The Eclipse Cloud Devtools Ecosystem: Defining the Future of Cloud Native Software Development

The Eclipse Cloud DevTools Ecosystem: Defining the Future of Cloud Native Software Development

White Paper 2 Eclipse Foundation White Paper

The Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working Group offers a vendor-neutral ecosystem of open source projects focused on defining, implementing, and promoting best-in-class web and cloud-based development tools.

Open Source Software Accelerates Migration of Developer Tools to the Cloud

ver the past two decades, most relevant business applications have been migrated to the cloud. More recently, there’s growing awareness that the cloud is also an innovation O platform that accelerates software development.1,2

It’s now well understood that with cloud-based IDEs and For many enterprises, using proprietary cloud tools, developers can more efficiently migrate and build development tools doesn’t make sense because the applications than they can with desktop tools. Cloud tools don’t provide adequate flexibility or control over native tools also enable large and diverse developer the development ecosystem. The flexibility to adapt teams to share the same configuration and runtime tools to domain-specific requirements increases environments, increasing productivity and reducing, developer efficiency. And control over the development if not eliminating, setup times. ecosystem mitigates critical risks associated with developer tools that are often the backbone of business So why has adoption of cloud-based developer tools models and the resulting intellectual property. lagged behind other types of cloud migration? A number of commercial businesses certainly recognized For these and other reasons, open source software the potential early on. The problem was those early- is key for cloud native software development. stage cloud development tools were mostly proprietary Recognizing this fact, several leading organizations solutions that came with restrictions and limitations joined forces in the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working that didn’t meet market needs and expectations. Group to create open source alternatives, and to build and support the ecosystem.

1 Cloud’s trillion-dollar prize is up for grabs, McKinsey Quarterly, February 26, 2021. 2 The Cloud as an Innovation Platform for Software Development, Communications of the ACM, October 2019. COPYRIGHT (C) 2021, ECLIPSE FOUNDATION, INC. | THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE (CC BY 4.0) 4 Eclipse Foundation White Paper

Industry Leaders Collaborate to Build an Open Cloud Development Ecosystem

he Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working Group is a diverse group of members that includes globally recognized technology leaders as well as smaller organizations — all focused T on open source developer tools and software innovation. Founding members include Broadcom, EclipseSource, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, SAP, and TypeFox, among others.

Initially, the working group’s primary focus was to the speed of collaboration and development in order identify common issues and how these issues might to out-flank their competitors. However, the hybrid be resolved, with the ultimate goal of making life cloud operating environment can be complex, with easier for developers through more efficient cloud Kubernetes, containers, microservices, and service development options. When the working group was meshes adding a host of new considerations to formally announced in October of 2019, Brad Micklea, application design and implementation. Red Hat is then VP of Developer Tools and Advocacy at Red Hat, working with the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working confirmed the need to leverage open source software Group to provide new open source alternatives to these to streamline and accelerate cloud development. technology stacks while giving developers the tools they need to get their software to market faster.” “Developers today are building applications for the hybrid cloud,” said Micklea. “They are focused on

History Is Repeating Itself in the Best Possible Way “The breadth, depth, and According to Dr. Jonas Helming, principal software diversity in the Eclipse cloud architect and general manager of EclipseSource, the development ecosystem Eclipse Foundation was the logical place to create an make it the place to be for ecosystem around cloud development tools. any person or organization “For almost 20 years, the Eclipse Foundation ecosystem with a vested interest in around the Eclipse IDE has been the biggest alternative next-generation cloud native to closed developer tools,” he says. “There is currently development.” no comparable ecosystem for cloud development tools — Tim deBoer, Senior Principal and I foresee the Eclipse Cloud DevTools ecosystem Software Engineer at Red Hat making a similar impact as we move more development tools and concepts to the cloud.”

Tim deBoer, a senior principal software engineer at Red Hat, was the cloud developer experience lead architect at IBM when the working group was first created. He also draws a parallel to the success of the Eclipse IDE ecosystem by pointing out that the vendor neutral governance at the Eclipse Foundation enables success. Organizations in any market, even competitors, can freely collaborate on new technology development, with each company providing a different piece of the overall solution.

“By pooling our resources, everyone in the ecosystem can achieve more,” says deBoer. “The breadth, depth, and diversity in the Eclipse cloud development ecosystem make it the place to be for any person or organization with a vested interest in next-generation cloud native development.”

