Eclipse Foundation Development Process

All Committers and Project Leads engaged in Project activity are required to implement the policies and processes described by the Eclipse Foundations Governance Documents, including:

Eclipse as a brand is the sum of its parts (all of the Projects), and Projects should strive for the highest possible quality in extensible frameworks, exemplary applications, transparent processes, and Project openness.

The Eclipse Foundation has the responsibility to …​cultivate…​an Ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services…​. It is therefore a key principle that the Eclipse Foundation Development Process ensures that the Projects are managed for the benefit of both the open source community and the Ecosystem members. To this end, all Eclipse Projects are required to:

Essential to the Purposes of the Eclipse Foundation is the development of three inter-related communities around each Project:

It is an explicit goal of the development process to be as clear and concise as possible so as to help the Project Teams navigate the complexities, avoid the pitfalls, and become successful as quickly as possible.

This document imposes requirements and constraints on the operation of the Projects, and it does so on behalf of the larger Eclipse community. It is an explicit goal of the development process to provide as much freedom and autonomy to the Projects as possible while ensuring the collective qualities benefit the entire Eclipse community.

Similarly, this document should not place undue constraints on the EMO or the Board of Directors that prevent them from governing the process as necessary. We cannot foresee all circumstances and as such should be cautious of being overly prescriptive and/or requiring certain fixed metrics.

The frameworks, applications, Projects, processes, community, and even the definition of quality continues to, and will continue to, evolve. Creating rules or processes that force a static snapshot of any of these is detrimental to the health, growth, and Ecosystem impact of Eclipse.

Part of the strength of this document is in what it does not say, and thus opens for community definition through convention, guidelines, and public consultation. A document with too much structure becomes too rigid and prevents the kind of innovation and change we desire for Eclipse. In areas where this document is vague, we expect the Projects and members to engage the community-at-large to clarify the current norms and expectations.

Projects are required to engage in practices that ensure the continued viability of the Project, independent from the continued availability of external resources and services, or continued participation on any single individual, organization, or group.

In practical terms, Projects are required to use resources and services approved by the Eclipse Foundation. This includes (but is not limited to) all source code management, distribution channels for artifacts, issue tracking, documentation, and public communication channels.

The EMO has the responsibility and authority to mitigate issues that arise when Committers fail to perform the required behaviors or engage in practices that risk harm to Eclipse Projects, the community, and/or Ecosystem. This includes, but is not limited to, issues that arise due to a failure to implement the Eclipse Foundation Vulnerability Reporting Policy, the Eclipse Foundation Intellectual Property Policy, the Eclipse Foundation Community Code of Conduct, or other governance policies of the Eclipse Foundation.

The EMO’s authority includes, but is not limited to, the ability grant specific individuals equivalent to Committer privileges, suspend access to Project resources, add or remove Committers and Project Leads, and—​in extreme cases—​terminate the Project.

The EMO is not permitted to override or ignore the requirements listed in this document without the express written endorsement of the Board of Directors.

The motivation for the EMO to take action along with description of the steps taken as part of the mitigation must be publicly disclosed within one week of action being taken. The Grievance Handling section of this document describes the means by which a Member may respond in the event that they believe that the EMO has overstepped its authority.

Each Project has exactly one set of Committers. Each Project’s set of Committers is distinct from that of any other Project, including Subprojects or parent Projects. All Project Committers have equal rights and responsibilities within the Project. Partitioning of responsibility within a Project is managed using social convention. A Project may, for example, divide itself into logical partitions of functionality; it is social convention that prevents Committers from one logical partition from doing inappropriate work in another. If finer-grained management of Committer responsibilities is required, a Project should consider partitioning (via a Restructuring Review) into two or more Subprojects.

The Committers of a Project have the exclusive right to elect new Committers to their Project; no other group, including a parent Project, can force a Project to accept a new Committer.

There is no roll-up of Committers: the set of Committers on a Project is exactly that set of people who have been explicitly elected into that role for the Project (i.e. being a Committer on a Subproject does not give you any automatic rights on the "parent" Project or any child Project).

