Formalizing what has become a de facto expansion of its mission from development to run time, the Eclipse Foundation has announced Equinox as the new top-level project umbrella where it will focus run time efforts.

Eclipse marketing director Ian Skerrett claimed that Eclipse would provide a much lighter weight run time alternative to Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs), or for history buffs, the CORBA component framework that preceded it. “With this approach, you could customize your run time stack.” Or, as RedMonk analyst James Governor has been quoted, it’s the emergence of “the stackless stack.” 

• Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF), which provides a framework for plug-ins to intercommunicate, which sits atop whatever communications protocol that you use. Using ECF, you could mix and match a variety of communications modes for your application, ranging from IM to blogs, file sharing, voice conferencing and others.
• EclipseLink, the Oracle-led database persistence project based on its TopLink technology that was launched last year that supports JPA (Java Persistence API) and the emerging Oasis SDO (Service Data Objects) web services standard.
• Eclipse Rich Ajax Project (RAP), providing a means for using Java for creating server-based Ajax applications which for now has been patterns after the Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Project). The project, led by the German firm Innoopract, is meant to complement the OpenAjax Hub, whose mission is to play traffic cop for the Ajax run time
• Eclipse Swordfish Project, providing an SOA runtime that leverages Service Component Architecture (SCA), Java Business Integration (JBI), which was originally developed by the German logistics firm Deutsche Post.
• Eclipse Riena, a brand new projects which extends the run time to a client/server-like model, which allows run time components or services to be dynamically deployed on server or client.

In a conversation last week, Skerrett voiced hope that other Eclipse projects such as the embedded RCP (Rich Client Project) would also sign on. That’s the project for putting a rich run time on mobile devices like the Nokia Series 60, or heck, even Windows CE (well, we’d be pretty surprised if that materialized).

Not of course, that there hasn't been some debate on the topic. JBoss, which already has a separate site for its own Eclipse development, has been one of the doubters. In his blog last fall, CTO Sacha Labourey questioned whether run time really fit Eclipse’s core mission. Eclipse executive director Mike Milinkovich replied that, with the RCP, Eclipse had already been involved with run time for at least three years, with the new Equinox top-level project (which at the time was at proposal stage) was being driven base on member interest to extend the Eclipse run time back to the server.

The key to Equinox has been the OSGi component framework, which the foundation stumbled upon back in 2004 when its existing component plug-in model was hitting the wall in scalability. Besides scalability, OSGi provides a way for hot swapping of plug-ins (which is what Eclipse calls components) or bundles (which is OSGi terminology for same). Keep in mind that run time for Eclipse in 2004 meant development time, as this was when it was totally focused on IDEs.

Clearly, the move to run time is Eclipse’s most ambitious extension of its mission, and one where it’s likely to encounter more headwinds compared to development time. That’s because development tools have largely become commodities, and because software development organizations often have a variety of tools and loyalties. Consequently, the idea of a multi-vendor, hot swappable framework of tooling plug-ins was hardly considered threatening to most members, with exceptions.

1. IBM, whose business is focused around integration, makes lots of money in services and managing all that integration. So it loves the idea.

2. Oracle, which views development tools as a means for cementing dominance of its database, has been more enthusiastic about the run time because Equinox could ultimately handle much of the legwork for Fusion, and the higher goal of knitting its various ERP stacks together.

3. Tibco, like Oracle, has not fully embraced the Eclipse IDE, but Equinox could provide a partial answer for bridging its various run times.

4. JBoss has emphasized a cooptition strategy that emphasizes support of development tooling, with the blogosphere claiming that it has also embraced OSGi. But that doesn't necessarily translate to a blanket endorsement of Equinox.

---