News

Eclipse Launches Cloud Dev Tools Working Group

• By John K. Waters
• October 9, 2019

The Eclipse Foundation unveiled a new working group focused on software development tools for and in the cloud. The aptly named Eclipse Cloud Development Tools Working Group (ECD WG) "will drive the evolution and broad adoption of emerging standards for cloud-based developer tools," according to the group's charter.

The new ECD WG will focus on language support, extensions, marketplaces, and developer workspace definition. The group's ultimate goal is to accelerates the adoption of Cloud IDE and container-based workspace management through the adoption of standards, the engagement with third-party developer tool providers, and the promotion of Eclipse projects to cloud developers.

"Our own survey of developers has shown that cloud native applications are of critical importance for today's enterprises," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, in a statement. "More than 80 percent of the developers surveyed have plans to create cloud native applications within the next 12-18 months. It is this demand that drove the formation of this working group."

Eclipse working groups provide the governance structure for Eclipse projects, making it possible for organizations -- even competitors -- to collaborate on new technology development. The working groups provide a set of basic services, including governance, intellectual property management and licensing, development processes, IT infrastructure, and ecosystem development.

The ECD WG's initial portfolio of open source cloud development projects includes Eclipse Che, Eclipse Theia, Eclipse CodeWind, Eclipse Dirigible, and Eclipse Sprotty, among others.

The Foundation released the Eclipse Che 7 in-browser IDE at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference, billing it as the first developer workspace server and IDE for creating cloud-native enterprise applications on Kubernetes. The Foundation is pointing to Che as an example of its efforts to "explore the impacts and optimizations for running developer tools in a cloud environment, including scale out / scale-to-zero execution of compute-intensive tasks, such as CI and testing."

The list of ECD WG's founding members includes Broadcom, EclipseSource, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, SAP, Software AG, and Typefox, among others.

"Developers today are building applications for the hybrid cloud," said Brad Micklea, VP of Developer Tools and Advocacy at Red Hat. "They are focused on the speed of collaboration and development in order to out-flank their competitors. However, the hybrid cloud operating environment can be complex, with Kubernetes, containers, microservices and service mesh's adding a host of new considerations to application design and implementation. Red Hat is working with the Eclipse Cloud Development Working Group to provide new open source alternatives to these technology stacks while giving developers the tools they need to get their software to market faster."