I would rather see a parallel directory structure that would contain overrides for information in
those descriptors, i.e.
/overrides/myapp.ear/application.xml
Would override the application.xml inside
/deploy/myapp.ear
Why not make it part of the installation process? Does it really need to be specified in an associated file? For example, deploy myapp.ear with myapp.xml overrides.
I don't think that necessarily different directories may be the answer; just write out the overriden state into the same place with a different extension, such as myapp.geronimo.
Or something along these lines. Perhaps that data is in a database, or comes from multiple sources,
or is managed by a GUI. The point is, leave the original artifacts (EARs, WARs, JARs) alone, and
augment them from the outside.
Totally agree with this one.
Alex.
