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Allow plug-in deactivation. In order to scale to a large number of plug-ins, Eclipse does not activate a plug-in until its code is actually needed. However, once activated a plug-in remains active for the remainder of the session. Unfortunately, this means that an active plug-in will occupy memory space for its code and objects even if it is only used occasionally. Many users have sessions lasting days or weeks, and this bloat taxes processor memory and JVM performance. The analogy is a long play where the actors enter the stage on cue, but cannot leave it until the play is over. The Eclipse Platform should support plug-ins that can be safely deactivated when the user needs to recover valuable memory space. Another alternative is to provide a way to quietly shutdown and restart the Platform. [Platform Core, Platform UI] [Theme: Rich client platform]
Plug-in deactivation is now a part of the SDK with the availability of the new OSGi based runtime. Moving to JM for comment/closure.
The new Eclipse runtime allows plugins to be stopped at various points during a session. Furhter work is needed by plugins at large to become dynamic aware in that they should forget about plugins that are going away. Without this, the memory allocated to a deactivated plugin (e.g., though its classloader) will not be recovered. This work will be incremental and ongoing over future releases.
