Jeff McAffer: Equinox – the power for all runtimes at Eclipse

The runtime projects at Eclipse are getting stronger. OSGi- and Equinox-based solutions make up an important part of the latest Eclipse Galileo release. Jeff McAffer, project lead of the Equinox OSGi, RCP and Orbit projects at Eclipse, explains what is new at Equinox in Galileo and what eclipse runtime holds for the future.
JAXenter: Can you describe the Eclipse Equinox
Project in a few words?
Jeff McAffer: The Equinox project provides the
power behind all runtimes at Eclipse. >From a code point of
view, Equinox is an implementation of the OSGi specification which
provides a standard modularity runtime for Java. The goal of the
Equinox project is to be a first class OSGi community and
specification implementation. The project participates in the
investigation and research related to future versions of OSGi
specifications and related runtime issues. The project is also open
to the development of other infrastructure deemed to be essential
runtime technologies at Eclipse and the management of OSGi-based
systems.
JAXenter: Can you give a typical use case for the
project?
Jeff McAffer: Equinox is the base for all runtimes
at Eclipse. In general, Equinox is used to provide a uniform
component model which makes it easy to extend and assemble
components into solutions for a wide variety of computing
environments . As such the use cases for the project are very
diverse. These include providing runtime solutions for embedded
devices, desktops and servers. Many modern Java application servers
from Websphere to Spring DM are based on Equinox. NASA uses Equinox
and the Eclipse rich client platform to control various space
missions and a number of companies are using Equinox in embedded
controller scenarios.
JAXenter: What´s new in the Galileo Version of
Equinox?
Jeff McAffer: With the Galileo release Equinox
implements the latest OSGi specification which is now at version
4.2. We continue as the reference implementation for the core
framework as well as many of the compendium OSGi specifications
such as Declarative Services and Event Admin. Galileo is also the
second release to include the p2 provisioning system for Eclipse.
In the Galileo release p2 saw many improvements to the UI,
performance, robustness and flexibility. We are very excited about
the growing interest in p2 and provisioning of OSGi systems. With
the Galileo release p2 is positioned to be the premier management
system for Equinox and OSGi frameworks.
JAXenter: Where do you see Equinox in one year? How
will the project evolve after Galileo?
Jeff McAffer: The Equinox project will continue
its involvement in the OSGi specification process. This includes
research and investigation into the next major release of the OSGi
specification. As the OSGi specification continues to gain
popularity in the enterprise and server space we anticipate a few
key areas that Equinox will be a leader in. This includes improving
the management of OSGi-based systems with p2 and improvements to
the OSGi core framework to provide application isolation in the
enterprise space.
JAXenter: Which new trends do you see in the Eclipse
Ecosystem in general and where do they lead us in the next
generation 4.0 of Eclipse?
Jeff McAffer: One of the biggest trends at Eclipse is the emergence of EclipseRT. EclipseRT is the use of Eclipse technologies in runtime scenarios. Equinox is at the heart of this movement but many projects at Eclipse from RCP to RAP to EclipseLink to BIRT and EMF factor heavily in creating runtime solutions. With Equinox being adopted in so many enterprise scenarios we are bound to see new innovations and contributions from the likes of SAP and others. Overall the EclipseRT story will evolve with clear end to end use-cases and support for scenarios derived from the ongoing e4 work.
JAXenter: Thank you very much for this conversation!
Jeff McAffer leads the Eclipse Equinox OSGi, RCP and Orbit teams and is CTO and co-founder of EclipseSource. He is one of the architects of the Eclipse Platform and a co-author of The Eclipse Rich Client Platform and the upcoming book Equinox and OSGi (Addison-Wesley). He co-leads the RT PMC and is a member of the Eclipse Project PMC, the Tools Project PMC and the Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors and the Eclipse Architecture Council. Jeff is currently interested all Aspects of Eclipse components from developing and building bundles to deploying, installing and ultimately running them. Previous lives include being a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM and work in distributed/parallel OO computing as well as expert systems, meta-level architectures and a PhD at the University of Tokyo.