virgo/proposal.html - www.eclipse.org/proposals - Git at Google

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 <title>Dynamic Enterprise Application Platform Project (Virgo)</title>
 </head>

 <body>
 <p>The Dynamic Enterprise Application Platform project (nicknamed
 Virgo) is a proposed open source project under the <a
 	href="http://www.eclipse.org/rt">Eclipse Runtime Project</a>.</p>

 <p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined in the
 Eclipse Development Process) and is written to declare its intent and
 scope. We solicit additional participation and input from the Eclipse
 community. Please send all feedback to the <a
 href="http://eclipse.org/forums/eclipse.virgo">Virgo</a>
 Eclipse Forum.</p>

 <h2>Introduction</h2>

 <p>
 This proposal recommends the creation of a new project called "Dynamic
 Enterprise Application Platform", nicknamed Virgo, to provide a
 runtime platform for the development of server-side enterprise
 applications built on top of Equinox, and optionally using modules
 from the Gemini project1. Virgo will be a subproject of the Eclipse
 Runtime Project and will strive to leverage the functionality of
 existing projects. We encourage and request additional participation
 and input from any and all interested parties in the Eclipse
 community.
 </p>

 <h2>Background</h2>

 <p>
 The development of server-side enterprise applications, packaged as
 OSGi bundles, and deployed to an Equinox based runtime has proven to
 require considerable support at runtime over and above that provided
 by the OSGi Service Platform itself.  SpringSource have gained
 considerable expertise in this area over the last few years through
 the development of the dm Server open source project. Other projects
 such as Apache Karaf, Apache Aries, and Paremus' Newton also explore
 this space. Some of the key requirements include:
 </p>
 <ul>
   <li>a notion of an &quot;application&quot; as an entity comprised of one or more bundles</li>
   <li>deployment and provisioning of applications and their dependencies</li>
   <li>scoping of applications (bundles and services)</li>
   <li>support for use of third-party enterprise libraries within an OSGi context</li>
   <li>configuration, administration and management support</li>
 </ul>
 <p>
 The Virgo project will develop a Dynamic Enterprise Application
 Platform runtime that supports these requirements by building on top
 of Equinox, the initial contributions to the Virgo project will be
 made by SpringSource based upon the dm Server codebase. See the
 section on <a href="#initcontrib">Initial Contributions</a> below for more details.
 </p>

 <h2>Scope</h2>

 <p>
 The scope of the Virgo project is restricted to:
 </p>
 <ul>
 <li>the development of an Equinox-based dynamic runtime platform for
   server-side enterprise applications deployed as OSGi bundles</li>
 </ul>
 <p>
 Developer tools supporting the runtime platform are out of scope for
 Virgo, see the following section on <a href="#relatedcontrib">related contributions</a> below for
 details of how these requirements will be addressed.</p>

 <h2>Description</h2>

 <p>
 The goal of the Virgo project is to provide a Dynamic Enterprise
 Application Platform for the development of server-side enterprise
 applications based on Equinox. Examples of server-side enterprise
 applications include web applications, integration applications, batch
 processing applications, or any combination thereof.
 </p>
 <p>
 The core components of Virgo at inception will be:
 </p>
 <ul>
  <li>a dynamic enterprise kernel supporting the core application,
   deployment, and provisioning model</li>
  <li>an integrated server runtime that builds on top of the kernel and
  adds in web container, configuration, and administration support</li>
  <li>a remote repository application for hosting a remote provisioning
  repository</li>
  <li>the medic module, providing configurable per-application logging
  services for enterprise applications deployed to the kernel.</li>
 </ul>
 <p>
 Virgo will be licensed under the EPL.
 </p>

 <h3>Relationship to existing Eclipse projects</h3>

 <h4>RCP and RAP</h4>
 <p>
 Virgo complements the Eclipse RT Rich Client Platform (RCP), which
 targets the development of rich client applications based on Equinox,
 and the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), which targets the development of
 rich Ajax-enabled web applications. Whereas these projects are focused
 on rich client applications, Virgo targets server-side applications.
 </p>

