Hi Cris,

On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 09:31 -0400, Cris Rockwell wrote:
> The OpenSAML library was selected because of the support the Shibboleth
> Consortium has within higher education[0].
> My institution is a member of the consortium. I am confident about the
> ongoing support the project has and the maintenance 
> it receives now and in the future. 
> 
> When it comes to using the OpenSAML library, it’s necessary to follow
> the guidelines about obtaining legitimate versions of the artifacts[1]
> That means using library artifacts provided by the Shibboleth
> Repository, and not using the OpenSAML artifacts from Maven Central.
> 
> It’s also important to use the library for all parts of the process
> when it comes to SAML protocols [2]
> This requires providing lots of dependencies, which the library
> requires

First of all, I don't see the choice of external libraries as an issue,
I am sure that you have chosen well.

My only concern is that the recommendation of not having repositories
and build repositories defined for artifacts deployed to Maven Central.
The official requirements [3] state that:

   In addition we discourage the usage of <repositories> and
   <pluginRepositories> and instead publish any required components to the
   Central Repository. This applies for your own components as well as for
   3rd party artifacts.

The downsides to using a third party repository are:

- if the Shibbboleth Maven repository is retired, our artifacts become
invalid
- some organisations have strict procurement rules and would require
vetting additional repositories

In the end, I don't think it's a blocker but we should avoid third
party repositories if at all possible.

However, I have filed a PR [4] that removes the extra Maven repository
and the build still passes. If the repository is not actually needed,
the whole discussion is moot :-)

Thanks,
Robert

[3]: https://central.sonatype.org/publish/requirements/
[4]: https://github.com/apache/sling-org-apache-sling-auth-saml2/pull/1

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