TLDR: EMF Forms is not deprecated, it is in
maintenance mode as indicated on the project website. Being on
the release train is far more than a couple of minutes of work
if we want to do it right. EMF Forms is very stable in terms
of API usage and there have been no compatibility issues for
many years. We therefore do not foresee any impact on adopters
when leaving the train. However, we want to leave the release
train early enough, not in a rush when there is actually a
real issue somewhere in the future.
Longer answer:
The issue is that it is actually not a few minutes if you
want to do it right. Being on the release train also means to
ensure its quality from my POV. Maybe a difference to other
projects is that we have UI contributions. As an example, the
UI components of the EMF Forms tooling are not looking good on
the dark theme that was introduced. This is not a real issue
for any existing user or adopters, but for people who look at
the release train or more precisely the EPP, this looks
unpolished. We need to spend significant resources on
maintaining the release train contribution, particularly on
testing. This is not about a few minutes.
We actually waited pretty long before taking this step and
maintained the contribution for over a decade. We want to be
more proactive with maintaining our contribution and not harm
the general quality of the train.
We don't expect typical users and adopters to be negatively
impacted by the decision to leave the release train. There has
not been any breakage with new Eclipse versions in projects we
know about in EMF Forms since many many years. This means use
cases in existing projects typically work well and are not
impacted. If there are any issues, there still are channels to
contact the community and us, in order to fix potential issues
and to produce new releases. But this is then based on
request, when it really is needed. We expect to test and fix
compatibility for known projects typically once per year.
However, we do not want to generically promise compatibility
for every new version and unknown projects without extensive
testing and without knowing there is a specific need by an
adopter.
I hope with this explanation, the decision makes more
sense. Alexander, we are of course happy for any contributions
and or comments!
I think the user base for EMFForms out in broader
community is significant. Also, I think the statement
that there isn't sufficient resource for builds nor for
the few minutes it takes to contribute such builds to
SimRel is a strong statement that the project is on the
way toward extinction. I'm not sure that's the message
you want for the community.
On 11.04.2024 10:55, Alexander Fedorov via
cross-project-issues-dev wrote:
Hello Eugen,
This is sad news, as Eclipse Passage project depend on
EMFForms quite tightly. However, our components that
require EMFForms are not in SimRel.
Nevertheless, our team is interested to see EMFForms
alive, either inside or outside SimRel.
Please feel free to contact me if there are actions to
maintain p2 repositories that are already overdue, may be
we can find a solution together.
Regards,
AF
11.04.2024 11:31, Eugen Neufeld via
cross-project-issues-dev пишет:
Hi,
EMFForms and thus ECP will drop from the release train
as we don’t have the resources to test the
contribution as we would like to.
We will maintain our project p2 repositories, so
EMFForms may be consumed from there.
There should be no effect on other projects. If we
missed one please let us know so we can find a
solution together.