 <h4>Equinox</h4>
 <p>
 Virgo is built on top of Equinox and embeds the Equinox runtime in its
 distribution. Virgo takes advantage of leading edge features in
 Equinox such as the developing support for nested frameworks. In
 addition, Virgo will depend upon the Event Admin and Configuration
 Admin implementations from Equinox. The existing dm Server code uses
 the Apache Felix versions of these services, and the intention is to
 migrate to the Equinox implementations once the Virgo project is
 established.
 </p>

 <h4>Gemini</h4>
 <p>
 Virgo provides a runtime enterprise application model on top of
 Equinox, with integrated application and provisioning support. The
 Gemini project at Eclipse.org provides implementations of enterprise
 capabilities that can be exploited by such applications. The Virgo
 kernel provides just the foundational capabilities and depends solely
 on the Gemini Blueprint Service project. The Virgo server distribution
 pre-integrates the Gemini Web Container and Blueprint Service
 projects. Additional capabilities provided by Gemini projects can
 easily be added to the Virgo Server simply by deploying the
 appropriate bundle provided by those projects.
 </p>

 <h4>Jetty</h4>
 <p>The Virgo server obtains its web application support via the Eclipse
 Gemini Web Container project. This project in turn uses an embedded
 Apache Tomcat servlet container. For Virgo to support Jetty, two thin
 adapters will be written in collaboration with the Jetty team. The
 adapters will reside in Gemini and Virgo and will be maintained by the
 committers of those projects.</p>

 <h4>ECF</h4>
 <p>
 The Virgo Server provides a core application, provisioning, and
 administration model. The Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF)
 provides bundles that support the creation of distributed
 applications, including support for the Distributed OSGi specification
 from R4.2 of the OSGi Compendium Services specification. ECF bundles
 can be deployed into a Virgo runtime to support the development of
 distributed server-side applications.
 </p>

 <h4>P2</h4>
 <p>
 Equinox p2 is the Eclipse provisioning framework first introduced in
 Eclipse 3.4. Provisioning in Virgo is based on the configuration of a
 repository chain, where a repository implements a specified repository
 interface. By implementing a p2-backed version of the Virgo repository
 interface, it will be possible to integrate p2-based provisioning with
 the Virgo runtime.
 </p>

 <h4>Swordfish</h4>
 <p>
 Swordfish is an OSGi-based SOA framework that builds on Apache
 ServiceMix and Apache CXF to create a distributed Enterprise Service
 Bus (ESB). Whereas Swordfish builds on JBI (Java Business Integration)
 to support a web services based communication model, Virgo is neutral
 with respect to application style and provides no explicit support for
 business processes or web services.
 </p>

 <h2><a name="initcontrib"></a>Initial Contribution</h2>

 <p>
 The initial contributions for Virgo and its related contributions (<a
 href="#relatedcontrib">see below</a>)  will be made by SpringSource
 from the existing SpringSource dm Server, dm Server Tools, and Bundlor
 projects.
 </p>

 <p>
 The SpringSource dm Server project has been under active development
 for over two years, and version 2.0 was released in January 2010. The
 project is well known within the enterprise OSGi community for
 pioneering the use of OSGi not just as a means for building an
 application server, but also as the means for building applications to
 be deployed to that server. The current dm Server project page can be
 found at <a
 href="http://www.springsource.org/dmserver">http://www.springsource.org/dmserver</a>.
 The dm Server today is an open source project released under the
 GPL (some parts of the code base are licensed under the Apache
 License, version 2). All of the code from the dm Server project will be relicensed
 under the EPL as part of the donation to Eclipse.org.
 </p>

 <p>
 Through a rich set of interactions with a user community of both open
 source and commercial developers over the last two years, the dm
 Server has evolved a key set of capabilities and features needed to
 build enterprise applications on OSGi. <a href="
 http://www.springsource.com/customers/case-studies">Customer case
 studies</a> relating to the use of dm Server in industry can be found
 on the SpringSource web site.
 </p>

 <p>
 The online <a
 href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-dmserver/2.0.x/programmer-guide/html/">Programmers
 Guide</a>  details the supported deployment formats
 (regular bundles, WAR files, PAR files - a packaging construct that
 groups related bundles into an application, Plan files - a description
 of resources to be installed into the server, and properties files),
 how to build web applications taking advantage of shared libraries and
 shared services, and how to work with common third-party enterprise
 libraries. The dm Server runtime contains extensive support to enable
 third-party enterprise libraries to work "out of the box" in an OSGi
 Service Platform - handling issues such as context class loading, JPA
 instrumentation, load-time weaving, resource loading and more.
 </p>

