Last revised September 10, 2009 ( marks interesting changes since the previous draft)
Please send comments about this plan to the equinox-dev@eclipse.org developer mailing list.
The goal of the Equinox project is to be a first class OSGi community and foster the vision of Eclipse Runtime technologies. As part of this, it is responsible for developing and delivering the OSGi framework implementation used for all of Eclipse. Equinox is also responsible for developing other core runtime technologies such as p2, extension registry, security and core server-side runtime components.
This document lays out the feature and API set for the next feature release of Equinox after 3.5, designated release 3.6 and code-named Helios.
Plans do not materialize out of nowhere, nor are they entirely static. To ensure the planning process is transparent and open to the entire Eclipse community, we (the Equinox component leads) post plans in an embryonic form and revise them throughout the release cycle.
The first part of the plan deals with the important matters of release deliverables, release milestones, target operating environments, and release-to-release compatibility. These are all things that need to be clear for any release, even if no features were to change.
The remainder of the plan consists of plan items for all of the sub-projects under the Equinox Project. Each plan item covers a feature or API that is to be added to the Equinox Project deliverables, or some aspect of the Equinox Project that is to be improved. Each plan item has its own entry in the Eclipse bugzilla database, with a title and a concise summary (usually a single paragraph) that explains the work item at a suitably high enough level so that everyone can readily understand what the work item is without having to understand the nitty-gritty detail.
Not all plan items represent the same amount of work; some may be quite large, others, quite small. Some plan items may involve work that is localized to a single component; others may involve coordinated changes to several components; other may pervade the entire SDK. Although some plan items are for work that is more pressing than others, the plan items appear in no particular order.
With the previous release as the starting point, this is the plan for how we will enhance and improve it. Fixing bugs, improving test coverage, documentation, examples, performance tuning, usability, etc. are considered routine ongoing maintenance activities and are not included in this plan unless they would also involve a significant change to the API or feature set, or involve a significant amount of work. The intent of the plan is to account for all interesting feature work.
The current status of each plan item is noted:
The release deliverables have the same form as previous releases, namely:
Release milestones will be occurring at roughly 6 week intervals, and will be aligned with the Helios Simultaneous Release train.
Individual, milestone level plans for the components that make up the Equinox Project can be found on the Equinox Project Helios Plan page on the wiki.
Our target is to complete 3.6 in late June 2010, in alignment with Helios. All release deliverables will be available for download as soon as the release has been tested and validated in the target operating configurations listed below.
Dates for builds after M7 will be found in the Equinox Helios end-game plan, available near 3.6 M7.
In order to remain current, each Equinox Project release targets reasonably current operating environments.
Most of Equinox is "pure" Java code and has no direct dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is therefore on the Java Platform itself. Portions are targeted to specific classes of operating environments, requiring their source code to only reference facilities available in particular class libraries (e.g. J2ME Foundation 1.0, J2SE 1.3 and 1.4, etc.).
In general, the 3.6 release of the Equinox Project is developed on a mix of Java 1.4, Java 5 and Java 6 VMs. As such, the Equinox SDK as a whole is targeted at all modern, desktop Java VMs. Full functionality is available for 1.4 level development everywhere, and extended development capabilities are made available on the VMs that support them.
Appendix 1 contains a table that indicates the class library level required for each bundle.
There are many different implementations of the Java Platform running atop a variety of operating systems. We focus our testing on a handful of popular combinations of operating system and Java Platform; these are our reference platforms. Equinox undoubtedly runs fine in many operating environments beyond the reference platforms we test. However, since we do not systematically test them we cannot vouch for them. Problems encountered when running Equinox on a non-reference platform that cannot be recreated on any reference platform will be given lower priority than problems with running Equinox on a reference platform.
Equinox 3.6 is tested and validated on the following reference platforms (this list is updated over the course of the release cycle):
Operating System | Version | Hardware | JRE | Windowing System |
---|---|---|---|---|
Windows | 7 | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
Win32 |
x86 64-bit | ||||
Vista | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b BEA JRockit 27.4.0 |
||
x86 64-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
|||
XP | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 6 Update 3 Sun Java 5 Update 14 Sun Java 1.4.2 Update 16 IBM Java 5 SR6b IBM Java 1.4.2 SR10 BEA JRockit 27.4.0 |
||
x86 64-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
|||
Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 5.0 | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 6 Update 3 Sun Java 5 Update 14 Sun Java 1.4.2 Update 16 IBM Java 5 SR6b IBM Java 1.4.2 SR10 BEA JRockit 27.4.0 |
GTK |
Power 64-bit | IBM Java 5 SR6b | |||
4.0 | x86 64-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
||
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server | 11 | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
GTK |
x86 64-bit | ||||
Power 64-bit | IBM Java 5 SR6b | |||
Ubuntu Long Term Support | 9.04 | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 IBM Java 5 SR6b |
GTK |
x86 64-bit | ||||
Sun Solaris | 10 | x86 32-bit | Sun Java 5 Update 14 | GTK |
SPARC | ||||
HP-UX | 11i v2 | ia64 | HP-UX Java 5 Update 7 | Motif 2.1 |
IBM AIX | 5.3 | Power | IBM Java 5 SR6b | Motif 2.1 |
Apple Mac OS X | 10.5 | Universal | Apple Java 10.5 Update 1 | Carbon |
Universal 32-bit | Cocoa | |||
Universal 64-bit |
As stated above, we expect that Equinox works fine on other current Java VM and OS versions but we cannot flag these as reference platforms without significant community support for testing them.