In practical terms, each Project has a single UNIX group of its Committers that provides write-access to the Project’s resources. Pictorially below, we see that a Project, in addition to the various resources and Committers it has, can also have zero or more Subprojects. Each of these Subprojects has its own distinct set of Committers and resources.

Each Project owns and maintains a collection of resources.

Resources may include source code, a Project website, space on the downloads server, access to build resources, and other services provided by the Eclipse Foundation infrastructure. The exact infrastructure provided by the Eclipse Foundation varies over time and is defined outside this process document.

A Project is not strictly required to make use of all the resources made available; a Project might, for example, opt to not maintain a source code repository. Such a Project might operate as an organizational unit, or container, for several Subprojects. Similarly, a Project might opt to provide a consolidated website, build and/or download site for its Subprojects (the Subprojects would then not require those resources for themselves).

Namespaces are assigned to a Project by the EMO. All Project source code must be organized in the assigned namespaces and Projects can only Release code under their own namespace (that is, they cannot infringe on another Eclipse Project’s namespace).

Projects are the level of communication with the larger Eclipse community and Ecosystem. Projects may either have their own communications (website, mailing lists, forums/newsgroups, etc) or they may be part of a parent Project’s communications (website, mailing list, forums/newsgroups, etc). In either case, the Project is required to maintain an open and public communication channel with the Eclipse community including, but not limited to, Project plans, schedules, and design discussions.

All Projects must make the communication channels easy to find. Projects are further required to make the separate communication channels of their child Projects (if any) easy to find.

Any Project in the Incubation Phase must correctly identify its website and Releases. A Project with at least one descendant Project in Incubation Phase must correctly annotate its own website so as to notify the Eclipse community that incubating Projects exist in its hierarchy. Any Release containing code from an Incubation Phase Project must be correctly labeled, i.e., the Incubation Phase is viral and expands to cover all Releases in which it is included.

Each Top-Level Project has a Charter which describes the purpose, Scope, and operational rules for the Top-Level Project. The charter should refer to, and describe any refinements to, the provisions of this development process. The Board of Directors approves the charter of each Top-Level Project.

Subprojects do not have separate charters; Subprojects operate under the charter of their parent Top-Level Project.

All Projects have a defined Scope and all initiatives within that Project are required to reside within that Scope. Initiatives and code that is found to be outside the Scope of a Project may result in the termination of the Project. The Scope of Top-Level Projects is part of the charter, as approved by the Board of Directors of the Eclipse Foundation.

The Scope of a Subproject is defined by the initial Project Proposal as Reviewed and approved by the Project Management Committee (PMC) (as further defined below) of the Project’s top parent and by the EMO. A Project’s Scope must be a subset of its parent’s Scope.

There are two different types of Project Leadership at Eclipse: The Project Management Committee (PMC) and Project Leads. Both forms of leadership are required to:

The leadership chain for a Project is composed of the Project’s Project Lead(s), the leadership of the parent Project (if any), the PMC leads and PMC members for the Top-Level Project, the EMO, and the EMO(ED).

In exceptional situations—such as Projects with zero active Committers, disruptive Committers, or no effective Project Leads—the Project Leadership Chain has the authority to make changes (add, remove) to the set of Committers and/or Project Leads of that Project, and otherwise act on behalf of the Project Lead.

Each Project has a development team, led by the Project Leaders. The development team is composed of Committers and Contributors. Contributors are individuals who contribute code, fixes, tests, documentation, or other work that is part of the Project. Committers have write access to the Project’s resources (source code repository, bug tracking system, website, build server, downloads, etc.) and are expected to influence the Project’s development.

Contributors who have the trust of the Project’s Committers can, through election, be promoted Committer for that Project. The breadth of a Committer’s influence corresponds to the breadth of their contribution. A development team’s Contributors and Committers may (and should) come from a diverse set of organizations. A Committer gains voting rights allowing them to affect the future of the Project. Becoming a Committer is a privilege that is earned by contributing and showing discipline and good judgment. It is a responsibility that should be neither given nor taken lightly, nor is it a right based on employment by an Eclipse member company or any company employing existing Committers.

