Eclipse Foundation

The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, not-for-profit organization chartered in the European Union and headquartered in Belgium. It serves as a neutral steward for the Eclipse open-source software ecosystem, providing governance, intellectual-property management, community services, infrastructure, security coordination, and ecosystem development rather than operating as a conventional commercial software vendor. The organization grew out of the Eclipse Project, which IBM created in November 2001 with support from a consortium of software companies. In 2004, the Eclipse Foundation was established to provide the project with vendor-neutral governance and a transparent institutional home. This structure was intended to allow competing companies, independent developers, research organizations, and users to collaborate around shared code and specifications without placing the ecosystem under the exclusive control of one commercial sponsor. The Foundation is associated most closely with the Eclipse integrated development environment, a widely used development platform originally focused on Java programming. Its scope, however, is considerably broader than the IDE. It hosts hundreds of open-source projects and industry collaborations spanning enterprise Java, developer tooling, runtimes, cloud and edge computing, Internet of Things systems, automotive software, software-defined vehicles, embedded technology, modeling, artificial intelligence, digital ledgers, dataspaces, cybersecurity, and open processor design. Projects and initiatives in its ecosystem include Jakarta EE, Eclipse Temurin through the Adoptium Working Group, Eclipse Jetty, Eclipse GlassFish, Eclipse OpenJ9, Eclipse Theia, Open VSX, Eclipse Che, Eclipse ThreadX, Eclipse SUMO, Eclipse SDV, and projects stewarded with the OpenHW Foundation. Its project governance uses a hierarchical structure. Projects generally originate under a parent project and may contain subprojects, while projects without a parent are designated Top-Level Projects. The Foundation also operates working groups and industry collaborations that allow member organizations to coordinate investment, requirements, standards, specifications, and implementation work in specific sectors. Membership is organized into Strategic, Contributing, Associate, and Committer categories, with different participation and governance rights. Member organizations range from major technology companies and automotive manufacturers to universities, research bodies, public institutions, and specialist suppliers. The Foundation provides a specification process for projects such as Jakarta EE, Sparkplug, AsciiDoc, the Eclipse Dataspace Protocol, and cyber-resilience attestations. It also coordinates a centralized security program for hosted projects and infrastructure, including vulnerability disclosure, remediation procedures, and public security advisories. Since 2022, collaboration with the Alpha-Omega initiative has supported measures such as mandatory multi-factor authentication for maintainers, source-based software bills of materials, SLSA-oriented project badging, and security audits for prominent projects. Beyond software hosting, the Foundation supports community events including DemoCamps, hackathons, and conferences. Its flagship event is OCX. The organization also participates in research and public-policy initiatives, including Open Regulatory Compliance, which addresses the implications of regulation such as the European Union Cyber Resilience Act. In 2025, it joined an open letter calling for fundamental changes to the way infrastructure supporting open-source initiatives is funded, operated, and maintained. The Foundation remains active as a vendor-neutral platform for collaborative software development and open technology standardization.

The Eclipse Foundation emerged from the Eclipse Project, which IBM created in November 2001 with backing from a consortium of software vendors. Eclipse was initially best known as an extensible development environment, particularly for Java programming. Its open-source model was designed to attract a broad community of tool builders and developers, while the project’s original corporate sponsorship provided the resources needed to establish a substantial codebase and development platform. In 2004, the Eclipse Foundation was formed as an independent, not-for-profit organization to provide the project with neutral governance. Its creation separated stewardship of the community from the interests of any single vendor and established a framework in which commercial competitors, independent contributors, research organizations, and users could participate under common rules. The Foundation’s role included managing intellectual property, operating technical infrastructure, organizing community processes, and supporting the growth of projects derived from or related to Eclipse technology. Over time, the organization developed a formal project hierarchy. Projects are arranged around parent projects and subprojects, with Top-Level Projects occupying the highest level of the structure. This arrangement supports distinct technical communities while preserving consistent review, licensing, governance, and release practices. The Foundation also created working groups and industry collaborations so that companies and other stakeholders could coordinate investment and requirements around shared technology challenges. The Eclipse ecosystem expanded well beyond the original IDE. Its hosted portfolio came to include enterprise Java technologies such as Jakarta EE, runtimes and application servers such as Eclipse OpenJ9 and Eclipse GlassFish, web and networking components such as Jetty and Jersey, modeling and engineering tools, cloud and edge technologies, IoT platforms, embedded systems, automotive software, open processor projects, and emerging work in AI and dataspaces. The Foundation also became associated with the Adoptium Working Group and Eclipse Temurin, which support widely used Java runtimes and related technologies. The organization’s industry focus broadened particularly through initiatives such as Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle, which coordinates open-source automotive software development, and Eclipse Dataspace, which supports protocols and implementation components for interoperable data-sharing environments. Research @ Eclipse has helped transition publicly funded and collaborative research projects into open-source communities in areas including AI, security, cloud computing, embedded systems, IoT, dataspaces, and software-defined vehicles. Strategic cooperation with the OpenHW Foundation extended the Foundation’s activities into open RISC-V processor designs and associated research programs. Security and software supply-chain integrity became increasingly important parts of the Foundation’s operating model. It maintains a centralized security program that coordinates vulnerability reporting and remediation across hosted projects, publishes advisories, and provides policies for handling disclosed issues. A partnership with Alpha-Omega beginning in 2022 supported stronger maintainer authentication, automated software bills of materials, SLSA-based project badging, and audits of high-profile projects. The Foundation also participated in defensive-security work involving early access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview through that partnership. The Foundation maintains a membership model with Strategic, Contributing, Associate, and Committer categories. Strategic members provide substantial investment and receive board representation, while contributing members participate in project development and build products or services around Eclipse technology. Associate members can engage with the community without the same voting role, and Committer members represent the technical contributors who can commit code to projects. The organization supports its community through conferences, DemoCamps, hackathons, and other events, with OCX serving as its flagship event. By the mid-2020s, the Foundation hosted more than 450 open-source projects and approximately 20 industry collaborations. Its work continued to combine software stewardship, standards and specification development, infrastructure provision, security coordination, research commercialization, and cross-industry collaboration. In 2025, the Foundation joined an open letter advocating a fundamental change in the way open-source infrastructure is financed and maintained, reflecting its broader role in debates about the sustainability of the open-source ecosystem.

