The Eclipse Foundation and the ORC Working Group launch ORC Learning Hub to help open source developers, maintainers, and software teams prepare for the Cyber Resilience Act. Tuesday, June 30, 2026 - 06:03 by Natalia Loungou BRUSSELS - 30 JUNE 2026 - The Eclipse Foundation, one of the world's largest open source software foundations, in collaboration with the Open Regulatory Compliance (ORC) Working Group, today announced the launch of the ORC Learning Hub, a free global education initiative designed to help the people responsible for building, maintaining, securing, and governing open source software prepare for the European Union's Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The program provides practical, role-specific training for open source developers, maintainers, contributors, project stewards, product teams, security and compliance professionals, OSPO leaders, and legal teams. While the CRA is a European regulation, its impact is global. Any organisation that distributes or commercialises software-enabled products in the EU market, including those built on open source, must comply with its requirements. Open source is now nearly universal in modern software, with more than 96% of commercial codebases containing open source (OpenLogic 2026 State of Open Source Report). As a result, the need for clear, actionable guidance is urgent across the global software industry. The CRA changes the rules for how software is developed and delivered globally," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. "Because open source is part of almost every modern application and system, CRA readiness has to happen where software is actually built. The ORC Learning Hub helps developers, maintainers, project stewards, and software teams understand what the CRA requires and put that knowledge into practice. Developed by the ORC Working Group and hosted by the Eclipse Foundation, the ORC Learning Hub brings together expertise from across the open source ecosystem, industry, and regulatory domains. It delivers open source-focused training to help organisations understand how the CRA applies in real-world scenarios and what actions they need to take. With the first CRA obligations set to take effect in September 2026, organisations face a narrowing window to prepare. Until now, guidance has been fragmented and largely high-level, particularly when it comes to open source software. The ORC Learning Hub addresses this gap by delivering clear, actionable, and role-specific education aligned with modern, open source-driven software development practices. The Cyber Resilience Act introduces mandatory cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements sold in the EU, including those built with or dependent on open source software. It places new responsibilities on manufacturers and distributors of such products in the European market. The CRA also introduces a new actor, the open source software stewards, which must adopt secure development practices, ensure transparency, and manage vulnerabilities across the entire software supply chain. At the core of the ORC Learning Hub is a modular training program designed to guide organisations through CRA readiness step by step. The full program includes: * Module 1: Introduction to the CRA for Open Source Software * Module 2: Introduction to the CRA for Manufacturers * Module 3: SBOMs and Vulnerability Management in Open Source * Module 4: CRA Due Diligence and Open Source Usage * Module 5: Vulnerability Management in Practice The Learning Hub launches with Modules 1 and 2 available today, providing tailored entry points for: * Open source developers, maintainers, contributors, and project stewards * Product teams, security and compliance professionals, OSPO leaders, and legal teams Additional modules covering SBOMs, due diligence, and vulnerability management will soon be released. The ORC Learning Hub is designed to: * Help developers, maintainers, project stewards, and software teams understand what the CRA means for their work * Clarify how CRA obligations apply to open source software, communities, and downstream product development * Provide role-specific guidance for manufacturers, developers, maintainers, OSPOs, security teams, and legal/compliance professionals * Help organisations operationalise CRA readiness across modern, open source-based software supply chains * Support global collaboration on emerging regulatory best practices The ORC Learning Hub is free and available globally. Organisations and open source stakeholders are encouraged to begin preparing now, ahead of the September 2026 deadline, and to stay engaged as new modules and guidance are released. The program is available at https://orcwg.org/training/ About the ORC Working Group. The Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group (ORC WG) brings together open source foundations, global enterprises, and industry stakeholders to address the growing impact of software regulations on open source. With more than 60 members, ORC develops best practices, specifications, and practical resources to help organisations navigate evolving regulatory requirements. Its initial focus is the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), while supporting the long-term security, sustainability, and adoption of open source innovation worldwide. About the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse Foundation provides a global community of individuals and organisations with a vendor-neutral, business-friendly environment for open source collaboration and innovation. Eclipse Foundation host Adoptium, the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, Open VSX, Software Defined Vehicle, and more than 400 high-impact open source projects. