Open governance for Langium

What is Langium?

Langium is a powerful language engineering toolkit designed specifically for the web. With built-in support for the Language Server Protocol (LSP), it seamlessly integrates with popular tools like VS Code and Eclipse Theia, as well as any web application. Visit our website at langium.org to explore online examples, get started with new projects, and access comprehensive documentation.

Why this move?

At TypeFox, our commitment lies in creating open-source technologies that seamlessly integrate into your custom toolchains with a long-term perspective. Beyond solid architecture and good software development practices, we believe in ensuring project code remains accessible and maintainable by the community. To achieve this, we have made the decision to place Langium under the governance of an open-source foundation, bringing numerous advantages:

• Preserving openness: Moving to the Eclipse Foundation guarantees that the project license will remain open, fostering transparency and ensuring Langium’s accessibility for all.
• Collaboration and clear rules: By joining the Eclipse Foundation, multiple parties can collaborate under clear rules, promoting a vibrant ecosystem of contributors and stakeholders.
• Community-driven strategy: Langium’s governance within the Eclipse Foundation operates on a merit-based principle, allowing the entire community to actively shape the project’s strategy.
• Enhanced adoption: Being part of the Eclipse Foundation amplifies Langium’s adoption within its existing ecosystem, opening doors for wider collaboration and integration possibilities.

Why Eclipse?

Eclipse is not known for a strong web development community, so you might ask why we chose this foundation. The origins of Eclipse are in the widely used Java IDE, which has also served as a platform for custom desktop tools in the last two decades. But the Eclipse Foundation did not stop there: it has grown into an umbrella organization for several initiatives and ecosystems. This includes IoT, automotive software, cloud dev tools and many others.

We have made good experiences with previous projects that have been started at TypeFox and later moved to Eclipse: Theia, Sprotty, LSP4J and Open VSX. These are part of a larger ecosystem of tools and frameworks for creating custom-tailored applications. Each of the projects can be used in isolation or be plugged together with other parts of the ecosystem to create awesome things. We see great value in Langium joining the same governance structure as the other projects. Among other benefits, this will greatly simplify efforts to secure the software supply chain, as the key components of the applications we build are rooted in an organization that takes security seriously.

What are the consequences?

Moving Langium to the Eclipse Foundation reinforces our commitment to advancing and maintaining the project. At the same time, it opens doors for interested parties to collaborate and contribute.

For the existing Langium community, not much will change. While the GitHub repository might be relocated to a different organization, the website, discussion forum and chat room will remain, and our passionate team will still be dedicated to supporting Langium’s growth and success.

Next steps

The Langium project proposal is now open for public review at projects.eclipse.org. We will work closely with Eclipse staff to facilitate a smooth transition, ensuring the repository move and setup align with the foundation’s processes. Our focus remains on making this transition as frictionless as possible.

In parallel, we are actively working on the v2.0 release, packed with exciting improvements. Our roadmap has lots of ideas for future work. And we adding more tools, integrations and examples such as an implementation of the SQL language. Stay tuned for more updates on our blog.

If you would like to have your organization listed as interested party, please comment on the project proposal. And if you are interested in supporting Langium but lack the capacity for direct contributions, we welcome you to get in touch with us regarding sponsoring new features or bug fixes.