 <p>
 The dm Server <a
 href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-dmserver/2.0.x/user-guide/html/">User
 Guide</a> covers the installation and administration
 features including the administration console and the shell. It also
 discusses the provisioning and repository support, and the extensive
 serviceability features built into the server: event logging,
 per-application tracing, and service dump support.
 </p>

 <h2>Legal Issues</h2>

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 <p>The Bundlor trademark will be assigned to the Eclipse Foundation as
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 <h2>Committers</h2>

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 	List any initial committers that should be provisioned along with the
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 <p>The following individuals are proposed as initial committers to the project:</p>

 <ul>
 	<li>Andy Wilkinson, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Ben Hale, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Chris Frost, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Christian Dupuis, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Costin Leau, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Glyn Normington, SpringSource (Project Lead)</li>
 	<li>Leo Dos Santos, Tasktop</li>
 	<li>Rob Harrop, SpringSource</li>
 	<li>Steffen Pingel, Tasktop</li>
 	<li>Steve Powell, SpringSource</li>
 </ul>

 <h2>Mentors</h2>

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 	Council. You need to identify two mentors before the project is created. The
 	proposal can be posted before this section is filled in (it's a little easier
 	to find a mentor when the proposal itself is public).
  -->

 <p>The following Architecture Council members will mentor this
 project:</p>

 <ul>
 	<li>Jeff McAffer</li>
 	<li>Mik Kersten</li>
 </ul>

 <h2>Interested Parties</h2>

 <!--
 	Provide a list of individuals, organisations, companies, and other Eclipse
 	projects that are interested in this project. This list will provide some
 	insight into who your project's community will ultimately include. Where
 	possible, include affiliations. Do not include email addresses.
  -->

 <p>The following individuals, organisations, companies and projects have
 expressed interest in this project:</p>

 <ul>
 	<li>Tasktop</li>
 	<li>SAP</li>
 </ul>

 <h2><a name="relatedcontrib"></a>Related Contributions</h2>

 <p>
 Developer tools that provide support for Virgo are out of scope for
 the Virgo project as part of Eclipse RT. However, the Virgo team also
 propose to work with the existing WTP and PDE projects to contribute
 relevant developer tools for Virgo to those projects. These
 contributions will be based upon the existing Bundlor and dm Server
 development tools projects detailed below.
 </p>

 <h3>Bundlor</h3>
 <p>
 The Bundlor project is designed to help enterprise application
 developers create and maintain high quality manifests for their
 bundles. <a href="http://www.springsource.org/bundlor">Bundlor</a> is
 currently hosted at springsource.org.
 </p>
 <p>
 With the increasing focus on OSGi in Enterprise Java, there is a need
 to create OSGi bundles for deployment. Bundlor provides a manifest
 templating mechanism that makes it much easier for developers to
 create and maintain high quality OSGi manifests for their bundles and
 can be integrated into both a build system and the Eclipse
 IDE. Bundlor is also very useful for generating manifests for existing
 enterprise libraries that you may wish to use in conjunction with your
 project and which are not already packaged as OSGi bundles.
 </p>
 <p>
 It can be very hard for a developer to know exactly what dependencies
 a library or project requires using simple inspection, and maintaining
 this list over time is error prone. Bundlor is a tool that automates
 the detection of dependencies and the creation of OSGi manifest
 directives for JARs after their creation. Bundlor takes as input a JAR
 and a template consisting of a superset of the standard OSGi manifest
 headers. Bundlor analyses the source code and support files contained
 in the JAR, applies the template to the results, and generates a
 manifest. Currently Bundlor can detect dependencies in Java source
 code, Spring configuration files, JPA configuration files, Hibernate
 mapping files, and web.xml files.
 </p>
 <p>
 The use of Bundlor can take different forms, from tasks for Apache ANT
 and plugins for Apache Maven, to simple command line execution for
 integration into any existing build system. An <a
 href="http://blog.springsource.com/2009/03/26/using-bundlor-in-eclipse/">overview
 of using Bundlor from inside Eclipse</a> is provided on the SpringSource blog.
 </p>
 <p>
 The <a
 href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-bundlor/1.0.x/user-guide/html/">Bundlor
 User Guide</a> provides full details of these capabilities.
 Bundlor operates at the OSGi Service Platform level, and does not
 contain any explicit support for Eclipse Plugin Development. The
 Eclipse PDE project provides tools to create, develop, test, debug,
 build and deploy Eclipse plug-ins, fragments, features, update sites
 and RCP products. The scope of the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/pde/">PDE</a> project also includes the
 provision of "comprehensive OSGi tooling, which makes it an ideal
 environment for component programming, not just Eclipse plug-in
 development". Bundlor is a very good match with this latter remit,
 and is proposed for contribution to Eclipse.org as a PDE Component.
 </p>
 <p>
 The PDE "New Plug-in from Existing JAR Archives" wizard contains
 functionality that overlaps in part with Bundlor, in that it can be
 used to generate a manifest for existing jar files. Unlike Bundlor,
 the manifest generation is not controllable via template, and does not
 understand non-source code artefacts commonly used in enterprise
 projects. Bundlor could be used behind the scenes in this wizard for
 enhanced manifest generation if so desired.
 </p>

