Jeff, As I was cleaning up my junk email folder, I was *shocked* to find your email. Somehow, our email server decided to place it here for some reason. And I thought that I was totally being ignored... ;) To respond to your question, I was referring to the use of extension points and plugin.xml file for configuration in addition to the modifications to the bundle manifest file that you mentioned. Don't get me wrong, I do like the concept of extension points. In fact, I implemented this concept (as well as the plugin.xml) where I work. Interestingly, Eclipse calls the plugin.xml as the plug-in's manifest file as opposed to the bundle manifest file that comes with the jar. Hope this helps!
--rick -----Original Message----- From: Jeff McAffer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 6:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Felix Product Plugin and/or Initial Provisioning Service? "Rick Litton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 03/14/2006 12:34:05 PM: > Pardon my ignorance on initial provisioning...but are you referring to > the Eclipse Plug-in Architecture? If so, adoption of this architecture > is a major shift in current Oscar or Felix thinking. For one thing, > reconciling the bundle manifest with the Equinox version is a major > undertaking. Regards. As a point of interest, can you clarify how you are differentiating the Eclipse plugin architecture from the OSGi bundle model? Eclipse plugins ARE OSGi bundles and Equinox is a standalone implementation of the OSGi R4 spec. It is true that Eclipse adds a couple of additional headers to the manifest and we have a mess of additional services but for the most part these headers can be (and are) safely ignored when running on non-Equinox frameworks and the additional services, like any service, can be either reused or re-implemented as needed. I don't want to over sell anything here. The reality today is that most Eclipse bundles will not run on other existing OSGi frameworks. This is either because a) other frameworks do not fully support R4 (fragments and require-bundle figure heavily in Eclipse) or b) some of the Eclipse codebase makes implementation assumptions about the framework (Equinox). The former is changing as Felix and Knopflerfish work towards R4 completeness. The latter is still evolving. The Eclipse codebase is large and we are reworking individual bundles as the need/demand arises. In general the Equinox bundles are are clean of Eclipse assumptions. Jeff
