Eclipse On Demand
In my last post I suggested that the Eclipse community work on formalizing a web delivery platform which is capable of tying together the disparate offerings that are often used in conjunction with each other. Today, Ian over at the Eclipse Foundation was kind enough to point me to a pre-existing offering from a German company, Innoopract, called Yoxos (thanks for the heads up Ian) which is almost exactly what I identified as missing from their delivery strategy. FYI, Yoxos can be classed as a distribution service for the Eclipse community that offers information, downloads and updates for a variety of plugins over the web.
I decided to put together a follow-up entry not as a plug for Yoxos or even Innoopract (I didn't even know either existed before today) but because services of this nature are going to be critical in powering the next phase of growth for the open source software industry. Quite simply, they represent the next layer of added value atop the high quality open source software that is available right now. Yoxos has positioned itself as a single point of entry for a considerably vast Eclipse plugin ecosystem that continues to strengthen and expand. Granted the Eclipse community is significantly larger and more broadly focused than the average open source community, there are numerous commonalities inherent in the nature of open source software development which calls for better distribution channels.
Whether such channels are organic to the communities themselves, or are provided by companies like Innoopract, is almost irrelevant as open source products and projects grow in both size and in number. Both the various communities and companies involved with open source should begin to prepare to be in good position to capitalize upon what promises to be further increase in adoption rates for and methodology shifts toward open technologies. Establishing a solid approach (Web 2.0 based or not) to getting software in the hands of users/potential customers is definitely a good step in that direction.
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