As I drove into work this morning, I was reflecting back on
the past year. A lot has changed over the last year, a trend I expect to
continue. I thought I would take some time to share with you what
the IP Group has been up to over the last year and some of the activity already
underway in 2007.
During 2006 we:
- Created an IP
Process poster to help better communicate the steps involved in the IP
Process and updated it twice.
- Added two full time resources
to improve our responsiveness (Sharon Corbett in March & Jihong Yang
in June);
- Began using Black Duck’s
software to review code submissions;
- Began using Palamida’s
software to review code submissions;
- Upgraded our scan tool to allow
us to do differential analysis on submissions - meaning we can now review
the delta’s between versions of a package, rather than starting from
scratch with each review;
- Implemented IPZilla to improve
transparency in the IP review process; and
- Created a policy on
Implementing the IP Policy that allowed for expedited Board approval of
non-EPL content;
We are just into 2007 and we have already seen the following
changes:
- IPZilla enhancements have been
implemented to enable us to better serve the community:
- A new menu option in Committer
tools, called Initiate
an IP discussion using IPZilla has been created. Using this
option, committers can open new IPBugs to discuss IP issues.
- Historically approved non-EPL
content is now included in IPZilla’s records – If you want to
know what non-EPL content is already in use at Eclipse, it is now easy to
find;
- Functionality has been enabled
in IPZilla that will enable us to “push” IPZilla information
out to the PMCs and Project Leads;
- Project Leads are now automatically
copied on all IPBugs related to their project.
- Many IPZilla bugs have been
resolved;
- The IP
Policy has been changed (effective January 17, 2007) to enable
incubating projects to get up and running in parallel to the full due
diligence review. See Mike’s Blog for more on this: http://milinkovich.blogspot.com/2007/01/parallel-ip-approvals-for-incubating.html;
- A new server has been ordered
to enable us to upgrade to the newer version of Black Duck which has
significant improvements in functionality;
More changes are on the way:
- Modifications to the
Implementing the IP Policy policy are now before the Board for
consideration that would introduce parallelism into the Board approval
process so that post review we would be in a position to immediately
approve the submission rather than awaiting Board approval – a
process that typically takes an additional 15 days;
- We are investigating code
analyzers that could be used by the community to identify nested jar
files, a constant challenge for both our team and the committer
community. I’ve created an IPBug to
give us all a place to exchange ideas and information on this topic.
If you know of a tool that would help the community with this, please
contribute to the bug.
- Stay tuned for updates to the IP
Process poster to reflect IP process streamlining.
The IPZilla enhancements and bug fixes will make a
significant difference in our productivity and ability or serve the community
better. A big thank you goes out to Denis for his efforts on this
front. We will continue to work with the Community and our Board to
find opportunities to improve the service that we provide. I want to
thank you for your patience as we continue to implement changes such as
these.
Cheers,
Janet
------------------------------------
Janet Campbell
Legal Counsel & Manager, Intellectual Property
Eclipse Foundation Inc.
Phone: (613) 224-9461, x.229 (GMT -5)
Fax: (613) 224-5172
Email: janet.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxx
Alternate email: janet@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.eclipse.org
