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RE: [eclipse-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release


I have a hard time with the "not exciting enough for end users to call it 4.0" argument. This is a platform - its primary business is not end user features but frameworks and infrastructure for others to build cool new products upon. The platform changes coming this summer are about the biggest you can ever expect to see coming into the platform at this point in its maturity curve. It includes a substantial rewrite of the UI and a completely new visual presentation that has been in the works for over two years. It includes EMF and a CSS-based widget rendering engine bundled into the RCP platform. If this isn't big enough to call it 4.0, then I suspect we'll be staying on 3.x release numbers forever. I expect the level of change between the 2010 and 2011 releases to be substantially smaller so calling next year's release 4.0 would make even less sense (since it will only contain one year's work rather than two or more that went into this year's release). I agree with Brian that the "thunderous release" will come in 2011 once a wider set of projects have adopted the technology and we have a simultaneous release based on it. However, that release will be an aggregate of many projects, and in Eclipse we attach version numbers to individual projects rather than the simultaneous release as a whole.

To Brian, it may be a subtle distinction but we are not talking about "Eclipse 4.0". Eclipse is made up of 50+ projects, of which the platform is only one. So, "Eclipse 4.0" makes as much sense as "Apache 4.0", and calling it that will surely disappoint the 80%+ of end users who download something other than the "Eclipse Classic" download that our single project produces. I realize the distinction between "Eclipse Project" and "Eclipse Foundation" is lost on most of the user community but I'm not sure what we can do about that.

John



"Oberhuber, Martin" <Martin.Oberhuber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

04/29/2010 03:50 PM

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RE: [eclipse-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release





I tend to agree with Brian:

To end users, the visible benefits of the 4.0 release that we have
in mind right now, are not really sufficient to call it 4.0.

I'm not sure whether it's too late already to pull the brakes
of our marketing machinery. But in my mind, what we're having
this year is really

1.) An "e4 1.0" release, providing a new and exciting base for
    RCP's, which is at an 1.0 maturity level.
2.) An "Eclipse SDK 3.6 Newbase" that is Eclipse 3.6 on top of
    the new base, providing same functionality as 3.6 with
    improved visual appearance but also reduced performance
    and lack of 3rd party / addon integration.

Native English speaking marketing champions should replace "Newbase"
with a suitable qualifier that implies predicates such as "new,
revamped, reloaded, cool, developer, exciting, ..."

This message also explains why "3.6" and "3.6 Newbase" are
released just 1 month after each other. In the end, no matter
what we call it, it is what it is...

Thanks,
--
Martin Oberhuber, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Wind River
direct +43.662.457915.85  fax +43.662.457915.6

-----Original Message-----
From: eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Brian de Alwis
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 10:54 PM
To: General development mailing list of the Eclipse project.
Subject: Re: [eclipse-dev] Re: [e4-dev] Eclipse Project 4.0 Release

On 28-Apr-2010, at 1:59 PM, Mike Wilson wrote:
> Let's be absolutely clear about this: It is *not* a "preview" nor is
it a "beta". This is a real release, which should satisfy the needs of
anyone who was previously running Eclipse "classic".

I'm confused.  To me, that implies that this release will be *the* 4.0
SDK, and that the July 2011 release train be shipping with 4.0.1 or
something later.  If so, then see my comments below.  If this isn't
going to be *the* 4.0 SDK, or rather if the real 4.0 will be released
later, then I think this *should* be marked as a preview.

On 28-Apr-2010, at 2:18 PM, Jeff McAffer wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand the problems with "beta". [...]

Me neither.  The Microsoft's Windows 7 beta was very popularly received.
Apple seeds  several rounds of iPhoneOS betas to its developers.  It
means that developers release their apps simultaneously, and it becomes
a bigger deal.  Look at how Apple is handling iPhoneOS 4.0 - they're
releasing betas now so that developers can be 4.0 ready and show off the
new whizzy features.


My $0.02: I think we should be maximizing the opportunity of "Eclipse
4.0".  It shouldn't be used for a developers-only please-test-your-tools
release.  e4 is very cool, especially for RCP apps; SFS looks nifty too.
But let's be honest, most of the other components in Eclipse 4.0 will be
the same in Helios.

To my mind, "Eclipse 4.0" should be a thunderous release with tons of
improvements, and should be revealed in July 2011.  The other projects
will have digested the new release and will demonstrate the stunning
features of Eclipse 4.0.  "4.0" should merit a big ecosystem-wide party.

We should be looking to release e4 1.0. The messaging should be: plugin
developers, move onto e4 R1.0 as this will be the foundation of the
Eclipse 4.0 SDK.  If "e4 R1.0" isn't good enough, then this release
should definitely be "Eclipse 4.0 Preview" or "Early Adopters".

Brian._______________________________________________
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