X
Tech

Google sets 'perfect example' with $20,000 donation to Eclipse

The Eclipse Foundation hopes to be able to buy new hardware to kick-start a new performance-testing programme for its open-source development platform.
Written by Ben Woods, Contributor

Google has donated $20,000 (£12,500) to the Eclipse Foundation to help it establish a new testing infrastructure for the open-source development platform on Eclipse.org.

The foundation revealed the injection of funds on Monday, less than a week after the open-source project said it desperately needed new dedicated hardware to be able to re-establish performance testing for the Eclipse platform.

"The performance tests were turned off because the Eclipse platform team has a serious resource issue. The simple fact of the matter is that the Eclipse platform team is stretched well beyond what it can reasonably be expected to accomplish. This is not a new problem," the foundation's executive director Mike Milinkovich said in a blog post.

"There have already been a couple of very positive developments that have come out of this conversation. Google has stepped up and donated $20,000 towards the creation of a brand-new testing infrastructure," he added.

The money will be used to seed a performance regression testing programme. This used to be performed on releases, but was dropped for Eclipse 3.8 and 4.2 due to a lack of hardware and human resources.

The money comes from Google's Open Source Programs office. It is intended to be used specifically for seeding a new test lab and new hardware, but can also be used to support "the common-build infrastructure", Shawn Pearce from Google's Open Source Programs Office, said in an announcement.

Despite the donation, the Eclipse Foundation says it needs more resources to keep the project running smoothly.

"There are thousands of companies and millions of developers that make use of Eclipse every day. We need more of these companies to come forward to start participating in the core Eclipse platform. Google's contribution is a perfect example," Milinkovich wrote.

Editorial standards