The Eclipse consortium has posted “Draft 3.0” of its project plan to the Eclipse.org website. The document lays out the feature and API set for the next major release of Eclipse after 2.1, designated release 3.0. The document covers release deliverables, release milestones, target operating environments, compatibility with previous releases, Eclipse Platform subproject, Java development tools (JDT)… subproject, plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject.

According to the plan, Version 3.0 will represent a major change, which will result in some incompatibilities with functions written to version 2.1 APIs. “Some of the Eclipse APIs will likely change in ways that will require rewriting portions of existing plug-ins written to the 2.x APIs,” the document states, although “most of the Eclipse APIs will remain the same.”

The Draft 3.0 Plan can be found here.

What is Eclipse?

The Eclipse consortium describes Eclipse as follows . . .

Eclipse has established an open-source ecosystem of tools providers and consumers by creating technology and an open universal platform for tools integration. The open-source Eclipse community creates royalty-free technology as a platform for tools integration. Eclipse-based tools give developers freedom of choice in a multi-language, multi-platform, multi-vendor supported environment. Eclipse delivers a plug-in based framework that makes it easier to create, integrate and use software tools, saving time and money. By collaborating and sharing core integration technology, tool producers can concentrate on their areas of expertise and the creation of new development technology. The Eclipse Platform is written in the Java? language, and comes with extensive plug-in construction toolkits and examples. It has already been deployed on a range of development workstations including HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Linux, MAC OS X, QNX Neutrino and Windows based systems.

 
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