title: Why does Ubuntu 14.04 stick with (old) Eclipse 3.8 when 4.3 is out?
body: <p>Ubuntu is usually a cutting edge distro. But why does it stick to a 2011 version of Eclipse when we are 4 years into <code>4.x</code> development?</p>
  
  <p>It's not even optional and cannot be installed from the repositories. And it's not 'easy' from a download either. For some reason, the Java SE 7 reference implementation, OpenJDK, is not enough, and you need the Oracle version. Why? This isn't available from the repo's either, and you need some weird untrusted 3rd party repo for that or follow a whole chapter on <a href="http://terminaltwister.com/installing-oracle-java-7-sdk-on-ubuntu-13-04/">how to install it yourself</a>.</p>
  
  <p>There were problems three years ago. When <code>Juno 4.2</code> came out, it had a lot of <a href="http://www.jroller.com/andyl/entry/something_is_really_broken_with">performance issues</a>. Eclipse Director Mike Milinkovich <a href="http://mmilinkov.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/juno-performance/">explains</a> one of the reasons is lack of funding. For the first time in a major release:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><em>"The performance test were turned off because the Eclipse platform team has a serious resource issue."</em></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>For that reason, developers released <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_ide#cite_note-15">unnamed and unpromoted</a> version <code>3.8</code> simultaneously with <code>4.2</code> to bridge the gap for this (hopefully) temporary problem, and it's popularity caused a notable <a href="http://ianskerrett.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/eclipse-community-survey-results-for-2013/">trend downwards</a> amongst developers. As one <code>Eclipse b3</code> developer <a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/09/eclipse-juno-performance">mentioned</a>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><em>"I was stunned by the performance improvement after the switch. The 3.8 platform is much MUCH faster"</em></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The <code>3.8</code> release is still a popular alternative to the <code>4.x</code> branch among developers (ask my colleagues or google), I think mainly because of (genuine) trust issues. But the bridge (read: support for <code>3.8</code>) has closed now that <code>4.3</code> is released. </p>
  
  <p>The core problems (funding and developers) have not been fixed though, as seen by Google's <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/google-sets-perfect-example-with-20000-donation-to-eclipse-7000003968/">gesture of donating money</a> to the Eclipse Foundation in the hopes that other companies will follow suit. Does this mean that <code>4.3</code> is still not up to par with the <code>3.x</code> standards?</p>
  
  <p>This is not a problem with a plugin or a feature for a specific language, this is a <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=362718">problem</a> within the core of the platform itself. (But I'm using WST with Javascript and V8 plugins for PHP and Node development in particular.)</p>
  
  <p>This is not a specific platform problem either. There are <a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=385272">similar complaints</a> from Linux, Windows, and OSX users. (But I'm using Linux (Mint 13).)</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>On the one hand you have people telling the EOL for <code>3.8</code> <em>"proves"</em> that <code>4.3</code> is fine now. On the other hand (see comments):</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><em>"I've moved back to 3.8 due to constant crashes on ubuntu with 4.3"</em></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><code>3.8</code> is far from problem-free and I wouldn't mind to get a smoother development experience. So I am wondering, why is Eclipse 4 <em>'kept from us'</em> by the people who decide what software versions are <em>'good for us'</em> (AKA what goes into the official repository)?</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>lucid (10.04 LTS)
  
  <ul>
  <li>Eclipse 3.5.2-2</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>precise (12.04 LTS)
  
  <ul>
  <li>Eclipse 3.7.2-1</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>raring (13.04)
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>Eclipse 3.8</strong>.1-1</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>saucy (13.10)
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>Eclipse 3.8</strong>.1-4</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>trusty (14.04 LTS)
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>Eclipse 3.8</strong>.1-5.1</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>utopic (14.10)
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>Eclipse 3.8</strong>.1-5.1</li>
  </ul></li>
  </ul>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Update 2014-05-30:</strong> I just tried Kepler (again) and it still suffers from UI glitches out of the box. E.g.:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uzofw.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>And no, changing the inactive window toolbar background color in preferences does <em>not</em> fix this. (Even if it would, this would be a silly default choice).</p>
  
  <p>I would like to know, from someone who is not positively or negatively biased because of their own highly specialized and tweaked workflow - preferably from someone with experience in the Ubuntu package maintaining process for non-trivial packages - <em>why</em> this decision is made by a team of professionals who know what they are doing for the most widely used Linux distribution out there?</p>