The Equinox SDK is designed as the basis for internationalized products. The user interface elements provided by the Equinox components, including dialogs and error messages, are externalized. The English strings are provided as the default resource bundles.
Latin-1 and DBCS locales are supported by the Equinox on all reference platforms; BIDI locales are supported by the Equinox everywhere but on Motif.
The Equinox supports GB 18030 (level 1), the Chinese code page standard, on Windows XP and 2000, Linux/GTK and the Macintosh.
German and Japanese locales are tested.
Equinox 3.6 will be compatible with Equinox 3.5 (and all earlier 3.x versions).
API Contract Compatibility: Equinox 3.6 will be upwards contract-compatible with Equinox 3.5 except in those areas noted in the Eclipse 3.6 Plug-in Migration Guide . Programs that use affected APIs and extension points will need to be ported to Equinox 3.6 APIs. Downward contract compatibility is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with Equinox 3.6 APIs would ensure compliance with Equinox 3.5 APIs. Refer to Evolving Java-based APIs for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain contract compatibility.
Binary (plug-in) Compatibility: Equinox 3.6 will be upwards binary-compatible with Equinox 3.5 except in those areas noted in the Eclipse 3.6 Plug-in Migration Guide . Downward plug-in compatibility is not supported. Plug-ins for Equinox 3.6 will not be usable in Equinox 3.5. Refer to Evolving Java-based APIs for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain binary compatibility.
Source Compatibility: Equinox 3.6 will be upwards source-compatible with Equinox 3.5 except in the areas noted in the Eclipse 3.6 Plug-in Migration Guide . This means that source files written to use Equinox 3.5 APIs might successfully compile and run against Equinox 3.6 APIs, although this is not guaranteed. Downward source compatibility is not supported. If source files use new Equinox APIs, they will not be usable with an earlier version of Equinox.
Workspace Compatibility: Equinox 3.6 will be upwards workspace-compatible with earlier 3.x versions of the Equinox unless noted. This means that workspaces created with Equinox 3.5 .. 3.0 can be successfully opened by Equinox 3.6 and upgraded to a 3.6 workspace. This includes both hidden metadata, which is localized to a particular workspace, as well as metadata files found within a workspace project (e.g., the .project file), which may propagate between workspaces via file copying or team repositories. Individual plug-ins developed for Eclipse SDK 3.6 should provide similar upwards compatibility for their hidden and visible workspace metadata created by earlier versions; 3.6 plug-in developers are responsible for ensuring that their plug-ins recognize metadata from earlier versions and process it appropriately. User interface session state may be discarded when a workspace is upgraded. Downward workspace compatibility is not supported. A workspace created (or opened) by a product based on Eclipse 3.6 will be unusable with a product based on an earlier version of Eclipse. Visible metadata files created (or overwritten) by Eclipse 3.6 will generally be unusable with earlier versions of Eclipse.
Non-compliant usage of API's: All non-API methods and classes, and certainly everything in a package with "internal" in its name or exported with the x-internal directive, are considered implementation details which may vary between operating environment and are subject to change without notice. Client plug-ins that directly depend on anything other than what is specified in the Equinox API are inherently unsupportable and receive no guarantees about compatibility within a single release much less with earlier releases. Refer to How to Use the Eclipse API for information about how to write compliant plug-ins.
The plan items listed below were defined according to contributor requirements and the Eclipse Themes and Priorities set forth by the Eclipse Requirements Council. Each plan item covers a feature or API that is to be added to the Equinox Project deliverables, or some aspect of the Equinox Project that is to be improved. Each plan item has its own entry in the Equinox bugzilla database, with a title and a concise summary (usually a single paragraph) that explains the work item at a suitably high enough level so that everyone can readily understand what the work item.
Although there are several components under the Equinox Project, there is a significant amount of commonality and shared effort between them. In general, many plan items involve coordinated changes to multiple components, and thus attempting to separate the items into sections based on components leads to artificial distinctions between them (e.g., Framework vs. p2, Security vs. Server Side, etc.). As such, this plan covers the work of all projects under the Equinox Project.
