Hi all,
there is one regular problem people face when using blueprint or even
spring dm in the same way.
The blueprint xml is basically only passive. So if there is no blueprint
extender present then the bundle will go active but will never actually
do something as the blueprint context is never established. The problem
here is that it just silently fails. There is no information that
anything went wrong.
So I wonder if we could create a capability like org.osgi.blueprint or
org.osgi.blueprint.extender that will be offered by the aries blueprint
extender and will be required by user bundles using blueprint. So the
resolver can tell an admin that he tries to install a blueprint bundle
without also installing a suitable blueprint extender. Of course this
will only make sense if the capbility is universal over blueprint
providers so it would have to be added to the spec.
As a second step I wonder if this could also be applied to the blueprint
namespaces. There could be a naming scheme for describing blueprint
namespaces as capabilities. So the bundle implementing the namespace
could offer the capability and the bundle using the namespace could
require it.
Apart from helping the admin diagnosing non working deployments I think
these ideas could even automate deployments. So for example an OBR
resolver could automatically install a blueprint extender or certain
namespace impls if a bundle requires them.
What do you think?
Christian
--
Christian Schneider
http://www.liquid-reality.de
Open Source Architect
http://www.talend.com
