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| <h1>Proposal for Eclipse Packaging Project</h1> |
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| <h1>Introduction</h1> |
| <p>The Eclipse Packaging Project is a proposed open source project |
| under the Eclipse Technology Project.</p> |
| <p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined in the |
| <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/">Eclipse |
| Development Process</a> document) and is written to declare its intent and |
| scope. This proposal is written to solicit additional participation and |
| input from the Eclipse community. You are invited to comment on and/or |
| join the project. Please send all feedback to the <a |
| href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.technology.packaging"> |
| http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.technology.packaging</a> newsgroup.</p> |
| |
| <h1>Background</h1> |
| <p>Eclipse is seeing tremendous adoption of its tool and platform |
| offerings. With thousands of downloads every day the Eclipse Platform |
| SDK is the most popular download offering. The SDK includes everything |
| needed for Eclipse plug-in development (Platform, PDE, JDT and Sources). |
| When Eclipse was young, this was almost everything that Eclipse.org had |
| to offer. This situation has changed over the last five years, and |
| Eclipse is offering tools from A (AspectJ) to W (Web Tools Platform) in |
| more than 60 projects.</p> |
| <p>At the same time, Eclipse is not only serving plug-in developers |
| anymore, but also developers who want to explore Eclipse as a tool for a |
| specific language or domain. Those developers are interested in |
| downloading tools that may differ quite a bit from the Platform SDK |
| download. For instance, developers often don't require the source code |
| or Plug-in Development Environment (PDE), if they are just looking to |
| use Eclipse as a Java IDE. It is possible to extend the Eclipse Platform |
| SDK by using the update manager, but developers generally prefer a |
| single download to get started. This is especially important for |
| developers that are new to Eclipse.</p> |
| |
| <h1>Project Overview</h1> |
| <p>The Eclipse Packaging project aims to provide a set of |
| entry-level downloads for different user profiles. The goal is to |
| improve the usability and out-of-box experience of developers that want |
| to use multiple Eclipse projects.</p> |
| <p>Although this project will define an initial set of user |
| profiles, it will also provide a platform to enable anyone to create |
| download packages.</p> |
| |
| <h1>Scope</h1> |
| <p>The objectives of the Eclipse Packaging project are to:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>Create entry level downloads based on defined user |
| profiles.</b> The project will define an initial set of user profiles that |
| will specify the requirements for a particular download package. It is |
| expected that the initial user profiles will include Java Developer, |
| Java EE Developer, C/C++ Developer and RCP Developer. Over time |
| additional user profiles may be added or the initial set redefined.</li> |
| <li><b>Provide an installer that improves the install |
| experience of new users of Eclipse.</b> In the Europa time-frame the |
| installer will provide the users with a well known and easy to use |
| mechanism for extracting the download to an adjustable location and |
| provide the possibility to create a link to the executable. We intend |
| to integrate an integrity check of the download archive for the Europa |
| downloads.</li> |
| <li><b>Provide a platform that allows the creation of packages |
| (zip/tar downloads) from an update site.</b> The core technology of the |
| project will enable the creation of download packages that are created |
| by bundling Eclipse features from one or multiple Eclipse update sites. |
| The EPP platform will require a list of all features with version |
| numbers be provided to the tooling. The tool platform will leverage |
| existing technology. A discussion with the Eclipse Platform team |
| indicates that the PDE build might be extended to serve the packaging |
| project purposes. The EPP technology will be available to anyone, |
| including other Eclipse projects, that want to create their own |
| download package.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h1>Out of Scope</h1> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Extending an existing Eclipse installation, other aspects of |
| provisioning, and extending the Eclipse Update Manager is not part of |
| this project.</li> |
| <li>Creating a general purpose multi platform install framework |
| with all bells and whistles.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h1>FAQ</h1> |
| <h2>Does the Eclipse Packaging project produce downloads on demand?</h2> |
| <p>Yes and no. EPP is able to create downloads based on the delivery |
| of an xml file containing the feature ids and versions, but it is |
| neither optimized for creating downloads as fast as possible nor does it |
| provide a web application to pick and choose features to be included |
| into a download.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Does the Eclipse Packaging project provide an installer?</h2> |
| <p>A native installer can help to provide a positive initial user |
| experience. With the planned code contribution of Instantiations it will |
| be possible to provide an installer with those features short term |
| (Europa time-frame). Further useful features, like checking the |
| availability of a suitable Java environment, potentially packaging a |
| run-time environment, reducing the download size (e.g. with pack200) |
| will be addressed at a later time, and will be coordinated with the |
| developments in the area of provisioning.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Which technology will be used in this project?</h2> |
| <p>In the initial project phase research will be done if the |
| packaging platform itself and the EPP tools can be built upon the PDE |
| build and packaging features.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Will you include a runtime environment?</h2> |
| <p>With Java (TM) becoming open source and the latest efforts of the |
| Geronimo project this may become feasible. We would be interested in |
| community input on this topic, as there is a trade off between download |
| size, ease of selection and choice. It is not very likely that this |
| topic will be addressed in the Europa time-frame.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Can the Eclipse Packaging tools be used by organizations to |
| build custom development environment?</h2> |
| <p>Yes. Organizations can use the platform to define and build an |
| Eclipse environment containing the plug-ins their developers need.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Can the Eclipse Packaging be extended?</h2> |
| <p>Eclipse is about "extensible platforms and exemplary tools" - and |
| we take that seriously. The project will provide an extensible platform |
| for creating eclipse packages.</p> |
| |
| <h1>Organization</h1> |
| |
| <h2>Initial committers</h2> |
| <p>The initial committers will focus on providing the initial set of |
| entry level downloads and developing the Eclipse Packaging tools. Our |
| agile development process will follow eclipse.org's standards for |
| openness and transparency. As such we will actively encourage |
| contributions to the project. We also plan to help improve the Eclipse |
| update manager by submitting patches and extension point suggestions if |
| necessary. The initial committers are: |
| <ul> |
| <li>Markus Knauer (Innoopract): Project Lead</li> |
| <li>Dan Rubel (Instantiations): Co-Project Lead</li> |
| <li>Leif Frenzel (Innoopract)</li> |
| <li>Elias Volanakis (Innoopract)</li> |
| <li>Mark Russell (Instantiations)</li> |
| <li>Alexander Kazantsev (xored software)</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h2>Interested parties</h2> |
| The following parties have expressed interest extending the platform, |
| contributing ideas, guidance and discussion. Key contacts listed. |
| <ul> |
| <li>Pascal Rapicault (IBM): Advisor</li> |
| <li>Thomas Hallgren (Buckminster Project)</li> |
| <li>Henrik Lindberg (Buckminster Project)</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h2>User community</h2> |
| <p>The Eclipse Packaging project is providing a service for a very |
| disparate group of developers, as such, supporting and soliciting |
| feedback from a large user community of developers is critical to |
| creating the right offering. We plan on doing this by using the standard |
| eclipse.org mechanisms of supporting an open project and community of |
| early adopters.</p> |
| |
| <h1>Tentative Plan</h1> |
| <p> |
| 2007-02 0.5M1: initial definition of entry level downloads<br> |
| 2007-03 0.5M2: Basic implementation of EPP platform<br> |
| 2007-05 0.5M3: Feature complete for Europa release<br> |
| 2007-06 0.5: Beta availabilty for all Eclipse projects |
| </p> |
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| </div> |
| </div> |
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