equinox
alternate runtimes

 

Eclipse currently uses a home-grown runtime model. That is, the runtime model/mechanism was designed and implemented specifically for Eclipse. This is good in that it has been highly optimized and tailored. It is less than optimal in that there are many issues which are complicated and having a unique runtime mechanism does not allow us to reuse the work done in other areas (e.g., OSGi, Avalon, JMX, ...). In particular we are looking for a runtime that has a strong specification, a good component model, supports dynamic behaviour, and is reasonably similar to that of Eclipse.

This last point bears some discussion. While we would like to start with a clean slate and adopt/design a runtime which satisfies everyone's wish list, pragmatically, it must still be possible to run old plug-ins on the new runtime with confidence. That is, the new runtime cannot be so completely different so as to make this difficult/totally inefficient/impossible.

Our attention has focussed on OSGi and we have implemented a plug-compatible runtime for Eclipse based on the OSGi specification. Consult the resources below for more information.

OSGi Runtime Resources
OSGi
The base specification and all you need to know about the organization.
Architecture
A description of the new runtime which consists of OSGi, a set of Eclipse-specific facilities and an Eclipse compatibility layer.
Running the runtime
How to use the new runtime to run Eclipse.
Migration Guide
Details of any API changes and programming style changes relative to standard Eclipse.