7 ms·

Google Donates $20,000 to Eclipse Foundation

99 points by glazemaster 14y ago

rshm 14y ago
20K is too less coming from Google. They have thousands of developers benefiting from the ide and Android + Google tools use eclipse as well.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  I'd be very surprised if there weren't at least a few Eclipse committers inside Google. EDIT: In fact, they have nine. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo...
- callahad 14y ago
  $20K seems reasonable, since it's directed at acquiring hardware for testing Eclipse's performance. You can buy a lot of simple workstations for $20k, especially given that they don't need SSDs or GPUs.
mtgx 14y ago
They should donate a lot more, and actually get them to make a version that is highly optimized for building Android apps. It should be like "Eclipse for Android", rather than just "Eclipse for Java", with an Android development add-on, as it is now.
- suresk 14y ago
  This is something Google could do pretty easily themselves right now - I'm a little surprised that they haven't. Installing the plugins isn't that hard, but a nice little package that contained everything you needed for Android development (and none of the stuff you didn't) would probably make the onboarding process for people not accustomed to Eclipse a bit better.
- cdibona 14y ago
  You guys do know we've been paying members of the foundation for going on 6 years or so? This was an additional outlay for some hardware.
  - paulgb 14y ago
    I think the silent majority understands this. The vocal minority will always complain that others charity isn't enough.
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      Yup, the good 'ol: Person1: "They should donate so much more that that! God they are such penny-pinchers." (Person1 donates nothing)
twapi 14y ago
$20K? just 20K. :(
georgemcbay 14y ago
I ran into the "Juno is ridiculously slow" thing myself (mentioned it just yesterday here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488005 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488005). Running Juno on my work laptop (a recent ThinkPad i5 system) is close to unusably slow while 3.8 runs great (for a Java UI-heavy app). Hopefully this helps sort things out (though donating time of Google engineers might be a better practical solution). In any case, I think I'll stick with Sublime Text 2 for Android development when doing anything other than on-device debugging.
- cageface 14y ago
  The community edition of IntelliJ makes a great Android development environment and is free. I can't imagine doing Android dev in a straight text editor.
  - vineet 14y ago
    I love IntelliJ, but I keep coming back to Eclipse because of all the plugins available for it. I would love to see IntelliJ somehow build the 3rd-party community of plugin developers.
    - cageface 14y ago
      What plugins do you use? Is this for Android?
      - chmod775 14y ago
        I thought there already is android-sdk integration in IntelliJ
        cageface 14y ago
        There is. It doesn't have all the features of Eclipse for Android but it's everything you need. I haven't touched Eclipse so far.
programminggeek 14y ago
So, less than one developer year? That is incredibly generous.
activepeanut 14y ago
I'm really annoyed with the people looking a gift horse in the mouth in this thread.
- nullymcnull 14y ago
  Eclipse is the primary and recommended dev environment for Android, and it's quite a sluggish beast. This is no gift horse. It's a spoonful of charity where several metric tonnes are called for.
  - myko 14y ago
    Did you read the article? Google donates quite a bit to Eclipse in money and man power. This one time donation was specific to a need for new machines _today_.
- kristianp 14y ago
  Yeah, this gift is for a specific purpose (to supply machines for a test lab). I'm sure 20 or so machines is plenty.
lanna 14y ago
"a number of users reported significant performance issues when using the 4.2 release, compared to identical setups running the older 3.8" 3.8 is not older than 4.2, they were released together.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Well this is the first 4.x release to the general public, compared to the old stable 3.x platform.
duked 14y ago
Woah 20k$ I mean it's like .... Like ... Ridiculous !
ConstantineXVI 14y ago
Note that the $20K was for hardware, not people. Google also has a few devs pushing code into Eclipse, so it's not like Google's been ignoring them all this time. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo...
- solox3 14y ago
  The title could have been "Google Donates $20,000 [worth of equipment] to Eclipse Foundation"
justinsb 14y ago
For those complaining that Google should have donated more, that's just ridiculous. Google already does donate more; they support the Eclipse Foundation financially. There are performance issues being reported in the latest Eclipse, and it emerged that automated performance tests that used to be run are not currently being run because there aren't machines available. Google steps up - within 48 hours - with more than enough cash to solve the problem. The problem needed a small amount of resources now, rather than a huge donation in three months time. A bigger donation might not even have solved this problem - obviously there was some resource allocation failure in the first place. As an Eclipse user, let me say: thank you, Google.
- lifeguard 14y ago
  From The Fine Article: "Within 48 hours of Mike’s post, a representative of Google’s Open Source Programs Office let the developers know they would be taking up his challenge of helping getting the performance tests running again" That is awesome. Many companies could not get 20k approved for an internal project in that amount of time. Thank you Google!
vineet 14y ago
I am a fan of how much Google has put in Eclipse. I think Google employees are on the Eclipse board, they pay Eclipse committers, and might be one of the bigger contributors to the foundation. However, I do think that Google (and most companies) should step it up even more. Consider how many employees Google has using Eclipse, and how many products Google has building on Eclipse. They are doing a lot with Eclipse and should contribute a lot. Yes, Eclipse is open source, and companies do not need to contribute to it. But the benefits of open source is a lot more than the free price, it is the freedom to improve bugs that affect your development, and most importantly the freedom to make sure that some single company is not leading the product/project in a strange direction. I do think that every company that uses Eclipse as an IDE for its employees should have a moral obligation to donate $500 (the typical price of an IDE) to the Eclipse Foundation. And if you are building a product on top of Eclipse, then perhaps 10% of the $500 per user of your product. Yes, I know I am asking for a lot. Yes, donating to the foundation does include the full time salaries of committers. Yes, there are more companies than Google that need to be doing this. And, yes, I do fear that the tragedy of the commons is to be expected by default for any successful open source project.
- sp332 14y ago
  As was mentioned in this thread 2 hours ago, Google has 9 committers to Eclipse. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo... They've also paid members of the foundation for over 6 years. And there is never a moral obligation to pay for something that is explicitly licensed for free.
  - vineet 14y ago
    Perhaps Eclipse and the open source community as a whole needs to consider asking for more than just making their code/products free. I know of way too many people giving so much to open source projects, building 'successful' communities, but having a hard time getting enough investment into the community to guarantee the future growth of such ecosystems.
  - dillona 14y ago
homakov 14y ago
eclipse is ridiculously slow IDE. Let me change letters for you: DIE.