Flexible, Open Source Technologies Streamline and Accelerate Cloud Development

rojects hosted and nurtured by the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working Group provide open source technologies that are the basis for building enterprise cloud development P products. Each of the project technologies can be used individually or together. And they can be adapted to suit the adopter organization’s environment and developer requirements. This flexibility allows adopter organizations to go well beyond the potential they can achieve with proprietary, single-vendor cloud development tools.

Eclipse Cloud DevTools Landscape Here’s a brief overview of

the current projects in the Extension Marketplace Cloud DevTools ecosystem, Web IDE their relationships to one

another, along with use Dev Tools cases and commercial adoption examples. Sprotty Figure 1 loosely illustrates Che4z working group projects

and the high-level GLSP IDE Technologies functional focus areas of Container Deployment Tools Function Speciﬁc Tools each project.

Figure 1: Projects in the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Ecosystem

Eclipse Theia: The Open Source Alternative to Visual Studio Code Eclipse Theia is an extensible platform that allows companies to develop their own multi-language cloud and desktop IDEs using a single, open source technology stack. The software combines many of the great user interface features in Visual Studio (VS) Code with a more modular architecture that enables far more customizations than VS Code.

Eclipse Theia is the basis for well-known industry offerings, including:

• ARM Mbed Studio

• Arduino Pro IDE

• Google Cloud Shell Eclipse Che eliminates • SAP Business Application Studio the workspace Eclipse Che: A Kubernetes-Native configuration complexities IDE for Cloud Native and challenges with Application Development Kubernetes-native Eclipse Che eliminates the workspace configuration development so it’s faster complexities and challenges with Kubernetes-native and easier for developer development so it’s faster and easier for developer teams to build cloud native teams to build cloud native applications. Che also applications. leverages Theia software to provide an in-browser VS Code experience, and is the basis for well-known industry offerings, including: Eclipse Che4z, is a lightweight, hosted IDE based on Eclipse Che. With Che4z, it’s faster and easier for • IBM Cloud Pak for Applications the new generation of developers to get involved in

• Red Hat OpenShift + CodeReady Workspaces mainframe application development. Che4z is the basis for Broadcom’s CA Brightside, a DevOps solution • SAP Hana Cloud that enables development teams to control, script, and develop cloud-based apps for mainframes.

Eclipse Open VSX: A Vendor It can be easily defined as the default extension registry Neutral Marketplace for for any technology or tool that supports VS Code Visual Studio Code Extensions extensions. Eclipse Open VSX provides a free marketplace for VS For more insight into why industry leaders are moving Code extensions that can be used with any technology beyond walled gardens to embrace Open VSX, read the or tool that supports them, including VS Code. Because Open VSX Registry white paper. the Open VSX source code is open to all, anyone can Options for Extending the adopt, adapt, and enhance the marketplace. Developers can contribute improvements to the marketplace, and Cloud Development Ecosystem organizations can host an internal extension registry Open up Even More Possibilities for the exclusive use of their developers. The Eclipse Cloud DevTools ecosystem includes a diverse set of technologies that extend and build on the The Open VSX Registry is the default extension capabilities delivered by Eclipse Theia and Eclipse Che: marketplace for Eclipse Theia, Gitpod, and VSCodium. • Eclipse Codewind extends industry-standard IDEs with features to write, debug, and deploy cloud native applications. Codewind can be used with the Eclipse IDE and Eclipse Che, as well as VS Code and IntelliJ.

• Eclipse Dirigible is a low-code cloud development platform that leverages an in-system programming model and rapid application development techniques to support the full development life cycle of on-demand applications. According to global research and advisory company, Gartner, by 2024, three-quarters of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for IT application development and citizen development initiatives. And low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65 percent of application development activity.3

