One of the things that I quite like about my new job at the Eclipse Foundation is the feeling that I can make a difference in the lives of committers, adopters, users, and the broader community. Actually… check that. It’s not me that’s making the difference. Individuals and project teams seem to be stepping up all over the place to make things better. Change is happening at the Foundation.
Builds have gotten better with the arrival of the Athena Common Builder. I know first-hand how much easier it is to get a build running as I’ve applied it to some of the projects that I’m working on. Numerous projects have adopted Athena and seem to be thriving on it. This is, of course, largely due to the tireless efforts of Nick Boldt (who has recently been brought into the Architecture Council). We’re still not to the point of having a single Ant or Maven script, but it is getting better. New work around build is on the horizon in the form of the B3 project.
I recall the first answer to the request for Git repository support at eclipse.org: “no way”. Today, we have a Git mirror of our CVS servers and are on our way toward implementing a proper Git repository for a few select projects sometime early in the new year. Denis “Scotty” Roy is, of course, working his usual miracles. It won’t be long before we have first-class support for Git both as a repository and as integration with the Eclipse workbench via the EGit project. On that note, first-class rock-solid Eclipse-based tools for Git is one of the conditions for full-blown Git support at eclipse.org; please get involved with the EGit project and help where you can.
Early discussions about Maven repositories at eclipse.org didn’t get very far. But, thanks to the good folks from the Buckminster project, we are planning to make the Helios release train available as both a p2 and a Maven repository. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been chatting with many folks in our community about creating a new über repository where projects that are not participating in the release train can make their code available to both p2 and Maven clients. The best part in all this is that it doesn’t require very much work for projects to participate: it’s looking like they have only to make their update sites known to the aggregator and they’re in. The aggregator will do important things like check dependencies and keep track of previous versions; these are important features for people who depend on bits staying where they are so that they can base real builds on them. Having an über repository will make it far easier for the broader community to find and use Eclipse technology. We’re still early in this process, but I remain hopeful and excited.
And darn it, we’re going to get Bug 280730 resolved.
It’s amazing what a little positive energy can bring.
