| [ecf-dev] ECF 3.5 top-level features...for target platform usage |
Hi Folks,Currently ECF has essentially 1 top-level feature: Eclipse Communication Framework Target Components (formerly called the ECF SDK). This has traditionally had almost all of ECF from Eclipse Foundation...i.e. all the various APIs (remote services, discovery, call api, sync, shared object, presence, etc), as well as almost all the providers, the documentation, as well as the example apps (both Eclipse-based UI and no-ui examples).
Although convenient for usage for Eclipse installation (i.e. install everything into Eclipse), this feature is not at all convenient for people that want to add ECF to the target platform...e.g. for OSGi server-side remote services development...because it includes a lot of code that depends upon Eclipse UI and other things). One reason it's not convenient is that the target platform resolution (by default) has the 'Include required software' check box selected, and the current ECF Target Components requires parts of Eclipse. If the user de-selects 'Include required software' all the non-Eclipse parts of ECF (e.g. remote services) will be used/usable just fine once installed...but it would be much more convenient if the user could have 'Include required software' checked, and still easily install ECF/OSGi remote services for use in their target platform.
This is the use case I would like to simplify: Using ECF in non-Eclipse target platforms
I think we need a top-level feature (or features) to make it easier to add the non-Eclipse parts of ECF...specifically OSGi remote services...to a target platform that is not Eclipse (e.g. OSGi servers). I propose that we do this for ECF 3.5 release, as it would/will make consuming ECF/OSGi remote services (and remote services admin newly introduced) *much* easier for people using ECF for non-Eclipse target platforms.
Comments? I think we should discuss this some on the mailing list over the next few days...and at the next ECF conf call [1] we can discuss and decide.
Thanks, Scott[1] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_Communication_Framework_Project#Next_Conference_Call:__Monday.2C_February_21.2C_2010_-_1800_UTC.2F10:00am_pacific