• Eclipse EMF.cloud is a set of software tools and components that support developing domain- specific tools, data-centric tools, and modeling 3 OutSystems press release, December 4, 2019. COPYRIGHT (C) 2021, ECLIPSE FOUNDATION, INC. | THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE (CC BY 4.0) 9 Eclipse Foundation White Paper

tools in the cloud. EMF.cloud provides a migration Foundry targets. Eclipse Tools for Cloud Foundry path for existing tool chains based on EMF and helps users deploy and test applications on Cloud can be used to build cloud-based tools from the Foundry targets from within the Eclipse IDE. ground up. Eclipse Cloud DevTool • Eclipse GLSP is an extensible graphical language Technologies Solve server platform (GLSP) to build custom, web- Real-World Problems based diagram editors. The diagram editors Leading companies are putting their trust and names can be used on their own or integrated into web- behind open source cloud development technologies based IDEs such as Eclipse Theia and VS Code. hosted at the Eclipse Foundation. They’re using these

• Eclipse JKube provides a collection of plug- technologies for a variety of purposes and to solve ins and libraries for building container images myriad problems, including: using Docker, Jib (Docker-less), and S2I build • Workspace and container management, strategies. JKube simplifies cluster deployments as demonstrated in Red Hat CodeReady for cloud native applications. Workspaces and OpenShift

• Eclipse Orion provides components, services, • Embedded application development, as and libraries for building web-based development demonstrated in Arm Mbed Studio and Arduino tools. Orion includes browser client infrastructure Pro IDE built using web technologies, such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, as well as the server-side • Mainframe application development, as infrastructure needed by such development demonstrated in Broadcom CA Brightside

tools. • Task-based development environments, as

• Eclipse Sprotty offers a web-based diagramming demonstrated in Gitpod

framework that’s ideal for visualizing code, similar • Modeling and domain-specific tools with type hierarchies, component dependencies, and technologies such as Eclipse GLSP, EMF.cloud, other relationships. Sprotty can be used on its and Eclipse Sprotty that have been used by own, or combined with Eclipse Theia, Eclipse companies such as EclipseSource and TypeFox Xtext, Eclipse LSP4J, and Eclipse Layout Kernel in numerous projects (ELK).

• Eclipse Tools for Cloud Foundry provides an extensible framework and common user interface to deploy applications to different Cloud

A Vendor Neutral, Community-Based Approach to Open Source Software Offers Unique Benefits to Adopters

t’s important to note that all “free” software is not created equal. Free doesn’t necessarily mean there are no restrictions or risks associated with using the software. Depending on I the provider and how the software is licensed, there may be legal limitations around using or making code changes as well as around intellectual property management. Software quality and reliability are also important considerations. If structured processes were not applied during development, the software may not be suitable for enterprise or commercial use.

Enterprises and developers considering an open source All “free” software approach to cloud development tools should be aware is not created of the differences between truly open source, vendor equal. Free doesn’t neutral software that’s developed in a structured and necessarily mean well-governed way and software that’s simply free. To provide more insight into the key characteristics that there are no define truly open source software, let’s take a closer restrictions or risks. look at two areas where the projects hosted at the

Eclipse Foundation provide unique benefits: The same is not true for VS Code or the Visual Studio Marketplace. • Licensing While the VS Code repository on GitHub includes • Vendor neutral governance open source code under the MIT license, the VS Code For purposes of this discussion, we’ll compare Eclipse distribution is released under a proprietary Microsoft policies around Theia and Open VSX with Microsoft product license. This makes it difficult for companies policies around VS Code and the Visual Studio and communities other than Microsoft to use VS Code Marketplace. in their own products. Under the terms of use for the Eclipse Foundation Visual Studio Marketplace, only Microsoft VS products can access and use the extensions. Licensing Gives Developers Complete Freedom and Flexibility The Microsoft VS Code license also indicates the Anyone who adopts Eclipse Theia or Eclipse Open VSX software may collect information about how the can adapt, customize, and optimize the technologies software is used and who is using it, then send that for their own use and for commercial purposes. All data to Microsoft. The license makes it clear you can Eclipse Foundation hosted project technologies opt out of many telemetry data collection scenarios, are provided under the Eclipse Public License, a but not all. commercial-friendly, open source license approved Vendor Neutral Governance by the Open Source Initiative. Gives Developers Influence Over Technology Evolution The Eclipse Foundation has invested significant time and effort into developing structured processes and governance around community-based software development. For nearly two decades, these policies have proven to enable effective community collaboration and commercial success, even among competitors.

The vendor neutral hosting and governance at the Eclipse Foundation allows all community members to contribute to the code base and influence the way technologies evolve. This provides a level playing field, with no single community member having more influence or control over the software than any other member.

