Let's see if we can move on the slim-down effort in this direction; here is a slightly more detailed proposal:
* svn layout of the project will stay as is now: framework+applications+specialpupose; if you checkout the trunk you will get everything as it is now * however all the specialpupose components will be disabled by default; building the project will not build them, running tests will not run the tests on them etc... * we will provide easy mechanisms (ant scripts/settings or similar) to enable specialpurpose components; in this way developers interested in testing/working on some specialpurpose components will have an easy way to do this * the official releases (and release branches) will not contain the specialpurpose folder * we could release specialpurpose components separately ("OFBiz Extra 1.0", 2.0, 3.0 etc...) if there is interest; we could even release individual components if there is interest ("OFBiz Extra - POS 1.0", "OFBiz Extra - Birt 1.0") * key point: it will be acceptable to commit code to improve OFBiz even if it breaks some of the specialpurpose components: e.g. API changes, jar updates (duplicated of jars in some specialpurpose components) etc... The last point is the most important because with it we will reach some important goals that could alleviate the tension/conflicts we had in the past while discussing topics about what should go in OFBiz and what not: a) committers will have a core set of common, generic and more frequently used components (framework/applications) to focus on; it will be easier to maintain a smaller codebase and this will speed up the evolution of OFBiz; it will also remove a lot of burden in the release management because we will have less external dependencies to look for for vulnerability reports; for example, if a vulnerability report is reported by the Birt community, and we are distributing the Birt jars in our releases, in the current situation we would be forced to issue a new release (as a side note, I am not even sure if we are keeping an eye on vulnerability reports from all the projects we have pulled jars from) b) committers interested in keeping up-to-date some of the specialpurpose components could easily update the code and commit it; over time we will see what are the specialpurpose components that are actively maintained (and we could issue releases for them) and what are the components that are not (and we could discuss if it is worth of keeping them in the trunk or not, but they will not cause any major issues even if they stay there) Some clarifications: * we may want to review over time the list of components currently under specialpurpose; if there is a general consensus in the direction of keeping a few of them in the releases then we could keep them enabled and include them in branches * we will have to change something in the way we build the classpath in ant in order to include jars and build the component only if the component is enabled; it should not be difficult to achieve but this is important because it will allow us to have potentially conflicting jars in the framework/applications and specialpurpose As a roadmap, we could try to implement this approach before the next cut of the 13.04 release branch (in April 2013): that branch could be the first one without the specialpurpose components. What do you think? Jacopo On Dec 31, 2012, at 11:39 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote: > Yes thanks! > > Jacques > > From: "Jacopo Cappellato" <jacopo.cappell...@hotwaxmedia.com> >> >> On Dec 16, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote: >> >>> I even wonder if Jacopo did not make a more recent (and flexible) >>> proposition with which I totaly agreed (during fall, it seems to me but, I >>> can't find it), Jacopo? >> >> Do you mean the following? >> >> ======================== >> BTW, some time ago I also proposed an alternative path: see email with >> subject "[PROPOSAL] from specialpurpose to extras": to that I can add that >> we could provide two set of ant scripts, one similar to the one we have that >> builds/tests everything (framework+applications+specialpurpose) and one (the >> default) that only builds/tests the framework+applications; the release >> branches may only contain the framework+applications and separate releases >> of specialpurpose applications could be voted/released at different time. >> This approach may reach two goals: >> 1) slim down the "main" code that the community is more focused to >> improve/maintain/release >> 2) keep under the OFBiz community the ownership of all the other >> specialpurpose components; if one of them will get more attention and >> interest and could grow in quality or it is generic enough we could decide >> to move it to the release branch (maybe move it to applications) >> ======================== >> >> Jacopo >> >>