The election process begins with an existing Committer on the same Project nominating the Contributor. The Project’s Committers will vote for a period of no less than one week. If there are at least three (3) positive votes and no negative votes within the voting period, the Contributor is recommended to the Project’s PMC for commit privileges. If there are three (3) or fewer Committers on the Project, a unanimous positive vote of all Committers is substituted. If the PMC approves, and the Contributor signs the appropriate Committer legal agreements established by the EMO (wherein, at the very least, the Developer agrees to abide by the Eclipse Intellectual Property Policy), the Contributor becomes a Committer and is given write access to the source code for that Project.

At times, Committers may become inactive for a variety of reasons. The decision making process of the Project relies on active Committers who respond to discussions and vote in a constructive and timely manner. The Project Leads are responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of the Project. A Committer who is disruptive, does not participate actively, or has been inactive for an extended period may have his or her commit status revoked by the unanimous consent of the Project Leads. Unless otherwise specified, "an extended period" is defined as "no activity for more than six months".

Active participation in the user communication channels and the appropriate Developer mailing lists is a responsibility of all Committers, and is critical to the success of the Project. Committers are required to monitor and contribute to the user communication channels.

Committers are required to monitor the mailing lists associated with the Project. This is a condition of being granted commit rights to the Project. It is mandatory because Committers must participate in votes (which in some cases require a certain minimum number of votes) and must respond to the mailing list in a timely fashion in order to facilitate the smooth operation of the Project. When a Committer is granted commit rights they will be added to the appropriate mailing lists. A Committer must not be unsubscribed from a Developer mailing list unless their associated commit privileges are also revoked.

Committers are required to track, participate in, and vote on, relevant discussions in their associated Projects. There are three voting responses: +1 (yes), -1 (no, or veto), and 0 (abstain).

Committers are responsible for proactively reporting problems in the bug tracking system, and annotating problem reports with status information, explanations, clarifications, or requests for more information from Contributors. Committers are responsible for updating problem reports when they have done work related to the problem.

Committer, PMC lead or member, Project Lead, and council representative(s) are roles; an individual may take on more than one of these roles simultaneously.

A Project may designate a Subproject as a "Permanent Incubator". A Permanent Incubator is a Project that is intended to perpetually remain in the Incubation Phase. Permanent Incubators are an excellent place to innovate, test new ideas, grow functionality that may one day be moved into another Project, and develop new Committers.

Permanent Incubator Projects never have Releases. Permanent Incubators may have builds, and downloads. They conform to the standard Incubation Branding requirements and are subject to the IP due diligence rules outlined for incubating Projects. Permanent Incubators do not graduate.

The Scope of a Permanent Incubator Project must fall within the Scope of its parent Project. The Committer group of the Permanent Incubator Project must overlap with that of the parent Project (at least one Committer from the parent Project must be a Committer for the incubator). The parent Project’s Committers are responsible for ensuring that the incubator Project conforms to the rules set forth by the Eclipse Foundation Development Process.

A Permanent Incubator Project must be designated as such by including the word "Incubator" in its name (e.g. "Eclipse Dash Incubator"). To do otherwise is considered exceptional and requires approval from the PMC and EMO(ED).

Only Top-Level Projects and Projects in the Mature Phase may create a Permanent Incubator. Permanent Incubator Projects are created upon request; a Creation Review is not required.

Projects are required to make a Project plan available to their community at the beginning of the development cycle for each major and Minor Release. The plan may be as simple as a short description and a list of issues, or more detailed and complex. Subprojects may opt to include their plans with those of their parent Project.

Project Plans must be delivered to the community through communication channels approved by the EMO. The exact nature of the Project plan varies depending on numerous variables, including the size and expectations of the communities, and requirements specified by the PMC.

Projects go through distinct Phases. The transitions from Phase to Phase are open and transparent public Reviews.

