Eclipse Kepler Orbits 71 Open Source Projects and 58 million lines of code

Eclipse KeplerFrom the ‘On-Time Release Train’ files:

In the open source development world, the influence of the Eclipse Foundation cannot be underestimated.

While Eclipse started off as ‘just’ an IDE over the years it has evolved with its coordinated release train effort that sees piles of project all released on the same day.

Today is that day.

The Eclipse Kepler release is now out, bundling in a staggering 71 open source projects and over 58 millions lines of code. (I know the Eclipse people have been very busy preparing for this release too, as this is the first release in the last 7 years where I have not been contacted by them before the release to chat about it).

At 71 projects, Kepler actually represents a slowing down for the Eclipse release train though overall the growth in the last few years has been staggering. In 2012 the Juno release delivered 70 projects. In 2010, the Helios release delivered 39 projects. In 2009, Eclipse Galileo provided 33 projects and the 2008 Gannymede release had 23 projects. Europa had 21 projects in 2007 and the very first release train in 2006 called Callisto had only 10.

So what’s new?

One of the most interesting projects included in the Kepler from my perspective is the Orion 3.0 release. Orion got its start in 2011 as a web based IDE. It has grown a lot since then and is now supposed to be more scalable and usable overall.

There is also the Eclipse Stardust 1.0 release which delivers business process management engine and tools.

The two project that I personally have always benefited the most from are the PDT and core Eclipse (e4) projects. PHP Developer Tools (PDT) is the open source base for Zend Studio, and is being updated to version 3.2, thought the list of new features in the release sure does look sparse. The Eclipse Foundation similarly hasn’t done a great job highlighting what’s new in e4 — though i know full well that stability and bug fixes are always very important.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

News Around the Web