At a Glance:
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Involved in open source since: 2004
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Works for: Data in Motion
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Eclipse Foundation contributor since: 2015
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Involved in: OSGi Working Group, OSGi Technology, OSGi Specification, Eclipse Daanse, Eclipse sensiNact
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Committer to: All of the above
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Eclipse Foundation committer since: 2019
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Fun fact: A 27-year Taekwondo veteran, Jürgen is also a big Douglas Adams fan. His daughter was very nearly born on October 10, 2010 (she was actually born on October 1), and translating 10/10/10 into binary produces 42, a familiar number to any Adams fan.
Can you tell me a bit about your background as a developer?
Around 20 years ago, I studied a program called internet business engineering, which was kind of a mix of business administration and software development. Quite early during my studies, I started working for several different software companies developing software, and in 2010 I founded my own company, Data in Motion.
I mostly focus on back-end systems, particularly modular systems in Java, which is why I’ve been an evangelist for and participant in the Open Source Gateway Initiative (OSGi) for a long time. I’m also very interested in model-driven development using EMF as a modelling framework.
How did you get involved with open source and the Eclipse Foundation?
I’ve been a user of open source from the start, and some of my first use of open source was Eclipse software. Like many developers, I started out using the Eclipse IDE. Shortly after founding my company, I started helping out a bit with some Eclipse projects.
During my early days as a developer, basically everything I worked on was based on open source libraries and software. Over the years I started digging into the libraries I used and over time became active in the projects themselves.
I also ended up attending EclipseCon, which gave me the chance to meet some of the people who produced the code I used, who encouraged me to get more involved. They gave me some more insight into the process of becoming a contributor, a committer, and so on.
But the biggest step was definitely the migration of the OSGi Alliance to the Eclipse Foundation, which happened five years ago. I was part of the process, and when that project moved over, I started getting really close to the foundation and its staff.
How would you describe your experience as a committer?
I would say my background helped quite a bit. I was already familiar with open source in general and the Eclipse Foundation in particular. In my company most of the code we wrote was and is open source, so becoming a committer in a well-managed Eclipse EF Pproject was kind of natural. And as CEO of my own company, I was already quite comfortable acting in a leadership role, so making the step to a member and later chair of a Steering Committee was also not that big.
Working on open source projects is pretty much always a great experience, and the Eclipse Foundation is no exception. Everyone involved wants to be there, and being part of a volunteer army means you get to work with a lot of committed and enthusiastic people, which is awesome.
And the foundation itself is excellent. It provides a pretty loose framework but the technology stack in the background as well as the established processes for doing things makes the process of contributing and collaborating quite straightforward nowadays.
What first drew you to the foundation?
Something I’ve learned over the years is that there are many different kinds of open source. For example, there’s a lot of single-vendor open source projects, where one vendor has contributed to the project and maintains strict control over it, updating it only when it is convenient for them or when they’re paid to.
So, I would argue that’s not really open source, and one thing we wanted was to make sure we did it correctly. The truth is that to do real open source, you have to give up some control. But that’s really the beauty and power of open source. Giving up control is how you get the best results. And the really great thing about the Eclipse Foundation is that the constraints that exist in it are meant to ensure good-quality open source.
A personal pet peeve of mine is seeing companies take advantage of open source but never contribute to it. We’ve been an advocate for open source even with our own customers, encouraging them to contribute to whatever they’re using.
What particular goals do you have as a community member?
We currently have a project proposal called Eclipse Fennec under review, which would be an incubator for OSGi and EMF projects by transforming EMF functionalities into an OSGi service compliant version.
We’re also moving a lot of our work to the Eclipse Foundation. One project we’re working on is a smart city project for an urban data platform, which could potentially become an Eclipse Foundation project down the road.
Personally, I also want to try to take on even more as an ambassador role for open source. We work a lot in the public sector, and here in Germany, the federal government really wants to ensure that the products of public funds are public goods. Which, in a word, means open source. But for a lot of companies, it seems difficult. They’re a little bit lost in terms of what that means for them and how it can benefit them. So that’s something I want to help with and hope to steer things in that direction.
Any advice for someone looking to get more involved?
Don’t be afraid. It can seem daunting to get involved with a project, especially a large and well-established one.
But these projects live and die by contribution. Everyone’s happy to have more people get involved, and we love to see someone come in and want to help.
Start with something small: open an issue, open a pull request, or help out with documentation. From there you’ll get more and more comfortable, and everyone will be happy.