The Object Teams project has moved to Eclipse.org

As of January 27, 2010, Object Teams has been approved as a new Eclipse project under the Eclipse Tools umbrella. For background about our application please see our proposal.

Why?

Our move to Eclipse.org signals a further step out off our former research niche towards the "real world". In moving to Eclipse.org we see the following advantages.

• Users of the Object Teams technology will get the full guarantee of IP-clean code — no surprises, no hidden clauses or unidentified licences. All Object Teams code will be approved as compliant with the Eclipse Public License.
• Eclipse.org as a platform will help interested parties to get involved in various ways like submitting bug reports and patches or contributing additional components.
• Communication with other developers at Eclipse, which is already quite good, will be improved in order to further streamline the integration of the OTDT with other technology at Eclipse – to the mutual benefit.
• We can leverage various channels for raising the visibility of the Object Teams approach in order to attract more users and adopters.
• We can leverage the infrastructure at Eclipse.org – be it our new forum, bugzilla, the build and download servers, you name it.
• Users are able to participate via forum, bugzilla or wiki using only one (perhaps existing) Eclipse bugzilla account.

What does it cost?

While we are not speaking of actual money transfers, we don't get this move completely for free.

• Object Teams officially goes back into an "incubation" phase. This implies that our initial releases from Eclipse.org must have versions below 1.0.0, so the next release after 1.4.0 (from objectteams.org) is called "0.7.0 (Incubation)".
• During incubation considerable efforts have gone into clearing all license matters. For legal aspects of the core contribution the project is ready for graduation to the mature phase.
• In order to avoid confusion we shall no longer actively use the objectteams.org web domain, with few exceptions mentioned below.

What are the implications?

For the web site www.objectteams.org:

This web site is essentially frozen in its current state. New content will only go to eclipse.org. However, the objectteams.org web site will remain online documenting the history, providing existing releases etc. Specifically, URLs to publications, to the OTJLD and to existing downloads will remain valid.

For the code base:

The project has started from a pristine new version repository (Eclipse doesn't accept full code histories from outside). The initial commits to eclipse servers happened in March 2010 as initial revisions with no history. However, the version history is actually a significant asset of the Object Teams project. Many design decisions are documented in the version history, specifically by cross-linking to Trac issues and test cases. For that reason also the existing SVN repository will remain online (as read-only). Specifically, some of the advantages of our Trac/SVN/Wiki combination with it's excellent integration can not easily be remodeled at Eclipse.org. At least for old content, however, all this will remain online.

For users:

We hope that the recent releases 1.3.2 and 1.4.0 will work for all users relying on Eclipse versions < 3.6M7. Starting from Eclipse 3.6M7 corresponding OTDT releases can be found via our new download page.
"Upgrading" the OTDT from 1.3.x or 1.4.0 to 0.7.0 will however not be possible — Eclipse (p2) would consider this as a downgrade and not offer such action. Additionally, all feature and plugin names have been changed from org.objectteams._ to org.eclipse.objectteams._. This implies that removal of the old OTDT and fresh install of the new version will be required for that step. We'll try to make this step as smooth as possible.
For upgrading existing projects please consult this howto and this N&N entry.

Where will I find ...?

The following resources are configured on Eclipse.org servers:

• Homepage (http://www.eclipse.org/objectteams), with sub pages:
  • Download
  • Documentation
  • Support
  • Getting Involved
  • Project Plan
• Forum (http://www.eclipse.org/forums/eclipse.objectteams)
  Note, that the previous mailing list otj-users@objectteams.org will no longer work.
• Wiki main page (http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category:Object_Teams)
• Anonymous SVN access (http://dev.eclipse.org/svnroot/tools/org.eclipse.objectteams or via ViewCVS)
• Bugzilla (http://bugs.eclipse.org) — (please use Classification "Tools" and Product "Objectteams", see hints under support)

Only the following resources are still being maintained at objectteams.org:

• Scientific publications
• The OT/J Language Definition (OTJLD)

What do you think?

Please feel free to comment on this or ask questions in our forum.

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