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RE: [eclipse-dev] Re: [e4-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release


We had a discussion about this in the Eclipse project PMC call today. We agreed that in light of the community feedback, some sort of qualifier on the name is needed to help send the right message about the release. We didn't come up with a good candidate for that name in the call, but will brainstorm on it. The message we want to send is that is a major new release of the platform, but this is only a small part of the Eclipse Foundation technology stack. A release is needed so that we can produce something sufficiently polished for the release train and wider ecosystem of people building plugins on top of the platform to pick it up and start adopting it. We will then be in a position to produce a future simultaneous release that incorporates a 4.x release of the platform.

Most of us liked the "Indigo/Isaac Preview" direction but ultimately it will be up to the Planning Council to make the call on whether a 4.x release will be the basis for the Indigo release. I also suggested something like "Eclipse 4.0 Developer Release" sets the right tone. It also just occurred to me that since only the "Eclipse Classic" package is part of this release, something like "Eclipse Classic 4.0" would make sense (although this sounds odd that the "classic" package is ahead of the rest). In any case, everyone please send along any concrete naming suggestions, and as Ian mentioned there will also be a regular "evangelism" call for those interested in participating in the discussion as well.

John




Eric Clayberg <clayberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

04/28/2010 10:17 AM

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RE: [eclipse-dev] Re: [e4-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release





I agree 100%. We are already seeing our commercial customers starting
to ask (e.g., demand to know) when we will be supporting Eclipse 4.0
with all of our products. The perception is definitely out there that
4.0 is the next great release of Eclipse and that 3.6 is just an
(minor? maintenance?) update to the "old" 3.x version. Anyone who
reads these lists or pays close attention to what is really going on
in Eclipse-land knows better, but that is a small minority compared
to the huge mass of Eclipse users out there who will simply assume
that 4.0 is the latest and greatest and the place they should be as
soon as it is released. Those folks will likely be very disappointed
if they try to immediately move to 4.0 and discover that only a
handful of Eclipse.org projects and 3rd party plugins actually
support it. Some sort of (strong) qualifier (Preview, Beta, Early
Availability, Early Adopter, etc. are all good) is definitely needed
to mitigate the possible damage to the Eclipse brand and ecosystem
and set the proper expectations in the minds of the early adopters
(and keep the number of those early adopters to a manageable level).

-Eric

>This is a great example of the problem we're facing, and this is just an
>early example. People are eagerly awaiting Eclipse 4.0, the next
>generation eclipse. You can message until you are blue in the face, but
>that isn't going to stop the perception that if you call it 4.0, it's
>that 4.0.
>
>So yes, please call this a Preview release or something along that line.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeff McAffer
>Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 9:36 AM
>To: General development mailing list of the Eclipse project.
>Subject: Re: [eclipse-dev] Re: [e4-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release
>
>There could of course be many nuances missed by Google translate but the
>article seemed mostly like a distillation of John's recent e4/Eclipse
>4.0 clarification post. I don't think they particularly cast the
>situation differently (at least not by that translation).
>
>The problems with expectation that arise are inherent in the naming
>(Eclipse 4.0). As discussed that naming implicitly leads one to believe
>that this is "the Eclipse 4.0 SDK" and it is the "logical successor to
>3.6".   If we are not comfortable with everyone downloading and using
>it, then the naming should reflect that with some sort of qualifier
>(e.g., "Preview", "Beta", "Early Availability", ...).  IMHO this sends a
>clear, representative and appropriate message to the community.
>
>Boris' interview article pointed out that we are targetting the 2011
>release train. This is nice positioning. It may be a little to subtle
>however.  That is, its not clear that people will say "hmm, its not on
>the simultaneous release so it is not stable/bug-free/..." (frankly, we
>don;t want to promote that idea either). Perhaps we can combine the
>approaches and talk about the upcoming Eclipse 4.0 SDK as the
>"Indigo/Isaac preview"?
>
>Jeff


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