Life at Eclipse

I just got home from Germany after a whirlwind trip to join the Eclipse Democamps in Hamburg and Berlin. And now it’s time to head back already. Next week is the Open Forum in Stuttgart, and I have the great honour of joining an all star cast of keynotes including Dr. Willibert Schleuter (Audi), Harald Hönninger (Bosch) and Prof. Dr. Manfred Broy (Technical University Munich).

Open Forum is a new event that came about after successfully co-hosting the Eclipse Embedded Day and SPICE Days Conference in Stuttgart the last two years. The focus of the event is how open source organizational methods need to be adopted by enterprises. Enterprises which are today confronted by the twin challenges of ever-accelerating demands for innovation, and the fact that it is now largely software which is driving brand value and differentiation amongst consumers. Imagine the difficulty those challenges pose to companies which for nearly a century have prided themselves on mechanical and manufacturing excellence. Organizations like Eclipse offer them an interesting proof point that open source methods can be used to deliver high-quality, innovative software on a predictable schedule. As we just recently showed again when we shipped Indigo.

I am looking forward to this event, as it is well outside my normal open source comfort zone. It will be fascinating to talk with a community grappling with how to apply the lessons of open source to the next wave of innovation in industrial methods.