EDT:Update Site Guidelines

EDT Update Site Guidelines

Our main requirement for the EDT update site is for users to be able to get updates on a release cycle that is determined by the original installation:

• If a nightly build is installed, updates will find new nightly builds within the same release.
• If a milestone build is installed, updates will find new milestone builds within the same release.
• If a release is installed, updates will only be found for service updates within the same release.

Based on this requirement, we have come up with the following design:

Update Builds

• This site is used to add EDT to an existing Eclipse IDE
  
• This site will contain the most recent release build in the 1.0 release, from version .7.x up until 1.0.x (e.g. .7.1, .8.0, .8.1, 1.0, 1.0.1, etc)
  
• download.eclipse.org/edt/updates/1.0
  

Release Builds

• This site is used when installing the Eclipse IDE for EGL Developers, which contains both Eclipse and EDT
  
• This site will contain the most recent release build in the 1.0 release stream, from version .7.x up until 1.0.x (e.g. .7.1, .8.0, .8.1, 1.0, 1.0.1, etc)
  
• download.eclipse.org/edt/releases/1.0
  

Nightly Builds

• This site will contain the most recent nightly build in the 1.0 release, from version .7.x up until 1.0.x
• download.eclipse.org/edt/updates/nightly
  

Milestone Builds

• This site will contain the most recent milestone build in the 1.0 release, from version .7.x up until 1.0.x (e.g. .7.0 M1, .7.0 M2, .7.0, .8.0 M1, .8.0 M2, .8.0, etc)
• download.eclipse.org/edt/milestones/1.0
  
• Note: A release is considered a milestone build

Details

• When a user installs a Release build, the workspace will automatically be configured to download new release builds from the same stream in the future. If a user would like to update to a more recent build within the same stream (e.g. nightly or milestone), they can manually add an additional update site.
• When a user installs a non-Release build (e.g. Nightly, Milestone, or Update build) the workspace will automatically be configured to download new builds of the same type within the same stream in the future. If a user would like to update to a newer build, they can manually add an additional update site.
• We are considering all releases between .7 and 1.0.x to be 'Service Updates' to the .7 release, which means that users can upgrade to newer builds without having to create a new Eclipse installation. We are aware that there might be breaking API changes in the near future, and that automatic updates should generally avoid introducing breaking API changes, but we think the benefits of being able to automatically update to newer versions of EDT before we reach version 1.0 is worth the risk.
• None of the update sites listed above can be used to download builds past version 1.0.x (e.g. 1.1.0, 2.0.0, etc). To get one of these builds, a new update site must be configured, either by creating a new Eclipse installation or by downloading a new Release build.
• None of the update sites listed above can be used to download older versions of a build.  Older versions of a build are available on the EDT Archive.

NOTE: One of our original requirements was to be able to track how many people are downloading each type of build for EDT, which is why we listed the .7 M3 update site as "http://download.eclipse.org/edt/updates/0.7.0/M3". To support the automatic updates listed above, we will no longer be able to track the downloads for each type of build.  The team has agreed that knowing how many people are downloading builds is enough, and we do not need to know how many people are downloading each type of build.