[cross-project-issues-dev] Heads up: Platform will be "coming in hot" wi

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Extended team, 

I wanted to make everyone aware of our
latest Platform plans for M6 ... especially since it has the potential
to effect "downstream" consumers and contributions to Mars Sim.
Release.  If anyone sees any "blocking" aspects to this
plan, let us know. 

In short, we will aggressively be trying
to get changes needed to build our "Mac Product" in a relatively
standard "Mac App layout". See 

Bug 431116
- Releases for Mac OS X should be bundled as a proper "Mac App"
and/or "Library" 

We felt it important to make the move
by M6, to be sure problems/issues can be found, and fixed, by M7 ... otherwise,
we face a greater risk making changes during RCs, or, worse, not having
it well tested by anyone or no time to make important fixes. 

Some issues are listed below ... may
be others? 

- To do this, we will soon have to move
to Tycho 0.23.0-SNAPSHOT. 
-- always risky to do a milestone with
a "SNAPSHOT", but ... we think worth it in this case. (And we'll
ask Tycho team to be "extra careful" :) 
-- so far, we can not quite get our
"production build" to work with it ... but, suspect we can soon.

-- For an "experimental build",
see http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops4/X20150309-0218/
--- (This was produced with a locally
built "patched" Tycho, and so far haven't quite got the "official"
SNAPSHOT to work consistently ... but works sometimes, and issues appear
unrelated to the "Mac layout") 

- The change is "all or nothing"
... once we (and Tycho) move to this new layout, the old layout will no
longer be possible. 

* This should only effect consumers
who create their own "products" ... should not effect "features"
or "plugins" in any way. 
* Should not effect Linux or Windows
"products" in any way.
* But, anyone who does produce "products",
for the Mac, will also have to use Tycho 0.23.0-SNAPSHOT for "Sim.
Release". 
* Effect on "PDE Builds" and
"Buckminster builds" is sort of unknown (by us) ... ?  

We have set our own deadline of Sunday
March 15 to "have everything working" ... and, if not by then
... *might* have to back peddle, or come up with some other plan. 

Just wanted to give a little early warning
of this change coming. I think for the most part, everyone will welcome
the change, but may be some rough spots ahead. 

Please comment in Bug 431116
if you see issues, or open new
bugs, having them 'block' that bug. 

Thanks,