Right, let me add: a major part of the reason for the policy was that previously, OSGi wouldn't make the API publicly available in the first place. That was problematic as effectively, the felix release would have been the de-facto official version with all the potential confusion around that. Assuming that we now would just _consume_ the API from public places (i.e., maven central) I don't think the policy applies anymore (or at least has to be that strict). Let me put it another way: If OSGi is pushing a org.osgi.foo.api.0.0.1-RC1 jar to maven central - then, that is a release and as such, can be used in a Felix release already.
That said, there is a valid concern around that because even if we get the api from a public release, it still is possible that the implementation has to change because of the spec that is not yet final. That was the reason we made the policy say: released specification is required. I think that is still a concern but I would argue we should allow it provided the release version makes it reasonable clear that it is a milestone/rc release. In other words, I'd be fine with Tom's proposal to make it ok to use api from osgi from maven central and release the implementation with a version that has an "RC" or "Provisional" or whatever qualifier that is descriptive enough. regards, Karl On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:46 PM Raymond Augé <raymond.a...@liferay.com.invalid> wrote: > > +1 My vote would be to follow Tom's recommendation. > > For reference here is the Apache Felix policy [1] in question. > > Ray > > [1] > https://felix.apache.org/documentation/development/provisional-osgi-api-policy.html > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 12:47 PM Thomas Watson <tjw...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > Now that the OSGi specification development has resumed under the Eclipse > > OSGi Working Group we need to discuss how the OSGi Working Group will > > consume compatible implementations done within the Apache Felix project. > > > > For the immediate discussion I have been developing the OSGi R8 Declarative > > Services implementation in the scrR8 branch [1]. The Apache Felix SCR > > implementation has been used as the reference implementation for past > > releases of the OSGi specification. This process has changed somewhat now > > that the specification is being developed at the Eclipse OSGi Working > > Group. There no longer will be something called a "reference" > > implementation. Instead there will be one or more implementations that are > > "compatible" implementations. In order for the OSGI specification to have > > a final release vote there must be one or more (non-snapshot) compatible > > implementations publically available from an open source project. > > > > As far as I know, the Apache Felix project has a policy of never having a > > release of an artifact that contains non-final OSGi specification classes. > > This leaves the OSGi Working Group with a circularity issue because it > > cannot have a final release vote of the R8 Declarative Services > > specification until there is a publically available (non-snapshot) > > compatible implementation but Apache Felix will not publish a non-snapshot > > version of SCR R8 implementation to maven central until there is are final > > spec API JARs available for the SCR R8 specification. > > > > The proposed process from the OSGi working group is to have open source > > projects providing a compatible implementation that is used for the > > specification voting would provide a milestone version (M1, M2, etc.) or > > release candidate version (RC1, RC2, etc.) to maven central. These > > implementations would build against available release candidate OSGI API > > JARs from maven central. Then the OSGi Specification project build would > > use the compatible implementation's milestone or release candidate from > > maven central to build its final version for voting and releasing the final > > specification artifacts. > > > > I propose the Felix project allow releases of milestones and/or release > > candidates with relaxed rules for including non-final OSGi APIs. Such a > > milestone or RC release may depend on release candidate API JARs published > > to maven central by the OSGi Specification project. After the OSGi > > specification goes final we can then do a final release of the > > implementation at our leisure. Is this something we can do in the Apache > > Felix project? > > > > Tom > > > > [1] https://github.com/apache/felix-dev/tree/scrR8 > > > > > -- > *Raymond Augé* (@rotty3000) > Senior Software Architect *Liferay, Inc.* (@Liferay) > OSGi Fellow, Java Champion -- Karl Pauls karlpa...@gmail.com
