Mobile Working Group

Executive Summary

• This is a draft proposal to create an “Eclipse for Mobile Working Group (EMWG)” of Eclipse Foundation members which will be focused on increasing the momentum of Eclipse technology for mobile devices.

• The working group will be responsible for defining and driving the following Mobile Initiatives-

• • Products - provide mobile-specific “profiles” and a reference list of ‘Eclipse Mobile Ready” complementary products for both Eclipse tools and runtimes. Profiles are a pre-integrated set of Eclipse and non-Eclipse technologies which form a profile. (will need independent hosting site - Eclipse Mobile Hub?).

• • Promotion – provide input to EMO for consistent marketing message and promotion for Eclipse in Mobile. Integrate across Eclipse Marketing events & promotion materials (eg Mobile Plug Fest, etc)

• • Best Practices - simplify the use of Eclipse by mobile application developers through a common set of test suites, training materials, documentation.

• • Roadmap - The EMWG, through its anchor members, will be responsible for defining and publishing a roadmap and priorities for the Mobile Initiatives

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Eclipse for Mobile - Accelerating the pace

Eclipse lacks leadership and momentum as a development platform for mobile devices. This proposal suggests a new approach to address this problem.

Today, the three mobile-focused Eclipse projects – eRCP, Mobile Tools for Java and Tools for Mobile Linux – are having difficulties in creating large, diverse developer communities. These projects are attempting to create runtimes, tools & frameworks that enable the creation of selected mobile development environments. One reason for the lack of momentum in these mobile projects is that they are very thin slices of an overall mobile development platform, and similar to projects like CDT, mobile application development requires often "native" tools and compilers which are distributed under non EPL compatible licenses.

The proposal is to create an Eclipse for Mobile Working Group (EMWG) within the Eclipse organization that brings together the major commercial mobile suppliers that have a unified interest in creating a more holistic offering, including packaged Eclipse for Mobile products.

The initial set of commercial suppliers could include – Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, UIQ, and Symbian. All of these mobile companies share in current development technologies (JavaME, Symbian) and have interests in new technologies (Web2.0, Linux).

The EMWG would define

1. the ideal end goal
2. alternative approaches to reaching this goal in the near term

Goals

• The goal of the EMWG will be to define and create a collection of artifacts with the goal of forwarding the utility of and adoption of Eclipse technologies within the mobile industry.
• In doing so, the EMWG will be acting to complement the open source community by providing feedback and direction for various projects. The EMWG cannot direct projects to implement specific features, however, the goal will be to provide guidance on how to improve Eclipse technology offerings so that they can be used in industry solutions.

Governance

• Steering committee comprised of Eclipse strategic members
• Commitment of up to $250K/per for strategic member as per the membership agreement
• Plus additional $$$$ for community enablement. The exact amount to be defined by the steering committee
• Requires a two year commitment from each participant

There will be two levels of membership for Industry Working Groups:

1. Anchor Member and
2. Community Member.

Both levels of membership require:

1. existing membership in the Eclipse Foundation
2. a minimum two year commitment to the Eclipse for Mobile Working Group

Anchor Members

Anchor members will form the core group of companies that sponsor the Eclipse for Mobile Working Group. These companies are making a strategic investment in the success of industry initiative. The obligations of anchor members include:

1. annual contributions to the funding of the Eclipse for Mobile Working Group; and
2. contribution of technical resources to support the activities of the Working Group.

Anchor Members will have access to all the benefits produced by the EMWG at no additional charge beyond the annual payment of dues.

Community Members

Community membership is open to any Eclipse Foundation member organization with less than $250 million annual revenue. There is no cost for community membership.

Community members will have the opportunity to define and participate in selected programs organized by the EMWG.

Participation in the selected programs will require a sponsorship fee that will be based on each particular program.

Description

• The Eclipse Mobile Working Group will be required to draft a charter.
• The EMWG will follow a TBD formal creation lifecycle similar to the OpenAjax development process, including the creation of a EMWG charter. (The astute reader will recognize the fact that this is basically a slimmed-down version of our own development process.)
• As an Eclipse working group, participation would be restricted to members of the Eclipse Foundation. This includes corporate members and committer members.
• All EMWG meetings are closed to members only, and all intellectual property is shared via the EPL and the Eclipse.org Terms of Use.
• The EMWG would be provided with a standard set of Eclipse.org infrastructure support.
  • Mailing list
  • [TBC] Newsgroup
  • Wiki page(s)
• The EMWG would be assigned an EMO staff member as its primary contact.
• The EMWG would be expected to define, fund and implement joint marketing programs to further the aims of the group.
• It is anticipated that the EMWG would support the creation and evolution of one or more open source projects at Eclipse.
• The Eclipse Foundation would provide logistical and other support for arranging meetings and events at the request of the EMWG. We would, of course, encourage the EMWG to align their meetings with other Eclipse events such as EclipseCon and ESE.
• The output of the EMWG will include the formal release of the following:
  • Using the Eclipse Packaging Project, one or more “industry packages” of Eclipse projects which in combination best meet the needs of the target industry segment.
    • Such packages will be hosted on Eclipse.org for distribution.
    • Documentation on best practices for using Eclipse technologies would be expected to be contained in the industry package.
    • Each such package definition would contain "platform" projects and reference "extension" projects.
  • The definition of one or more end-to-end scenarios which motivate a collection of use cases for the industry package.
  • A set of test cases for the industry package which can be executed to validate new versions of the technologies.
  • Contributions to the projects with bug fixes and enhancements for the projects relevant to the EMWG.
• In addition to the above, the EMWG may optionally also support the creation of additional Eclipse projects to provide a home for development specifically focused on the needs of the industry segment.