Re: [ecf-dev] file-based discovery

[Markus Alexander Kuppe <ecf-dev_eclipse.org@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/01/2011 06:29 PM, Scott Lewis wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Part of the Remote Service Admin specification is what is called the
> 'Endpoint Description Extender Format'.    This is essentially an xml
> file format that allows Endpoint Descriptions (meta-data about a remote
> service endpoint) to be read from an xml file.  See [1] section 122.8.
> 
> This endpoint description extender format essentially replaces (and
> obsoletes) the ECF file-based discovery [2].   This old format came from
> the work on RFC 119 in the OSGi enterprise experts group, and the
> implementation that ECF has been using was originally contributed by
> some great folks at Siemens...along with some integration work by Markus
> and myself.
> 
> In moving over to use/support RSA, I would like to *remove* the current
> file-based discovery mechanism from ECF 3.5...in favor of the standard
> Endpoint Description Extender Format (which is supported by the new ECF
> RSA implementation code).  This will mean that existing ECF remote
> service clients that use the old file-based discovery would need to move
> to using the new EDEF format, and that the old version of those ECF
> implementation plugins will not work with ECF 3.5 remote services (which
> is now based upon RSA [3]).
> 
> I think it will be better to eliminate the support for the old format in
> favor of the OSGi RSA standard format, rather than keeping both
> active/available.  Although this will imply some work by everyone
> involved (i.e. me/us/ECF contributors as well as consumers), it doesn't
> seem feasible to me to continue supporting the old (non-standardized)
> format when a standard exists and is now fully supported by ECF.  Also,
> I don't think it's going to be possible to continue for me or other ECF
> committers to support the code that reads/manipulates the old format.
> 
> So, first...any comments about this decision (i.e. to remove support for
> the old format from ECF remote services...in favor of the EDEF that's in
> the RSA implementation)?
> 
> Second...at a certain point it will make sense to remove this project
> from the ECF hudson build:
> 
> https://build.ecf-project.org/hudson/job/C-HEAD-discovery.local.feature/
> 
> because this feature (discovery local) is no longer necessary...and in
> fact some of the dependencies that it has (on the old ECF remote
> services implementation) are now gone...meaning that this code won't
> continue to compile against master (that's why it's failing now).  So in
> essence what I would like to do is remove this project from the Hudson
> build.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Scott
> 
> [1] http://www.osgi.org/download/r4v42/r4.enterprise.pdf
> [2] http://wiki.eclipse.org/File-based_Discovery
> [3] ECF RSA support/plan bug: 
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=324215

+1 unless somebody from the community steps up and a) fix the current
compile errors b) agrees to maintaine the code base in the future.

Markus