

Focus on new development in areas that are relevant to and within scope of any other WTP Project sub-project, which because of their nature, would not be appropriate for immediate inclusion in the sub-project, but which, by their nature, do still require good visibility or wide availability.

Note, this is unlike, and no substitute for, the temporary branching efforts, which most projects use from time to time, when they have some short life changes to explore, usually just existing for a few weeks, and usually not needing wide spread review or availability.

Not in Scope

A sandbox, but not a playground: only efforts that can reasonably be expected to graduate at some point are appropriate.

It is also not intended to substitute for large, completely new efforts which would deserve to be a new incubating project in its own right.

Mentors

  • Tim DeBoer, IBM
  • David Williams, IBM

Organization and Initial Committers

The WTP Incubator Project Lead will be David Williams, IBM

The Initial committers, listed below, will consist of all the current primary Project Leads in WTP plus Craig Salter (since one of the first uses may be for XSL, for which Craig is the component Lead).

This distinguished group will form the seed committers to oversee the success of this project, even if most have no initial contributions nor immediate need for incubating code. While all current and future projects in WTP can have incubating components here, all future committers will need to be decided by this group, using the usual Eclipse Project rules: either voted in by current committers, based on the individual's public history of appropriate Eclipse contributions, or a large component contributed, which itself would be approved by current WTP Incubator Project committers, which would have to come with its own list of initial committers.

  • Konstantin Komissarchik, BEA

  • Tim Deboer, IBM

  • Nitin Dahyabhai, IBM

  • Kathy Chan, IBM

  • Chuck Bridgham, IBM

  • Naci Dai, eteration

  • Raghu Srinivasan, Oracle

  • Neil Hauge, Oracle

  • David Williams, IBM

References

There are several background documents that describe Eclipse Projects in general.

Eclipse Development Process especially see the section on incubation

Official Documents Pertaining to Projects

Governance Documents

Back to the top