 <h3>Virgo Development Tools</h3>
 <p>
 The existing <a href="http://www.springsource.org/dmservertools">dm
 Server tools project</a> at SpringSource.org provides functionality
 that may be contributed to the WTP5 and PDE projects. This support
 includes:
 </p>
 <ul>
   </li>PDE user interface extensions</li>
   <ul>
     <li>editor support for Virgo PAR files and Plan files;</li>
     <li>a Bundle Classpath Container that manages a bundle project's
     classpath based on a manifest (with incremental manifest
     generation via Bundlor); </li>
     <li>Manifest editing and validation support: content-assist,
     hyperlinking and validation for manifests, with quick fixes for
     common problems</li>
   </ul>
   <li>WTP integration for the Virgo server platform</li>
   <ul>
     <li>drag-and-drop deployment</li>
     <li>graphical bundle & packages overview</li>
     <li>integrated shell support</li>
     <li>integrated provisioning for Virgo repository management</li>
   </ul>
 </ul>
 <p>
 The PDE project currently provides a manifest editor with multiple
 pages, including support for plugin.xml artefacts. The dm Server tools
 editor is focused on the job of editing OSGi manifests for developers
 who are creating enterprise OSGi bundles (not Eclipse plugins). The
 features in common between the two editors have a shared
 look-and-feel.
 </p>
 <p>
 The ideal direction would be to create a Bundle Development Environment (BDE) on top of which PDE could build in the future.
 </p>
 <p>
 For more information on the dm Server tools capabilities, see the
 following <a
 href="http://blog.springsource.com/2009/03/05/osgi-development-tools-in-sts/">SpringSource
 blog entry</a>, and the <a
 href="http://download.springsource.com/release/STS/doc/STS-new_and_noteworthy-2.2.1.200910210131-RELEASE.pdf">STS
 New and Noteworthy</a> documentation for the latest release.
 </p>

 <h2>Project Scheduling</h2>

 <p>
 The initial milestone will be to get the IP code contributions for
 these projects approved, and the projects provisioned on Eclipse.org
 infrastructure. This will be based off of the 2.0 release version of
 the donor projects. A provisional plan for subsequent development is
 to release a 2.0.1 service release in 1Q10, and a 2.1 release
 alongside the 2010 Eclipse release train. The intention is for the
 Virgo project to become a formal part of the release train in 2011.
 </p>

 <h2>Changes to this Document</h2>

 <!--
 	List any changes that have occurred in the document here.
 	You only need to document changes that have occurred after the document
 	has been posted live for the community to view and comment.
  -->

 <table>
 	<tr>
 		<th>Date</th>
 		<th>Change</th>
 	</tr>
 	<tr>
 		<td>25-Jan-2010</td>
 		<td>Section concerning Virgo's relationship with Jetty updated.</td>
 	</tr>
 	<tr>
 		<td>12-Jan-2010</td>
 		<td>Document created</td>
 	</tr>
 </table>
 </body>
 </html>
	<!--
	This document is provided as a template along with some guidance for creating
	your project proposal. This is just a template. Feel free to change it as
	you see fit (add sections, remove section). We feel, however, that the
	suggestions represented in this document represent the reasonable minimum
	amount of information to move forward.