Not all plan items represent the same amount of work; some may be quite large, others, quite small. Although some plan items are for work that is more pressing than others, the plan items appear in no particular order. See the corresponding bugzilla items for up-to-date status information on ongoing work and planned delivery milestones.
The current status of each plan item is noted:
New usage scenarios for Equinox require it to be faster, smaller, bigger, ... The technology needs to scale up or down to allow Equinox to scale down to small embedded environments as well as scaling up to large server environments. Monitor overall performance and memory consumption which includes the addition of new performance tests for new features.
None at this time.
As the basis for the entire Eclipse eco-system, Equinox must be robust, flexible and secure. This work will address those issues by providing API for missing or currently internal functionality, and focusing on the issues that affect the stability of the platform.
None at this time.
This work will make it easier for users to get Equinox, install it on their systems, and configure it for their use. It also covers work related to error handling and reporting mechanisms.
None at this time.
Eclipse is evolving quickly. New features in the next OSGi specification and e4 will drive numerous changes throughout the Equinox project. Considerable effort will be put into updating Equinox to accomodate and exploit these new scenarios.
None at this time.
None at this time.
In the table below, the "3.6 minimum execution environment" column indicates the minimum Java class library requirements of each bundle for the 3.6 release, where the value is one of:
Entry | Meaning |
M1.0 |
OSGi Minimum Execution Environment 1.0 - This is a subset of the J2ME Foundation 1.0 class libraries defined by OSGi to be the base for framework implementations. See the OSGi specification for more details. |
M1.1 |
OSGi Minimum Execution Environment 1.1 - This is a subset of the J2ME Foundation 1.1 class libraries defined by OSGi to be the base for framework implementations. See the OSGi specification for more details. |
M1.2 |
OSGi Minimum Execution Environment 1.2 - This is a subset of the J2ME Foundation 1.1 class libraries defined by OSGi to be the base for framework implementations. See the OSGi specification for more details. |
F1.0 |
J2ME Foundation 1.0 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on Foundation 1.0 or greater. Note that with the exception of some MicroEdition IO classes, Foundation 1.0 is a subset of J2SE 1.3. |
F1.1 |
J2ME Foundation 1.1 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on Foundation 1.1 or greater. Note that with the exception of some MicroEdition IO classes, Foundation 1.1 is a subset of J2SE 1.4. |
1.3 |
J2SE 1.3 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on JSE 1.3 or greater. |
1.4 |
J2SE 1.4 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on JSE 1.4 or greater. |
1.5 |
Java SE 5 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on Java SE 5 or greater. |
1.6 |
Java SE 6 - indicates that the bundle can only be run on Java SE 6 or greater. |
n/a | Unknown at the time of this revision. |
Table of minimum execution environments by bundle. (See also the Equinox Project plan for the execution environment requirements of bundles contributed via that project.)
Bundle | 3.6 |
org.eclipse.equinox.app | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.equinox.cm | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.equinox.common | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.concurrent | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.device | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.ds | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.equinox.event | M1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.frameworkadmin | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.frameworkadmin.equinox | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.http | M1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.http.jetty | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.http.registry | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.http.servlet | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.http.servletbridge | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.io | M1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.ip | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper.registry | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.carbon.macosx | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.cocoa.macosx | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.cocoa.macosx.x86_64 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.ppc | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.s390 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.s390x | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.solaris.sparc | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.solaris.x86 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.motif.aix.ppc | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.motif.hpux.PA_RISC | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.motif.hpux.ia64_32 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.motif.linux.x86 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.motif.solaris.sparc | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.ia64 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.wpf.win32.x86 | N/A |
org.eclipse.equinox.log | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.equinox.metatype | M1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.artifact.repository | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.console | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director.app | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.directorywatcher | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.exemplarysetup | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.extensionlocation | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.garbagecollector | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.jarprocessor | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.metadata | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.metadata.generator | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.metadata.repository | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.publisher | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.repository | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.repository.tools | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.touchpoint.eclipse | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.touchpoint.natives | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ui | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ui.sdk | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ui.sdk.scheduler | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.updatechecker | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.updatesite | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.preferences | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.registry | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.security | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.security.macosx | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.security.tests | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.security.ui | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.security.win32.x86 | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.servletbridge | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator.manipulator | F1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.supplement | F1.0 |
org.eclipse.equinox.transforms.hook | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.transforms.xslt | 1.4 |
org.eclipse.equinox.useradmin | M1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.util | M1.1 |
org.eclipse.equinox.wireadmin | M1.0 |
org.eclipse.osgi | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.osgi.services | M1.2 |
org.eclipse.osgi.util | M1.2 |