I was thinking of something like the following:
1. all artifacts in the repository are real or virtual.
2. real artifacts are hosted in the repository
3. virtual artifacts are not hosted, but refer to
the real artifact via:
4. http redirection
5. http redirection requiring processing
This group can certainly make statements about [1]-[4],
as they are language and platform neutral.
However, for the java space, [5] is perhaps the most useful.
I would like it to be part of the scope for this group,
to enable compatibility between tools.
E.g, given the URI:
http://repo.apache.org/sun/jndi/jars/jndi-1.2.1.jar
a tool would automagically go to the Sun website, prompt the user
to accept the license, download the jndi-1_2_1.zip distribtion and
extract the jar.
In terms of implementation, this could be done via redirection
to a descriptor containing instructions for obtaining the
real artifact. This descriptor might consist of:
. the URL of the real artifact
. licensing requirements
. processing requirements to:
. extract the artifact
E.g, if the artifact is part of a larger distribution,
how to extract it from that distribution.
. massage the artifact
E.g, renaming the artifact, or changing
MANIFEST.MF Class-Path entries to use repository naming
conventions.
The meta data required to support this are language and platform
specific. However, I think it should be easier to form a concensus
on the meta-data requirements and format to support this than
for other meta-data proposals which are more to do with
artifact description than artifact resolution.
-Tim
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Chalko [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, 20 November 2003 11:03 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: click through license support?
>
>
> Tim Anderson wrote:
>
> >This group could make recommendations as to how
> >virtual artifacts could be supported.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Agree that we should deal with license issue's and virutal artifacts
> when we take on metadata.