	Please keep the formatting in this document simple. Please do not edit
	this document in Microsoft Word as it adds huge piles of markup that make
	it difficult to restyle.

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	<head>

	<!--
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	rendered webpage. Do not duplicate the title within the text of your page.
	-->

	<title>Dynamic Enterprise Application Platform Project (Virgo)</title>
	</head>

	<body>
	<p>The Dynamic Enterprise Application Platform project (nicknamed
	Virgo) is a proposed open source project under the <a
	href="http://www.eclipse.org/rt">Eclipse Runtime Project</a>.</p>

	<p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined in the
	Eclipse Development Process) and is written to declare its intent and
	scope. We solicit additional participation and input from the Eclipse
	community. Please send all feedback to the <a
	href="http://eclipse.org/forums/eclipse.virgo">Virgo</a>
	Eclipse Forum.</p>

	<h2>Introduction</h2>

	<p>
	This proposal recommends the creation of a new project called "Dynamic
	Enterprise Application Platform", nicknamed Virgo, to provide a
	runtime platform for the development of server-side enterprise
	applications built on top of Equinox, and optionally using modules
	from the Gemini project1. Virgo will be a subproject of the Eclipse
	Runtime Project and will strive to leverage the functionality of
	existing projects. We encourage and request additional participation
	and input from any and all interested parties in the Eclipse
	community.
	</p>

	<h2>Background</h2>

	<p>
	The development of server-side enterprise applications, packaged as
	OSGi bundles, and deployed to an Equinox based runtime has proven to
	require considerable support at runtime over and above that provided
	by the OSGi Service Platform itself. SpringSource have gained
	considerable expertise in this area over the last few years through
	the development of the dm Server open source project. Other projects
	such as Apache Karaf, Apache Aries, and Paremus' Newton also explore
	this space. Some of the key requirements include:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>a notion of an "application" as an entity comprised of one or more bundles</li>
	<li>deployment and provisioning of applications and their dependencies</li>
	<li>scoping of applications (bundles and services)</li>
	<li>support for use of third-party enterprise libraries within an OSGi context</li>
	<li>configuration, administration and management support</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	The Virgo project will develop a Dynamic Enterprise Application
	Platform runtime that supports these requirements by building on top
	of Equinox, the initial contributions to the Virgo project will be
	made by SpringSource based upon the dm Server codebase. See the
	section on <a href="#initcontrib">Initial Contributions</a> below for more details.
	</p>

	<h2>Scope</h2>

	<p>
	The scope of the Virgo project is restricted to:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>the development of an Equinox-based dynamic runtime platform for
	server-side enterprise applications deployed as OSGi bundles</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	Developer tools supporting the runtime platform are out of scope for
	Virgo, see the following section on <a href="#relatedcontrib">related contributions</a> below for
	details of how these requirements will be addressed.</p>

	<h2>Description</h2>

	<p>
	The goal of the Virgo project is to provide a Dynamic Enterprise
	Application Platform for the development of server-side enterprise
	applications based on Equinox. Examples of server-side enterprise
	applications include web applications, integration applications, batch
	processing applications, or any combination thereof.
	</p>
	<p>
	The core components of Virgo at inception will be:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>a dynamic enterprise kernel supporting the core application,
	deployment, and provisioning model</li>
	<li>an integrated server runtime that builds on top of the kernel and
	adds in web container, configuration, and administration support</li>
	<li>a remote repository application for hosting a remote provisioning
	repository</li>
	<li>the medic module, providing configurable per-application logging
	services for enterprise applications deployed to the kernel.</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	Virgo will be licensed under the EPL.
	</p>

	<h3>Relationship to existing Eclipse projects</h3>

	<h4>RCP and RAP</h4>
	<p>
	Virgo complements the Eclipse RT Rich Client Platform (RCP), which
	targets the development of rich client applications based on Equinox,
	and the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), which targets the development of
	rich Ajax-enabled web applications. Whereas these projects are focused
	on rich client applications, Virgo targets server-side applications.
	</p>