99 points by glazemaster 14y ago

rshm 14y ago

20K is too less coming from Google. They have thousands of developers benefiting from the ide and Android + Google tools use eclipse as well.

ConstantineXVI 14y ago
I'd be very surprised if there weren't at least a few Eclipse committers inside Google. EDIT: In fact, they have nine. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo...
callahad 14y ago
$20K seems reasonable, since it's directed at acquiring hardware for testing Eclipse's performance. You can buy a lot of simple workstations for $20k, especially given that they don't need SSDs or GPUs.

mtgx 14y ago

They should donate a lot more, and actually get them to make a version that is highly optimized for building Android apps. It should be like "Eclipse for Android", rather than just "Eclipse for Java", with an Android development add-on, as it is now.

suresk 14y ago
This is something Google could do pretty easily themselves right now - I'm a little surprised that they haven't. Installing the plugins isn't that hard, but a nice little package that contained everything you needed for Android development (and none of the stuff you didn't) would probably make the onboarding process for people not accustomed to Eclipse a bit better.
cdibona 14y ago
You guys do know we've been paying members of the foundation for going on 6 years or so? This was an additional outlay for some hardware.
- paulgb 14y ago
  I think the silent majority understands this. The vocal minority will always complain that others charity isn't enough.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    Yup, the good 'ol: Person1: "They should donate so much more that that! God they are such penny-pinchers." (Person1 donates nothing)

twapi 14y ago

$20K? just 20K. :(

georgemcbay 14y ago

I ran into the "Juno is ridiculously slow" thing myself (mentioned it just yesterday here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488005 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488005). Running Juno on my work laptop (a recent ThinkPad i5 system) is close to unusably slow while 3.8 runs great (for a Java UI-heavy app). Hopefully this helps sort things out (though donating time of Google engineers might be a better practical solution). In any case, I think I'll stick with Sublime Text 2 for Android development when doing anything other than on-device debugging.