The Eclipse Foundation Development Process is predicated on open and transparent behavior. All major changes to Eclipse Projects must be announced and Reviewed by the Membership at Large. Major changes include the Project Phase transitions as well as the introduction or exclusion of significant new technology or capability. It is a clear requirement of this document that members who are monitoring the appropriate media channels not be surprised by the post-facto actions of the Projects.

Projects are responsible for initiating the appropriate Reviews. If it is determined to be necessary, the Project Leadership Chain (e.g. the PMC or EMO) may initiate a Review on the Project’s behalf.

All Reviews have the same general process:

The Review documentation requirements, and criteria for the successful completion of each type of Review will be documented by the EMO. PMCs may establish additional success criteria.

The Review period is open for no less than one week and usually no more than two weeks. The Review ends with the announcement of the results in the defined Review communication channel.

If any member believes that the EMO has acted incorrectly in approving or failing a Review may appeal to the Board of Directors to Review the EMO’s decision.

Any Project, with exception of Permanent Incubators, may make a Release. A Release may include the code from any subset of the Project’s descendants.

(Most of this section is paraphrased from the excellent Apache Software Foundation Releases FAQ. The Eclipse community has many of the same beliefs about Releases as does the Apache community and their words were already excellent. The Apache Software Foundation Releases FAQ is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.)

Releases are, by definition, anything that is distributed outside of the Committers of a Project. If consumers are being directed to download a build, then that build has been released (modulo the exceptions below). All Projects and Committers must obey the Eclipse Foundation requirements on approving any Release.

The Eclipse IP Policy must be followed at all times. Prior to issuing any Release, the Project Lead must assert that the IP Policy has been followed and all approvals have been received.

The Project Team must provide (either directly or indirectly) a link between the distribution form of Release artifacts and the corresponding source code.

A Project can make official Releases for one calendar year following a successful Progress Review or Release Review. The Project Leadership Chain may—​at its discretion—​require that the Project engage in additional Reviews (e.g. a progress or Release Review) prior to issuing a Release.

Exception 1: Nightly and Integration Builds During the process of developing software and preparing a Release, various nightly and Integration Builds are made available to the Developer community for testing purposes. Do not include any links on the Project website, blogs, wikis, etc. that might encourage non-early-adopters to download and use Nightly Builds, Release Candidates, or any other similar package (links aimed at early-adopters and the Project’s Developers are both permitted and encouraged). The only people who are supposed to know about such packages are the people following the Developer mailing list and thus are aware of the limitations of such builds.

Exception 2: Milestone and Release Candidate Builds Projects are encouraged to use an agile development process including regular Milestones (for example, six week Milestones). Milestones and Release Candidates are "almost Releases" intended for adoption and testing by early-adopters. Projects are allowed to have links on the Project website, blogs, wikis, etc. to encourage these outside-the-Committer-circle early-adopters to download and test the Milestones and Release Candidates, but such communications must include caveats explaining that these are not official Releases. Milestones and Release Candidate builds must be labeled as such (e.g. x.yMn, x.yRCn, alpha, beta, or similar).

Exception 3: Service Releases with no new features Service Releases with no significant changes or additions over the base Release are allowed to be released without an additional Review.

Under no circumstances are builds and Milestones to be used as a substitute for doing proper official Releases. Proper Release management and Reviews is a key aspect of Eclipse quality.

Releases and corresponding artifacts for Projects in the Incubation Phase must be labeled to indicate the incubation status of the Project. See Incubation Branding for more information.

When a member has a concern about a Project, the member will raise that concern with the Project’s leadership. If the member is not satisfied with the result, the member can raise the concern with the parent Project’s leadership. The member can continue appeals up the Project Leadership Chain and, if still not satisfied, thence to the EMO, then the executive director, and finally to the Board of Directors. All appeals and discussions will abide by the guiding principles of being open, transparent, and public.

Member concerns may include:

A variety of grievance resolutions are available to the EMO up to, and including, rebooting or restarting a Project with new Committers and leadership.

Changes made in this document: