David-
Nice work with the document, I found it very informative!
In your conclusions you state "While it is likely quite suitable for 'enterprise use' ... it requires a lot of work to 'get right'.". I am working on basing our build infrastructure off of CBI, and have even requested a number of things like the jar signer Than developed (which works great for us too).
I have a number of questions based on your document and wasn't sure where to post them, so I'll send them off here.
When working with the early prototype, it was recommended that Platform "move some things around" for the repository structure. What was/is the recommended layout for the repository?
You stated "PDE provides a way to 'get the source', based on features. Tycho/Maven does not." Then continued on to casually mention refactoring repositories. Is the thought/implication that repositories (in general) should be more aligned/segmented by feature groups?
I also have some questions about the binary comparator and the differences in jar structure. But I do not understand enough about what the differences are in the first place, so I will look into that and then get back to you.
In all, my project currently uses CVS with a CruiseControl build and JNLP deployment. My goal is to move the project to Git with Hudson and p2, so there is a lot I can learn from the experiences at Eclipse which will help me convince people this is the right direction and provide a high level blueprint to get there.
Thanks,
JD