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Eclipse Foundation is an international non-profit association supported by over 300 members. Its events, including Open Community Experience (OCX), bring together developers, industry leaders, and researchers from around the world. To learn more, follow Eclipse Foundation on X and LinkedIn, or visit eclipse.org. Media contacts: Schwartz Public Relations Julia Rauch/Luca Myska Sendlinger Straße 42A 80331 München +49 (89) 211 871 -43/ -52 514 Media Ltd (France, Italy, Spain) Benoit Simoneau M: +44 (0) 7891 920 370 Nichols Communications (Global Press Contact) Jay Nichols +1 408-772-1551

Eclipse IDE 2026-06 adds Java 26 support and developer tooling updates. * By John K. Waters * June 15, 2026 Key takeaways. * Eclipse IDE 2026-06 (Eclipse 4.40) adds support for Java 26 and delivers updates across Java tooling, debugging, Git integration, plug-in development, and the broader Eclipse platform. * The release continues Eclipse's quarterly modernization strategy with incremental improvements that help developers stay aligned with the OpenJDK release cadence. * Beyond the IDE itself, the update benefits the broader Java ecosystem by providing an updated foundation for commercial tools, specialized developer environments, and enterprise platforms built on Eclipse. The Eclipse Foundation has released Eclipse IDE 2026-06, the second quarterly simultaneous release of the Eclipse IDE platform this year, with support for Java 26 and updates across the Java platform, Git, plug-in development, and modeling ecosystems. The release, also known as Eclipse 4.40, became available June 1 and includes 63 participating projects, according to the Eclipse Foundation's New & Noteworthy notes. The Eclipse IDE site describes the release as supporting Java 26 and providing the tooling needed for development on the latest Java release. It also lists Java tooling improvements, including better debugging through statement-level step filtering and bytecode instruction highlighting, improved watch expression creation using the correct evaluation context from the variables view, and a new formatter option for new lines around Java text blocks. For Java developers, the update is less about a single headline feature than continued alignment with the Java release cadence. As OpenJDK moves through six-month releases, IDEs must keep pace with new language features, runtime behavior, debugging needs, and formatting options. The release also includes platform improvements aimed at day-to-day usability. The Eclipse IDE site highlights theme and styling enhancements, including a bullet-style dirty indicator for unsaved changes, removal of the classic theme, improved multi-expression pasting in the expressions view, and modernized compare editor defaults. Plug-in developers also receive updates, including Target Platform Editor improvements, display of installable unit IDs, a copy action in the content tab, and a new quick fix for adding compatible version ranges to required bundles and packages. Although Eclipse no longer dominates developer mindshare as it did in earlier eras of Java development, it remains important for enterprise teams, tooling vendors, embedded systems developers, and organizations that build commercial development environments on top of the Eclipse platform. That platform role is part of the significance of the 2026-06 release. Eclipse is not only an IDE used directly by developers. It is also a foundation for specialized tooling, including vendor-specific IDEs, Spring tooling, modeling environments, plug-in ecosystems, and industry-specific development products. The Eclipse IDE site emphasizes that the platform remains free and open-source under the Eclipse Public License 2.0 and highlights its extensibility via the Eclipse Marketplace. For readers of Application Development Trends, the release is likely to matter most in two ways. First, teams using Eclipse directly gain updated Java tooling and platform improvements. Second, vendors and enterprise teams building on Eclipse get another quarterly platform refresh aligned with the broader Java ecosystem. The release is also part of a larger pattern across Java tooling. In recent weeks, planning for Kotlin, Gradle, Spring Tools, JDK 27, and JDK 28 has all moved forward, suggesting that the Java ecosystem is continuing to modernize through steady tooling, build, runtime, and platform updates rather than a single large disruptive shift. For Eclipse users, Eclipse IDE 2026-06 is an incremental upgrade. For the broader Java ecosystem, it is another sign that foundational development tools are being updated to support a faster, more automated, and more platform-diverse software development environment. John K. Waters is the editor in chief of a number of Converge360.com sites, with a focus on high-end development, AI and future tech. He's been writing about cutting-edge technologies and culture of Silicon Valley for more than two decades, and he's written more than a dozen books. He also co-scripted the documentary film Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, which aired on PBS. He can be reached at [email protected].

