On 9/17/10 12:54, Marcel Offermans wrote:
On 17 Sep 2010, at 21:12 , Richard S. Hall wrote:
On 9/17/10 12:11, Richard S. Hall wrote:
On 9/17/10 11:36, Marcel Offermans wrote:
On 17 Sep 2010, at 18:35 , Richard S. Hall wrote:
From my point of view, approach (1) might not be awesome, but it results in a
simpler process than (2). So, I'd recommend (1). If the majority prefers (2),
then we can do that (although I think we'll have to run the decision by the
board first).
I prefer (1) too.
I could see us combine (1) with (2), releasing implementations with both our own
APIs which gives us the freedom to experiment with a new API whilst still
"supporting what's provided by public releases of draft specs.
However, this doesn't avoid the IP grey of releasing "unofficial" APIs in our
"official" releases.
Does the OSGi alliance disallow the inclusion of these "unofficial" APIs?
Effectively, option (2) is a hybrid approach, since we couldn't make
modifications in the provisional API unless it were available in a public spec
snapshot, so any modifications would have to be done in felix package
namespace. Which sort of makes (2) the worst of both worlds.
Well, if the snapshots are so outdated that it does not make sense to implement
them, then we should not even try. In that case, just stick to (1).
Sometimes it is not an issue of being out of date. If we want to
implement a feature for potential inclusion into an RFC, then we run
into the same issue if we add the feature to an existing OSGi API
(whether it is provisional or not).
I guess the other point would be for the OSGi Alliance to just develop new RFCs
out in the open, but as long as they're not, it's probably safer to ignore them
if it could cause problems otherwise.
Well, we don't want to ignore them since we want to implement the
provisional specs and get experience with them. It is just difficult
since our downstream users have no way of knowing what is official OSGi
API and what isn't if we ship with provisional and/or modified org.osgi
packages.
Even following option (1), it's still a tricky balancing act, especially
in cases where we might actually provide the RI, such as Gogo or CM. But
this is more difficult for us since we release early and often as
opposed to Eclipse which releases yearly.
-> richard
