Re: [ide-dev] Why we dropped Eclipse in favour of IntelliJ | Java Code G

[John Arthorne <John_Arthorne@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako@xxxxxxxxxx>
> I fully agree with that. To put it even more
strong if Eclipse 
> Foundation offers support directly that will be direct conflict with
> some of its members that do the same in one way or another. If what
> is wanted is Foundation to become a company that competes directly
> with its current members offering support then Foundation should be
> ready to hire way more developers than anticipated now to cover the
> lost developers that work on foundation hosted projects now.

I don't think anyone wants the foundation competing
directly with its members. On the other hand if the Eclipse Foundation
hypothetically had a developer working on JDT, I think it could be done
in a way that would not be a competitive threat for members. I.e., it wouldn't
be in the form of support contracts or paying for particular feature work,
but by donations that the Foundation would then allocate independently
to strengthen the core IDE platform. There is no mechanism available today
to make a donation that goes directly toward development of the Eclipse
platform, and it may be an untapped source of getting contributions to
the platform that would benefit all members. There are other possible approaches
like having the Foundation act as a clearinghouse, or operate a grant program,
or somehow enable financial contributions to flow through to *someone*
actually making concrete code contributions to the platform. I think it's
at least worth thinking about these ideas, because the current models for
getting contributions to the platform are not being successful. 

John