The wiki page is good. Questoin. Is there a correlation between the
problem numbers (1,2, 3) and the sceanios? or between the scenarios in
the different solutions? It would be easier to compare and discuss if
there were.
Jeff
Timothy Webb wrote:
Mark,
Great question!
To help get the ball rolling on understanding the problem, I've created
a new Wiki page with some initial thoughts and where we can level-set
our collective understanding of the issues at hand.
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.org_Downloads_Accessibility
Does this work for you / the group at large?
Tim
On Jul 14, 2008, at 11:18 AM, Mark Russell wrote:
Tim:
I like what you are saying. What is the best way to go forward with
your idea?
Timothy Webb wrote:
Jeff,
I agree that the more general improvements
of Eclipse.org are out of scope for EPP. This was the main reason I
had suggested and still support splitting out the work for Eclipse.org
from the EPP project. In looking at the genesis of this idea, there
was the concern about the ease for end-users to download and access
software from Eclipse.org. As there are two entry points to this
problem, users looking to download Eclipse and have us offer add-ons,
and users that want to try out a particular technology, I believe we
should step back and evaluate the different needs before jumping into a
specific technical solution.
Problem 1:
- User wants to download Eclipse and we'd
like to offer optional components
Problem 2:
- User wants to download Eclipse technology
X and we'd like to make that easy
I recognize there may be some existing work
in a RAP-based EPP Wizard prototype that could help in part of this
implementation and I am suggesting before we start limiting what we can
potentially do based on a particular prototype, that we understand the
larger problem first. Once we understand the context of what we need
to solve, finding an efficient and quick way to solve the problem will
be simpler -- whether it's via some simple PHP code for a light weight
solution or choosing to build on the EPP Wizard as you've proposed.
Tim
On Jul 14, 2008, at 9:12 AM, Jeff McAffer
wrote:
AFAIK, not much has happened on the EPP
wizard since the original posts etc. We should restart this work in
the near future.
Tim, your scenario is interesting. In my
mind right now however it is beyond the scope of what we are trying to
do in EPP. EPP is about the packaging and, in a sense, the initial
discovery and acquisition of the packages. The server side element of
this (actually the whole thing) is intended to be quite light. The
sort of thing you describe may be enable by dragging and dropping "IU
URLs" from the web to some p2 facility for example.
Jeff
Timothy Webb wrote:
Jochen,
Thank you for the detailed response.
It sounds as if we are looking at similar aspects of the same problem
and I agree with the areas you've listed though I do believe there is
one more case that can be solved at the same time with about the same
work level.
The two key areas you listed were:
- offer the possibility to alter the
predefined packages on the fly
with other content from the Ganymede
update site based on a simple to
use web based wizard
- provide a mechanism to forward a
users selection of plugins to a
commercial site that is offering
additional components
Another important area is:
- offer the ability to download a
project's software from the project page and feed into a dynamic
download flow like you discuss (aka a shopping cart model)
The problematic model I was looking at
is:
1. User googles some interesting
technology they read about, say EclipseLink
2. User clicks the Download page of
EclipseLink
3. User is presented with a 5 MB zip
file and no easy way to get started with it
4 and on. A bunch of steps involving
finding how to add it to Eclipse, extracting, etc.
An optimized model would be:
1. User googles EclipseLink
2. User goes to Download and clicks an
Add to My Download button
3. A shopping cart summary shows on the
right side of the page
4. User clicks Download in the shopping
cart (or wants another project and repeats 1-3)
5. Download Page walks user through
wizard for retrieving software with other base profile, or linking over
to partner site
Whether the "shopping cart" is built
before or after choosing a base profile, the base concept is the same
-- that users need the ability to easily select the components that
they want to install. My concern with the wizard after the fact, while
necessary for some users, is that many people don't want to walk
through a complex flow to find EclipseLink, instead, they google, take
the first hit, and then want to get started. Whether a project's page
lists an update site or a Zip file (or both), getting that up and going
in an Eclipse install can be anything but an easy project.
Thoughts?
Separately, have you had an opportunity
to consider some of the other questions I raised previously? Also,
would you mind providing an update on the status of the work and
where/how to get involved?
Thanks,
Tim
On Jul 1, 2008, at 4:44 AM, Jochen
Krause wrote:
Hi Tim,
Sorry for taking so long to answer,
but Ganymede kept us very busy and
the work on this stuff was paused.
We are certainly open to discuss
where this is heading. Before
commenting on your points I would
like to describe once more the key
drivers and intentions for this
project.