In contrast, VS Code and the Visual Studio Marketplace hobby for them. They are dedicated to ensuring the are completely controlled by Microsoft. While software they and their colleagues build on is stable developers and marketplace users can provide input and bug-free. into software evolution, Microsoft makes all final The Eclipse Foundation’s working group model also decisions. Anyone who relies on VS Code and the provides a highly effective support structure to Visual Studio Marketplace is dependent on Microsoft everyone in the ecosystem. As developers need help to continue supporting product evolution. or have questions, they have direct access to a broad Community Collaboration range of technology experts who are also often the Leads to Better Software people that contributed or committed the code. This When developers with different mandates, skill sets, is not often the case with single-vendor software. and experience collaborate to advance open source software, those who adopt the software enjoy benefits they could not achieve on their own. Building on, and customizing, an existing code base jump starts and accelerates development efforts. It also reduces software maintenance requirements and costs because maintenance responsibilities are shared by community members.

Furthermore, because the software is developed by a diverse range of innovative and highly motivated contributors, it reflects a broader set of interests, goals, and expertise. The software includes contributions that go beyond the scope and skill sets a single company typically possesses. As a result, the software is more likely to meet developer and corporate requirements than software developed by Because the software is a single entity. developed by a diverse range of innovative Open source projects hosted at the Eclipse Foundation and highly motivated also benefit from community feedback and bug contributors, it reflects a reports that lead to continuous improvements in software quality. Many developers at the Eclipse broader set of interests, Foundation represent their employers’ interests and goals, and expertise. contribute as part of their job. It’s far more than a

COPYRIGHT (C) 2021, ECLIPSE FOUNDATION, INC. | THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE (CC BY 4.0) 13 Eclipse Foundation White Paper Put the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Ecosystem to Work for Your Business

he Eclipse Cloud DevTools ecosystem offers an opportunity for anyone with an interest in cloud native development to collaborate on cloud tool innovation. With the depth T and breadth of technologies and members, synergies among projects are naturally identified, exploited, and expanded for the benefit of all participants. There’s also a natural connection to the broader Eclipse Foundation community, home to more than 400 open source software projects and numerous technology ecosystems.

There are many advantages to participating in the open There are benefits for all participants, whether they are source community, including new opportunities to build individuals or organizations: relationships. Cloud DevTools Working Group members • Individuals gain easy access to a supportive and ecosystem participants learn from one another, network of technical experts with whom they can while developing personal and strategic business collaborate and exchange ideas. relationships along the way. • Smaller organizations can increase their visibility, while leveraging a broad community to get products to market more quickly.

• Larger organizations benefit from the increased

agility enabled by the open source model.

Get Involved There are many ways to get involved in the Cloud DevTools community. Simply choose the level of involvement that fits your business needs today then adapt your involvement as your strategic and operational goals evolve:

• Explore Cloud DevTools projects to discover open source technologies you can use and contribute to.

• Report bugs and request enhancements to the software.

• Sign a contributor agreement to fix bugs and implement enhancements.

• Become an Eclipse Foundation member and join the Cloud DevTools Working Group to help shape its direction and strategic focus areas.

• Contribute a new project to the Cloud DevTools ecosystem. Benefits of Eclipse Foundation Membership All Eclipse Foundation members benefit from:

• Proven processes and best practices for open source software development

• Intellectual property management and licensing services that enable entrepreneurial collaboration and commercialization of open source software

• Mentorship, guidance, and expertise in creating and managing open source projects and in community building and support

• Marketing services that increase project visibility within the broader Eclipse Foundation ecosystem and beyond

Learn More Discover the benefits of the getting involved in the Eclipse Cloud DevTools ecosystem:

• To learn more about the Eclipse Cloud DevTools Working Group and our projects, explore our website.

• To learn more about the benefits of becoming an Eclipse Foundation member, visit ourmembership page.

Members

About the Eclipse Foundation The Eclipse Foundation provides its global community of individuals and organizations a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. The Foundation is home to the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, and more than 400 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, and frameworks for cloud and edge applications, IoT, AI, automotive, systems engineering, distributed ledger technologies, open processor designs, and many others. The Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit organization supported by more than 330 members, including industry leaders who value open source as a key enabler for their business strategies. To learn more, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, or visit eclipse.org.