[News.eclipse.technology.packaging] Re: Policies for EPP

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ian,

Ian Skerrett wrote:
> > Although I applaud an effort to make these criteria public 
> > (transparent), I question whether these/this set of policies make the 
> > process more 'open'.  Basically, as below IMHO it's a set of (quite 
> > restrictive) exclusion criteria...which doesn't seem very open to me.
>
> Scott, when I said 'open' I was not thinking that the packages would be 
> open to any project being included.   


I'm not saying 'open in that any project must being included'.  I'm 
saying 'open about what it takes to participate' (and, of course, 
*possible* to participate...which is certainly not open).

The 'small as possible' is a policy which in the limit essentially 
excludes *everything* other than what EPP deems 'necessary'...which I 
don't think is acceptable for a community resource (and, as such an 
important distribution path for all EF projects).

Also, this rule obviously doesn't apply to the existing projects in the 
existing profiles...the SDK is huge...and they can put in anything they 
want and have it included in all subsequent EPP distributions...as can 
WTP and others.  If smaller is a driving requirement for distribution, 
then why wouldn't/shouldn't such a rule be applied to the existing EPP 
projects?

Finally, I understood EPP would make available multiple profiles...so if 
that's the case then why not have other/more profiles that include 
new/other projects?


In fact, I believe the EPP
> packages should be kept as small as possible and only add new 
> features/projects if there is a really good reason.   

This is your judgment...not the community's.  I appreciate and generally 
agree with the desire to keep things small and simple for users (and 
frankly my project would not have any problems with this rule).  But of 
course all projects (and their respective communities) can also think of 
'really good reasons' to add their work...and they would be right, of 
course.

This is because I
> believe if the EPP packages become a 'catch-all' for all Eclipse 
> projects, they will become too big and meaningless for the end user.

As with Eclipse (platform) itself?

I think this is a specious argument...precisely because it's based upon 
so many assumptions about the 'end user'...i.e. that they are a user 
that is looking for an IDE, for java development, etc., etc.  Perhaps 
valid/appropriate assumption for existing tools businesses, but not an 
accurate reflection of where Eclipse is going.

I agree that things should be made as simple as possible for usability 
across all users, but IMHO that's the hard part...for all the projects 
(and for the EF).

> However, I'd like to stress this is just my opinion so you and others 
> should be encouraged to comment.

OK, I did.

Scott