• 2025

  Eclipse Dataspace publishes two protocols

  [1]Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  The initiative released the Eclipse Dataspace Protocol and Eclipse Dataspace Decentralised Claims Protocol.

• 2022

  Alpha-Omega security partnership begins

  [1]Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  The partnership supported stronger security and software-supply-chain practices across Eclipse projects and infrastructure.

• 2013

  Research @ Eclipse is founded

  [1]Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  The Foundation established a research initiative intended to turn collaborative technical research into open-source innovation.

• 2004

  Eclipse Foundation is established

  [1]Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  The independent nonprofit Foundation was formed to provide vendor-neutral governance and institutional support for the Eclipse community.

• 2001

  IBM creates the Eclipse Project

  [1]Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  IBM launched the Eclipse Project with support from a consortium of software vendors, establishing the technical community from which the later Foundation developed.

Vendor-neutral, community-governed infrastructure and stewardship for collaborative open-source software, specifications, and industry innovation.

• Developer environment

  Eclipse IDE

  The Eclipse IDE is an extensible open-source development environment historically centered on Java programming. Its plug-in architecture allows developers and third parties to add language support, debugging tools, modeling features, testing capabilities, and integrations for different development workflows.

• Enterprise Java platform

  Jakarta EE

  Jakarta EE is the Eclipse Foundation’s vendor-neutral home for enterprise Java specifications and implementations. It provides a collaborative framework for APIs and platform technologies used to build, deploy, and operate enterprise applications across compatible runtimes.

• Java runtime

  Eclipse Temurin

  Eclipse Temurin is supported through the Adoptium Working Group, which promotes high-quality Java runtimes and related technologies across hardware and cloud environments. The initiative is intended to provide broadly usable, community-supported Java distributions.

• Web server and runtime

  Eclipse Jetty

  Eclipse Jetty is an open-source web server and Java-based HTTP and servlet container hosted within the Eclipse ecosystem. It is used as an embeddable component as well as a standalone server in applications and services.

• Application server

  Eclipse GlassFish

  Eclipse GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE-compatible application server. It provides a reference-oriented implementation environment for enterprise Java technologies and serves as an important project in the Jakarta EE ecosystem.

• Developer platform

  Eclipse Theia

  Eclipse Theia is an extensible framework for building desktop and browser-based development environments. It supports customizable tooling experiences and is related to the broader ecosystem of modern, web-enabled developer workspaces.

• Extension registry

  Open VSX

  Open VSX is an open registry and associated community infrastructure for editor extensions. The Open VSX Working Group provides governance, guidance, funding, and operational support for the registry and its surrounding ecosystem.

• Automotive software initiative

  Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle

  Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle is a Foundation working group focused on open-source software stacks and tooling for future vehicles. It brings automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and technology companies together around reusable components for vehicle software systems.

• Data interoperability initiative

  Eclipse Dataspace

  Eclipse Dataspace provides a collaborative home for open-source software, specifications, and governance models for scalable data-sharing environments. Its work includes protocols intended to support interoperability and trusted exchange across organizational boundaries.

• 2025Open-source infrastructure sustainability open letter

  Global

  The Foundation joined an industry open letter calling for changes to the funding, operation, and maintenance of the infrastructure on which open-source initiatives depend.

  Outcome. The letter publicly positioned the Foundation as an advocate for more sustainable open-source infrastructure, while no further outcome is specified in the reference material.

  Source

• 2022

  Strengthen open-source supply-chain securityStrategy

  Background

  Growing concern over software vulnerabilities and dependency supply chains increased the need for coordinated security practices across hosted projects.

  Action taken

  With Alpha-Omega support, the Foundation introduced or advanced maintainer multi-factor authentication, automated source-based software bills of materials, SLSA-oriented project badging, and security audits.

  Aftermath

  Security became a more formalized and centralized part of the Foundation’s stewardship model.

  Source

• 2004

  Adopt vendor-neutral nonprofit governanceStrategy

  Background

  The Eclipse Project needed an institutional structure that could support an open community without remaining under the direct control of IBM or another individual vendor.

  Action taken

  The Eclipse Foundation was established as an independent not-for-profit organization with formal project, membership, intellectual-property, and community-governance processes.

  Aftermath

  The arrangement enabled the Eclipse ecosystem to expand across multiple companies, technical domains, specifications, and industry collaborations.

  Source

1. 1Eclipse Foundationen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Eclipse Foundation official websiteeclipse.org