I’m personally happy that the next Eclipse release will require Java 1.8 to run. See official email to the cross mailing list for the public announcement of this.

Several Eclipse projects like m2e and Jetty have already moved to Java 8. This moves allows us in the Eclipse platform to use the improved Java 8 API to modernize and optimize our code base and will hopefully make the Eclipse project even more interesting for potential Eclipse contributors.

After all, who wants to work in his unpaid time with an outdated Java version?