	<h4>Equinox</h4>
	<p>
	Virgo is built on top of Equinox and embeds the Equinox runtime in its
	distribution. Virgo takes advantage of leading edge features in
	Equinox such as the developing support for nested frameworks. In
	addition, Virgo will depend upon the Event Admin and Configuration
	Admin implementations from Equinox. The existing dm Server code uses
	the Apache Felix versions of these services, and the intention is to
	migrate to the Equinox implementations once the Virgo project is
	established.
	</p>

	<h4>Gemini</h4>
	<p>
	Virgo provides a runtime enterprise application model on top of
	Equinox, with integrated application and provisioning support. The
	Gemini project at Eclipse.org provides implementations of enterprise
	capabilities that can be exploited by such applications. The Virgo
	kernel provides just the foundational capabilities and depends solely
	on the Gemini Blueprint Service project. The Virgo server distribution
	pre-integrates the Gemini Web Container and Blueprint Service
	projects. Additional capabilities provided by Gemini projects can
	easily be added to the Virgo Server simply by deploying the
	appropriate bundle provided by those projects.
	</p>

	<h4>Jetty</h4>
	<p>The Virgo server obtains its web application support via the Eclipse
	Gemini Web Container project. This project in turn uses an embedded
	Apache Tomcat servlet container. For Virgo to support Jetty, two thin
	adapters will be written in collaboration with the Jetty team. The
	adapters will reside in Gemini and Virgo and will be maintained by the
	committers of those projects.</p>

	<h4>ECF</h4>
	<p>
	The Virgo Server provides a core application, provisioning, and
	administration model. The Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF)
	provides bundles that support the creation of distributed
	applications, including support for the Distributed OSGi specification
	from R4.2 of the OSGi Compendium Services specification. ECF bundles
	can be deployed into a Virgo runtime to support the development of
	distributed server-side applications.
	</p>

	<h4>P2</h4>
	<p>
	Equinox p2 is the Eclipse provisioning framework first introduced in
	Eclipse 3.4. Provisioning in Virgo is based on the configuration of a
	repository chain, where a repository implements a specified repository
	interface. By implementing a p2-backed version of the Virgo repository
	interface, it will be possible to integrate p2-based provisioning with
	the Virgo runtime.
	</p>

	<h4>Swordfish</h4>
	<p>
	Swordfish is an OSGi-based SOA framework that builds on Apache
	ServiceMix and Apache CXF to create a distributed Enterprise Service
	Bus (ESB). Whereas Swordfish builds on JBI (Java Business Integration)
	to support a web services based communication model, Virgo is neutral
	with respect to application style and provides no explicit support for
	business processes or web services.
	</p>

	<h2><a name="initcontrib"></a>Initial Contribution</h2>

	<p>
	The initial contributions for Virgo and its related contributions (<a
	href="#relatedcontrib">see below</a>) will be made by SpringSource
	from the existing SpringSource dm Server, dm Server Tools, and Bundlor
	projects.
	</p>

	<p>
	The SpringSource dm Server project has been under active development
	for over two years, and version 2.0 was released in January 2010. The
	project is well known within the enterprise OSGi community for
	pioneering the use of OSGi not just as a means for building an
	application server, but also as the means for building applications to
	be deployed to that server. The current dm Server project page can be
	found at <a
	href="http://www.springsource.org/dmserver">http://www.springsource.org/dmserver</a>.
	The dm Server today is an open source project released under the
	GPL (some parts of the code base are licensed under the Apache
	License, version 2). All of the code from the dm Server project will be relicensed
	under the EPL as part of the donation to Eclipse.org.
	</p>

	<p>
	Through a rich set of interactions with a user community of both open
	source and commercial developers over the last two years, the dm
	Server has evolved a key set of capabilities and features needed to
	build enterprise applications on OSGi. <a href="
	http://www.springsource.com/customers/case-studies">Customer case
	studies</a> relating to the use of dm Server in industry can be found
	on the SpringSource web site.
	</p>

	<p>
	The online <a
	href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-dmserver/2.0.x/programmer-guide/html/">Programmers
	Guide</a> details the supported deployment formats
	(regular bundles, WAR files, PAR files - a packaging construct that
	groups related bundles into an application, Plan files - a description
	of resources to be installed into the server, and properties files),
	how to build web applications taking advantage of shared libraries and
	shared services, and how to work with common third-party enterprise
	libraries. The dm Server runtime contains extensive support to enable
	third-party enterprise libraries to work "out of the box" in an OSGi
	Service Platform - handling issues such as context class loading, JPA
	instrumentation, load-time weaving, resource loading and more.
	</p>

