On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 6:56 AM, Jörn Kottmann <kottm...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 7/20/11 12:15 PM, Richard Eckart de Castilho wrote: >> >> I don't think UIMA should mandate the use of OSGi. > > No, there shouldn't be a need for that, but we currently have certain > limitations, which make it difficult to reuse UIMA components. And when > things are translated to OSGi these parts don't fit in nicely. > > For example: > A user wants to build an AAE out of three different AEs, made by three > different > vendors. Then he might run into issues with the type system, especially when > one > used JCas, he needs eventually to duplicate certain pieces of configuration, > etc. > > I believe these things should be easier, and then it is also easier to > properly support OSGi. > > Jörn >
+1 to simplifying handling of type systems. Annotator specific JCas classes make OSGi bundling particularly difficult. Given that the type system is intended to communicate data between components, it makes no sense to me that types can be defined in a specific analysis engine descriptor. They should only be defined in shared objects. If Type systems were first class objects, like AEs, then an OSGi bundle for an AE would simply depend on one or more OSGi type system bundles. Eddie
