[epp-dev] Important structural change in Eclipse Neon

[Markus Knauer <mknauer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi package maintainers,

please read through this mail because your action is required...

Last year we enabled a weekly check for updates in Eclipse Mars packages, in Eclipse Neon I'd like to go one step further and make it possible for users to upgrade parts of a package. There have been many discussions, sometimes here on this mailing list, and in recent months within the Planning Council [1] about that topic.

Maybe you remember that we used to define all dependencies (and based on that the content) of a package in its feature. While this approach was the one that was working from the very beginning, it has its drawbacks. The major drawback is that 'check for updates' only searches for updates of the root feature which is the package feature itself. Unless we update this one, p2 doesn't look for updates of any of the other features that make up a package. Most users expect a different behaviour these days.

In order to change this it is necessary to define the content of a package on its root level, i.e. with root features. I did this change in Mars for a single package (RCP/RAP), but now I'd like to roll out this change in *all* packages for Eclipse Neon.

For that reason I prepared one Gerrit change for each package as documented here in this bug:

  Bug 332989 - Allow parts of a package to upgraded or removed
  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=332989#c19

Now I'm asking every package maintainer to review his/her change in Gerrit, and to vote at least with a +1 in Gerrit (feel free to +2 and to merge: then I have a little less work to do). All changes are referenced and linked in the above bug report. Please read my individual commit comment carefully; if a package needed some kind of special treatment I described this in the comment.

These changes are moving the dependencies from the feature to the product root level, and with that all the features get their own lifecycle, i.e. they can be updated independently, they even can be removed. The change should not change anything else.

If you think you need to optimise your package structure, I'd suggest you take this as a new base and open a bug for further discussion.

If anything is unclear, or if there are questions, please ask here on the mailing list.

Thanks and regards,

Markus

[1] https://wiki.eclipse.org/Planning_Council/February_03_2016#Neon_Planning_.28and_beyond.29