On 3/28/07, Jason van Zyl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
We're just trying to help out the OSGi folks so that they aren't repackaging everything which is what they are doing. It's basically doing the minimum work so that JARs produced will function with OSGi containers. If it has no impact on normal users there's no real harm in trying to help. I just don't want Maven used as a vehicle to push OSGi down people's throats. Jason.
I must concur with Jason's note of caution. Be very careful in this realm. You can't just arbitrarily add OSGi entries to a manifest of every build. OSGi entries must be defined very carefully, as they are deployment descriptors and can have a significant impact on how a bundle is consumed. There are many factors to take into consideration. For example, there are multiple ways to declare dependencies, you can declare a dependency on a bundle, by name and you can declare a dependency on a Java package, which abstracts you from a particular packaging. Additionally, each dependency can be optional, meaning the bundle can be started, even if that dependency isn't available. The dependencies can be version-specific too, so a bundle can require a specific version of a bundle or specific version of a Java package. Note, though OSGi versions are similar to Maven2 versions, there are some major conflicts, such as the interpretation of qualifiers. Once OSGi information is added to a JAR to make it a proper OSGi bundle, those values make an API contract that must be strictly adhered to. It's my opinion that OSGi enablement must be taken on by component/project owners. I think that the only part the Maven community should play here is adding OSGi support and making it easy. The only other consideration might be to consider how Maven2 might be OSGi hosted, but I'd be very surprised if this turned out as simple as all Maven JARs adding "standard" manifest attributes. -Nathan Beyer --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
