Hudson (software)
| Company type | Open-source software |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software development, Continuous integration |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder | Kohsuke Kawaguchi |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Continuous integration system |
| Owner | Oracle Corporation (until 2012), then Eclipse Foundation |
Hudson was a continuous integration (CI) system developed in Java that operated within servlet containers such as Apache Tomcat and GlassFish. It provided compatibility with various Source Control Management platforms, including CVS, Subversion, Git, Perforce, Clearcase, and RTC. The tool supported building projects through multiple methods like Apache Ant, Apache Maven, shell scripts, and Windows batch files. The primary developer, Kohsuke Kawaguchi, created Hudson at Sun Microsystems and released it under the permissive MIT License as open-source software.
Build execution could be initiated by scheduled triggers, dependent build completion, or direct URL access.
By 2008, Hudson had emerged as a favored alternative to existing open-source build servers such as CruiseControl, earning the Duke's Choice Award at the JavaOne conference that year.
Following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the company aimed to trademark the Hudson name and develop a proprietary edition. This led most contributors, including Kawaguchi, to fork the codebase into a new project called Jenkins in early 2011. Oracle continued Hudson’s development independently, while the Jenkins community regarded Hudson as the forked project.
After this division, Hudson experienced a significant drop in user engagement. At the end of 2012, Oracle transferred Hudson’s intellectual property to the Eclipse Foundation. Since that handover, Hudson has not been actively maintained and was officially declared obsolete in February 2017. The original Hudson website was taken offline on January 31, 2020.
Plugins
Hudson's architecture allowed extensive extensibility via plugins, many of which were publicly accessible to enhance its capabilities beyond basic Java build automation. These plugins facilitated integration with numerous version control systems, issue tracking tools, and diverse build utilities. Additionally, they provided options to tailor Hudson’s user interface and functionality.
The system could generate test result reports in various formats, including native support for JUnit, presenting these results with trend graphs within its graphical user interface.
Hudson–Jenkins split
In late 2010, conflicts emerged over Oracle’s stewardship of Hudson, particularly concerning ownership of the "Hudson" trademark. Oracle filed for trademark registration in December 2010. In response, on January 11, 2011, project contributors suggested renaming the initiative to "Jenkins," a proposal that was ratified by vote on January 29, 2011, thus establishing the separate Jenkins project. Oracle declared on February 1, 2011, its plan to continue developing Hudson independently from Jenkins.
Move to Eclipse Foundation
On May 3, 2011, the Eclipse Foundation, together with key Hudson developers, Oracle, Sonatype, and members of the community proposed migrating Hudson’s core codebase and trademark ownership to Eclipse. Founder Kohsuke Kawaguchi regarded this transition as an endorsement of Jenkins’ progress while noting Oracle’s unwillingness to transfer trademark rights. On January 23, 2013, Eclipse formally announced that Hudson version 3 had been incorporated into its foundation.