January 2026 | The Eclipse Foundation

Eclipse Foundation News // January 2026

What’s in store for open source in 2026?

The article outlines Mike Milinkovich’s predictions for how open source will shape 2026, focusing on the rise of agentic AI, digital sovereignty through open standards, the maturation of open source silicon, looming regulatory pressure from the EU CRA, and renewed industry investment in open source infrastructure.

Membership

Administrative update to internal rules and bylaws

At the December 2025 board of directors meeting, as permitted in Article 22.2 and Article 34.1 of the Bylaws, the Board created the office of Chief Marketing Officer. As a reminder, the Board had similarly created the office of Chief Membership Officer in May 2022. The Eclipse Foundation AISBL Bylaws contain an explicit reference to the date when the Internal Rules were last updated. Therefore, by modifying the Internal Rules, the Bylaws needed to be updated to reflect the new date.

For your reference, the Eclipse Foundation AISBL Bylaws and the Internal Rules are available under Governance Documents.

Board elections now open

Nominate Committer and Contributing Member representatives for the Eclipse Foundation board. Self nominations welcome.

The positions are to serve as the elected representatives of each of the Contributing Member class (which is most of our corporate members, other than those who are Strategic members) and Committer Member class (which includes all Committers who work for a member company as well as independent Committers who have joined as members of the Foundation).

These elected positions are critical to the Foundation’s governance and represent a voice for each of these classes in the Foundation's decision-making.

There will be three elected Committer Member representatives and three elected Contributing Member representatives on next year's board. Elected representatives serve for a one-year term, running from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, and elected representatives may serve for multiple terms if re-elected.

To nominate a Committer Member representative or a Contributor Member representative, send an email to elections@eclipse.org. As noted above, self-nominations are welcome!

Nominations close on Friday, 30 January 2025 at 9 PM CET / 3:00 PM EST and voting will begin on Monday, 9 February 2025.

For more information, see the following links:

Current Eclipse Foundation Board Directors

Eclipse Foundation Director Duties and Responsibilities

Eclipse Foundation Elections - Key Dates