At the moment we do not have any
integration between open source
software from Eclipse and commercial
offerings from the larger
Eco-System. This is unfortunate, as
it both does not serve our end users
nor our commercial community. It is
however not easy to provide
mechanism for achieving a better
integration that meets all of our
constraints: Eclipse can not be in
the distribution business (for legal
and ecosystem reasons) - Eclipse can
not distribute commercial
offerings, we don't want to
"threaten" our end users with too much
commercialisation, we want to provide
a better our of the box experience
for Eclipse, which means that you
need to be able to combine the things
you need.
The joined releases and EPP with the
standard packages have improved the
situation for the open source side,
and we are now planning to build on
top of that. We have two things on
our mind:
- offer the possibility to alter the
predefined packages on the fly
with other content from the Ganymede
update site based on a simple to
use web based wizard
- provide a mechanism to forward a
users selection of plugins to a
commercial site that is offering
additional components
Two brief examples:
You select the Java development
package as your starting point and add
C/C++ to it. Then you either download
the p2 installer that downloads
your selection or you start the p2
installer with webstart.
After having selected the Java
development package and added Datatools
you get to the page where you can
start the download, but you see an
"advertisement" that catches your eye
for adding MySQL to your download.
You click the advertisement and get
to the vendors site. The vendor
receives your plugin selection and
can offer the user to add more stuff
to his download. The vendor will
provide the ultimate download,
hopefully taking advantage of p2.
Does that make the picture clearer?
Jochen
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Webb [mailto:trwebb@xxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Timothy Webb
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 9:43 PM
To: mitch.sonies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
jeff@xxxxxxxxx;
Markus Knauer; Jochen
Krause
Cc: Eclipse Management Organization; epp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [eclipse.org-committers]
Eclipse project announcement
Markus, Jochen, Jeff & Mitch,
Congratulations on stepping forward
to create a new work area focusing
on enhancing the configuration,
download and installation experience for
Eclipse technology users.
As I read this email, I can imagine a
new widget available on all of the
Eclipse project pages that works like
a shopping cart ("Add TPTP
Profiling to cart"). When you are
done choosing interesting software,
you can then click a Finish button in
the cart summary which would allow
downloading the software from
Eclipse.org directly or hand-off to any
participating ecosystem partner for
further configuration and download.
Whatever the ultimate solution, I'm
excited about us having a
lightweight, scalable add-on to the
current Eclipse portal which
provides great value to end users of
Eclipse technology and flows within
the existing site's usage patterns.
Stepping back, I see two areas of
work potentially described -- one is
the creation of an exemplary
implementation and extensible platform
created to solve the generic
provisioning problem of choosing from lots
of Eclipse software accessible from
the web in general. This first bit
of work is analogous to a multi-site
"shopping cart" for Eclipse
software. Secondly, I see a area
which is the selection of a solution
that helps address the specific
problems of Eclipse.org which might have
a different objective and may or may
not use the same solution. While
these areas are related, I see them
as distinct problems for which
multiple solutions are possible.
Given the visibility and importance
of changes to Eclipse.org, I would
like to propose we separate out the
Eclipse.org technology solution and
create a new technology project that
will focus on delivering a near
term solution for the current
download complexities at Eclipse. As
could be inferred from the EPP
component proposal, the solution would
likely leverage a p2-based installer
with web integration into the
existing Eclipse portal and provide a
way for users to more easily
access software whether by using a
direct downloaded installer from
Eclipse.org or choosing to switch
over to a partner site as proposed for
the new EPP component.
We are also excited about becoming
actively involved to help with this
effort.
Congrats!
Tim
On Jun 2, 2008, at 7:44 PM, Anne
Jacko wrote:
The Eclipse Packaging Project
(EPP) is announcing a new
component -- please see below. Thanks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
The dynamic package delivery
component provides an extensible
framework for,
and an exemplary implementation
of, a service for dynamically
selecting and
downloading/installing installable
units.
This component will be extensible
and open in that it will
enable multiple
websites to participate in the
user selection of installable
units (in
sequential order, i.e., the
selections from one site are
forwarded to the
next and so on until the user
chooses to download and install
the selection).
The Eclipse Foundation intends to
use the exemplary
implementation at
eclipse.org to create a better
user and member experience for
downloads.
Markus Knauer
Jochen Krause
Jeff McAffer
Mitch Sonies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
Anne Jacko
emo@xxxxxxxxxxx
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