cageface 14y ago
The community edition of IntelliJ makes a great Android development environment and is free. I can't imagine doing Android dev in a straight text editor.
- vineet 14y ago
  I love IntelliJ, but I keep coming back to Eclipse because of all the plugins available for it. I would love to see IntelliJ somehow build the 3rd-party community of plugin developers.
  - cageface 14y ago
    What plugins do you use? Is this for Android?
    - chmod775 14y ago
      I thought there already is android-sdk integration in IntelliJ
      - cageface 14y ago
        There is. It doesn't have all the features of Eclipse for Android but it's everything you need. I haven't touched Eclipse so far.

programminggeek 14y ago

So, less than one developer year? That is incredibly generous.

activepeanut 14y ago

I'm really annoyed with the people looking a gift horse in the mouth in this thread.

nullymcnull 14y ago
Eclipse is the primary and recommended dev environment for Android, and it's quite a sluggish beast. This is no gift horse. It's a spoonful of charity where several metric tonnes are called for.
- myko 14y ago
  Did you read the article? Google donates quite a bit to Eclipse in money and man power. This one time donation was specific to a need for new machines _today_.
kristianp 14y ago
Yeah, this gift is for a specific purpose (to supply machines for a test lab). I'm sure 20 or so machines is plenty.

lanna 14y ago

"a number of users reported significant performance issues when using the 4.2 release, compared to identical setups running the older 3.8" 3.8 is not older than 4.2, they were released together.

Evbn 14y ago
Well this is the first 4.x release to the general public, compared to the old stable 3.x platform.

duked 14y ago

Woah 20k$ I mean it's like .... Like ... Ridiculous !

ConstantineXVI 14y ago

Note that the $20K was for hardware, not people. Google also has a few devs pushing code into Eclipse, so it's not like Google's been ignoring them all this time. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo...

solox3 14y ago
The title could have been "Google Donates $20,000 [worth of equipment] to Eclipse Foundation"

justinsb 14y ago

For those complaining that Google should have donated more, that's just ridiculous. Google already does donate more; they support the Eclipse Foundation financially. There are performance issues being reported in the latest Eclipse, and it emerged that automated performance tests that used to be run are not currently being run because there aren't machines available. Google steps up - within 48 hours - with more than enough cash to solve the problem. The problem needed a small amount of resources now, rather than a huge donation in three months time. A bigger donation might not even have solved this problem - obviously there was some resource allocation failure in the first place. As an Eclipse user, let me say: thank you, Google.

lifeguard 14y ago
From The Fine Article: "Within 48 hours of Mike’s post, a representative of Google’s Open Source Programs Office let the developers know they would be taking up his challenge of helping getting the performance tests running again" That is awesome. Many companies could not get 20k approved for an internal project in that amount of time. Thank you Google!

vineet 14y ago

I am a fan of how much Google has put in Eclipse. I think Google employees are on the Eclipse board, they pay Eclipse committers, and might be one of the bigger contributors to the foundation. However, I do think that Google (and most companies) should step it up even more. Consider how many employees Google has using Eclipse, and how many products Google has building on Eclipse. They are doing a lot with Eclipse and should contribute a lot. Yes, Eclipse is open source, and companies do not need to contribute to it. But the benefits of open source is a lot more than the free price, it is the freedom to improve bugs that affect your development, and most importantly the freedom to make sure that some single company is not leading the product/project in a strange direction. I do think that every company that uses Eclipse as an IDE for its employees should have a moral obligation to donate $500 (the typical price of an IDE) to the Eclipse Foundation. And if you are building a product on top of Eclipse, then perhaps 10% of the $500 per user of your product. Yes, I know I am asking for a lot. Yes, donating to the foundation does include the full time salaries of committers. Yes, there are more companies than Google that need to be doing this. And, yes, I do fear that the tragedy of the commons is to be expected by default for any successful open source project.

sp332 14y ago
As was mentioned in this thread 2 hours ago, Google has 9 committers to Eclipse. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-loc.php http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/web-app/commit-count-lo... They've also paid members of the foundation for over 6 years. And there is never a moral obligation to pay for something that is explicitly licensed for free.
- vineet 14y ago
  Perhaps Eclipse and the open source community as a whole needs to consider asking for more than just making their code/products free. I know of way too many people giving so much to open source projects, building 'successful' communities, but having a hard time getting enough investment into the community to guarantee the future growth of such ecosystems.
- dillona 14y ago

homakov 14y ago

eclipse is ridiculously slow IDE. Let me change letters for you: DIE.