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

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Markus,

Markus Knauer wrote:
> Hi Scott,
>
> let me write down some of my thoughts here:
>
> * 'Small number' -> We tried really hard to present the packages on the
> donwload page in a way which allows a new user to get what he/she needs. 


But this is precisely the point of my response to Ian's previous 
post...this is naturally based upon your assumptions about what the new 
user 'needs'.

I'm not saying you/EPP/whoever didn't do a decent job of it for Europa, 
but rather for a process to be 'open' it has to include more than your 
(Ian's, Markus's or whoever's) judgment (at least for me).

<stuff deleted>
> * 'Getting in' -> Again, I don't like to change the existing packages,
> because it would be hard to explain to the users, why these packages have
> changed ('I user the XY-europa-fall package, now I switched to the
> XY-europa-winter package and this feature is missing')
> But with Ganymede we can adjust the package content (keeping in mind that it
> is easy to add something, but hard to remove anything... so we need to be
> very conservative)


I think saying that things can't change because it would be 'hard to 
explain to users' doesn't really work for me.  Why?  Because new 
software *is* change.  If the EF (and it's associated projects) want to 
have 'innovation networks', then things must change.  Like a shark, if 
it's not moving forward, it's dead :).

I guess I'm not so worried about users and change as you are.  Change is 
constant (especially in sw dev tools).  I don't think that is avoidable. 
 Now I think it's possible to make it simpler for users to deal with 
change, but I thought that's what EPP was really setup to do.


> * 'Community feedback' -> Maybe we need to specify this more clearly... but
> this is one reason for this discussion on the newsgroup.
>
> * 'Small' -> IMHO this is the download size (and only the download size). I
> was really surprised that the (small) Java package is on the top position
> of every download statistic. 


small Java package?

Of course JDT is in the top position in every download statistic...it's 
where Eclipse started out and where it achieved its popularity.  I don't 
think this is surprising or even informative.

RE: download size...OK.  But as I said in previous note, if (download) 
size is the metric of importance then why wouldn't/shouldn't this be 
applied to existing EPP packages as well?

Just for reference ECF's 2 core plugins total ~110K.  Further, these and 
2 other ECF plugins (totalling about 400K) will be in the core Equinox 
distribution for 3.4 (to support the Equinox p2 work).

> * 'Release train only' -> The likeliness that a project from the release
> train delivers something stable, well tested, etc. is higher than that of
> other projects. Based on that assumption it is a natural decision to use
> this as a prerequisite for building stable and reliable packages.

I agree that the release train is more likely to deliver something 
stable, well-tested, etc...at least in theory.

I don't have major problems myself with this particular policy idea, but 
that's because my project is already part of the release train.  I think 
that other projects might...probably because they don't even have the 
resources to do the things necessary to participate in Ganymede...not to 
mention do additional things to get included in EPP.

BTW, why doesn't EPP just become

> * 'Discussion' -> We are trying to get feedback... and I am sure you will
> agree that we need some policy/instructions for a project that wants to be
> part of an EPP package.


Yes, that is my major point...EPP certainly does need 
policy/instructions for a project that wants to be part of an EPP 
package.  But those instructions will be useless/meaningless to projects 
if it is not possible for them to do anything that will lead to 
inclusion in EPP.

Scott