The foundation seeks to build "the universal development platform," Milinkovich said.

"I think really a big part of the secret sauce of Eclipse is about balance," with participants building shared tools and frameworks and then developing a profitable ecosystem of commercial products on top of the Eclipse platform, Milinkovich said. Unlike the Sun Microsystems-led NetBeans open source platform, Eclipse offers a level playing field for participants, he said.

"The real answer of what I want to talk about today is I think Eclipse has discovered, perhaps invented, the secret sauce for getting organizations together that want to build open source. My dream for Eclipse is this becomes an institution that lasts long after I'm gone," Milinkovich said.

Eclipse previously has cited downloads well into the tens of millions.

Eclipse offers to all participants a Darwinian system of plug-in-based software extensions, with some plug-ins succeeding and others dying off, Milinkovich said. Participants each are on equal footing in the Eclipse process, with features governance, quality, process and predictability, he said.