Eclipse PanEval: advancing AI evaluation standards in Europe and beyond. by Michael Berns Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 22:12 * home * blogs * Michael Berns's blog * Eclipse PanEval: advancing AI evaluation standards in Europe and beyond. With the EU AI Act set to come into force in August 2026, Europe is entering a new phase in how artificial intelligence is governed and evaluated. Transparency and rigorous benchmarking of General-Purpose AI (GPAI) models are becoming not just best practices, but regulatory requirements. In response, the Eclipse Foundation is proud to announce Eclipse PanEval, an open source initiative designed to support transparent, standardised AI evaluation. A European initiative in a global landscape. PanEval emerges within a growing global ecosystem of AI evaluation efforts. It builds on the FlagEval framework, originally initiated by the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI), while establishing an independent European implementation tailored to regional requirements. Rather than replicating existing systems directly, PanEval adapts this foundation to address Europe's specific needs around governance, regulatory compliance, and linguistic diversity. This includes alignment with the EU AI Act, as well as a strong emphasis on data autonomy and transparency. This approach enables PanEval to contribute to the broader evolution of AI evaluation practices while remaining fully grounded in European institutional and regulatory contexts. From regulation to implementation. The EU AI Act introduces a risk-based framework for artificial intelligence, banning certain uses, imposing strict requirements on high-risk systems, and establishing transparency mandates for GPAI models to protect safety and fundamental rights. These requirements create a clear need for objective, standardised evaluation mechanisms. An AI evaluation framework functions much like an objective 'exam' for these models, using defined datasets and metrics to assess performance, safety, robustness and bias. PanEval provides this framework as an open source, vendor-neutral resource, enabling organisations to demonstrate transparency and support compliance with emerging regulatory expectations. By translating policy requirements into practical technical workflows, PanEval helps bridge the gap between regulation and implementation. Technical foundation: independent and scalable. PanEval builds upon the advanced capabilities of the FlagEval codebase to offer a robust "evaluation-as-a-service" platform capable of handling complex benchmarking workloads across large-scale AI models, including Large Language Models (LLMs). While it builds on concepts and architecture established in FlagEval, PanEval maintains an independent codebase and development path. This architectural de-coupling serves as a deliberate "de-risking" strategy, allowing the European codebase to adapt specifically to local requirements and regional standards without being tied to a 1:1 identical core. The platform supports multi-dimensional evaluation, moving beyond simple accuracy to include metrics on safety, bias, and robustness. Its architecture is optimized for high-performance and high-concurrency workloads, enabling scalable and repeatable evaluation across diverse use cases. For developers and deployers operating in Europe, this provides a transparent and reproducible path to verify that models align with the technical documentation standards required by upcoming regulations. Neutrality and governance by design. PanEval is hosted under the Eclipse Foundation, ensuring vendor-neutral governance and open, meritocratic participation. This structure is critical for building trust in AI evaluation infrastructure. All project technical assets and trademarks are managed within a transparent, community-driven process, enabling contributions from industry, academia, and independent developers on equal footing. No single organization controls the direction of the project, reinforcing its role as a shared resource for the broader ecosystem. This model aligns closely with the expectations of regulators and stakeholders seeking trustworthy, independent mechanisms for evaluating AI systems. The road ahead: Beijing and Paris. PanEval is launching with a clear focus on community development, technical maturity, and alignment with emerging regulatory needs. Further details on the project's roadmap and technical direction will be shared at upcoming industry events, including the Global Open Source AI Innovation Forum on March 27, 2026 and GOSIM in Paris this May. As AI systems continue to evolve, the need for open, transparent, and globally relevant evaluation standards will only grow. PanEval represents a step toward meeting that need, anchored in European values, while contributing to a broader international dialogue on responsible AI. The Eclipse Foundation invites developers, researchers, and organisations to participate in shaping PanEval and advancing open approaches to AI evaluation.