	<p>
	The dm Server <a
	href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-dmserver/2.0.x/user-guide/html/">User
	Guide</a> covers the installation and administration
	features including the administration console and the shell. It also
	discusses the provisioning and repository support, and the extensive
	serviceability features built into the server: event logging,
	per-application tracing, and service dump support.
	</p>

	<h2>Legal Issues</h2>

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	own the trademark to the project name? Is there some issue that prevents you
	from licensing the project under the Eclipse Public License? Are parts of the
	code available under some other license? Are there any LGPL/GPL bits that you
	absolutely require?
	-->
	<p>The Bundlor trademark will be assigned to the Eclipse Foundation as
	part of this move.</p>

	<h2>Committers</h2>

	<!--
	List any initial committers that should be provisioned along with the
	new project. Include affiliation, but do not include email addresses at
	this point.
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	<p>The following individuals are proposed as initial committers to the project:</p>

	<ul>
	<li>Andy Wilkinson, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Ben Hale, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Chris Frost, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Christian Dupuis, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Costin Leau, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Glyn Normington, SpringSource (Project Lead)</li>
	<li>Leo Dos Santos, Tasktop</li>
	<li>Rob Harrop, SpringSource</li>
	<li>Steffen Pingel, Tasktop</li>
	<li>Steve Powell, SpringSource</li>
	</ul>

	<h2>Mentors</h2>

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	New Eclipse projects require a minimum of two mentors from the Architecture
	Council. You need to identify two mentors before the project is created. The
	proposal can be posted before this section is filled in (it's a little easier
	to find a mentor when the proposal itself is public).
	-->

	<p>The following Architecture Council members will mentor this
	project:</p>

	<ul>
	<li>Jeff McAffer</li>
	<li>Mik Kersten</li>
	</ul>

	<h2>Interested Parties</h2>

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	Provide a list of individuals, organisations, companies, and other Eclipse
	projects that are interested in this project. This list will provide some
	insight into who your project's community will ultimately include. Where
	possible, include affiliations. Do not include email addresses.
	-->

	<p>The following individuals, organisations, companies and projects have
	expressed interest in this project:</p>

	<ul>
	<li>Tasktop</li>
	<li>SAP</li>
	</ul>

	<h2><a name="relatedcontrib"></a>Related Contributions</h2>

	<p>
	Developer tools that provide support for Virgo are out of scope for
	the Virgo project as part of Eclipse RT. However, the Virgo team also
	propose to work with the existing WTP and PDE projects to contribute
	relevant developer tools for Virgo to those projects. These
	contributions will be based upon the existing Bundlor and dm Server
	development tools projects detailed below.
	</p>

	<h3>Bundlor</h3>
	<p>
	The Bundlor project is designed to help enterprise application
	developers create and maintain high quality manifests for their
	bundles. <a href="http://www.springsource.org/bundlor">Bundlor</a> is
	currently hosted at springsource.org.
	</p>
	<p>
	With the increasing focus on OSGi in Enterprise Java, there is a need
	to create OSGi bundles for deployment. Bundlor provides a manifest
	templating mechanism that makes it much easier for developers to
	create and maintain high quality OSGi manifests for their bundles and
	can be integrated into both a build system and the Eclipse
	IDE. Bundlor is also very useful for generating manifests for existing
	enterprise libraries that you may wish to use in conjunction with your
	project and which are not already packaged as OSGi bundles.
	</p>
	<p>
	It can be very hard for a developer to know exactly what dependencies
	a library or project requires using simple inspection, and maintaining
	this list over time is error prone. Bundlor is a tool that automates
	the detection of dependencies and the creation of OSGi manifest
	directives for JARs after their creation. Bundlor takes as input a JAR
	and a template consisting of a superset of the standard OSGi manifest
	headers. Bundlor analyses the source code and support files contained
	in the JAR, applies the template to the results, and generates a
	manifest. Currently Bundlor can detect dependencies in Java source
	code, Spring configuration files, JPA configuration files, Hibernate
	mapping files, and web.xml files.
	</p>
	<p>
	The use of Bundlor can take different forms, from tasks for Apache ANT
	and plugins for Apache Maven, to simple command line execution for
	integration into any existing build system. An <a
	href="http://blog.springsource.com/2009/03/26/using-bundlor-in-eclipse/">overview
	of using Bundlor from inside Eclipse</a> is provided on the SpringSource blog.
	</p>
	<p>
	The <a
	href="http://static.springsource.org/s2-bundlor/1.0.x/user-guide/html/">Bundlor
	User Guide</a> provides full details of these capabilities.
	Bundlor operates at the OSGi Service Platform level, and does not
	contain any explicit support for Eclipse Plugin Development. The
	Eclipse PDE project provides tools to create, develop, test, debug,
	build and deploy Eclipse plug-ins, fragments, features, update sites
	and RCP products. The scope of the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/pde/">PDE</a> project also includes the
	provision of "comprehensive OSGi tooling, which makes it an ideal
	environment for component programming, not just Eclipse plug-in
	development". Bundlor is a very good match with this latter remit,
	and is proposed for contribution to Eclipse.org as a PDE Component.
	</p>
	<p>
	The PDE "New Plug-in from Existing JAR Archives" wizard contains
	functionality that overlaps in part with Bundlor, in that it can be
	used to generate a manifest for existing jar files. Unlike Bundlor,
	the manifest generation is not controllable via template, and does not
	understand non-source code artefacts commonly used in enterprise
	projects. Bundlor could be used behind the scenes in this wizard for
	enhanced manifest generation if so desired.
	</p>

	<h3>Virgo Development Tools</h3>
	<p>
	The existing <a href="http://www.springsource.org/dmservertools">dm
	Server tools project</a> at SpringSource.org provides functionality
	that may be contributed to the WTP5 and PDE projects. This support
	includes:
	</p>
	<ul>
	</li>PDE user interface extensions</li>
	<ul>
	<li>editor support for Virgo PAR files and Plan files;</li>
	<li>a Bundle Classpath Container that manages a bundle project's
	classpath based on a manifest (with incremental manifest
	generation via Bundlor); </li>
	<li>Manifest editing and validation support: content-assist,
	hyperlinking and validation for manifests, with quick fixes for
	common problems</li>
	</ul>
	<li>WTP integration for the Virgo server platform</li>
	<ul>
	<li>drag-and-drop deployment</li>
	<li>graphical bundle & packages overview</li>
	<li>integrated shell support</li>
	<li>integrated provisioning for Virgo repository management</li>
	</ul>
	</ul>
	<p>
	The PDE project currently provides a manifest editor with multiple
	pages, including support for plugin.xml artefacts. The dm Server tools
	editor is focused on the job of editing OSGi manifests for developers
	who are creating enterprise OSGi bundles (not Eclipse plugins). The
	features in common between the two editors have a shared
	look-and-feel.
	</p>
	<p>
	The ideal direction would be to create a Bundle Development Environment (BDE) on top of which PDE could build in the future.
	</p>
	<p>
	For more information on the dm Server tools capabilities, see the
	following <a
	href="http://blog.springsource.com/2009/03/05/osgi-development-tools-in-sts/">SpringSource
	blog entry</a>, and the <a
	href="http://download.springsource.com/release/STS/doc/STS-new_and_noteworthy-2.2.1.200910210131-RELEASE.pdf">STS
	New and Noteworthy</a> documentation for the latest release.
	</p>

	<h2>Project Scheduling</h2>

	<p>
	The initial milestone will be to get the IP code contributions for
	these projects approved, and the projects provisioned on Eclipse.org
	infrastructure. This will be based off of the 2.0 release version of
	the donor projects. A provisional plan for subsequent development is
	to release a 2.0.1 service release in 1Q10, and a 2.1 release
	alongside the 2010 Eclipse release train. The intention is for the
	Virgo project to become a formal part of the release train in 2011.
	</p>

	<h2>Changes to this Document</h2>

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	List any changes that have occurred in the document here.
	You only need to document changes that have occurred after the document
	has been posted live for the community to view and comment.
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	<table>
	<tr>
	<th>Date</th>
	<th>Change</th>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>25-Jan-2010</td>
	<td>Section concerning Virgo's relationship with Jetty updated.</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>12-Jan-2010</td>
	<td>Document created</td>
	</tr>
	</table>
	</body>
	</html>