Equinox Summit 2007 topics

Lightning Talks

The summit will start off with some short talks on the work that will be happening in and around Equinox over the year. Tentatively we have room in the agenda for five 15 minute talks, but the length and number can be tweaked depending on how many talks we end up with. If you have a proposal for a lightning talk, please add it here by Friday 09/21/2007. Consider this an opportunity to advertise the cool things you're working on, and to attract participation from the community. If you don't tell us, how will we know?

• Pascal Rapicault
  • p2, where are we going, where are we, quick design overview.
• Tim Webb
  • Brief overview of how Maya is planned to leverage the Equinox provisioning incubator work. Topics include how the director component will be used server side and the use of shared install services to provide the desired end-user experience.
• BJ Hargrave
  • OSGi Rnext - 15 minute overview of what is coming down the road in the next OSGi spec release. Given limited time, I will focus on what is most applicable to Equinox.
• Tom Watson
  • Security incubator - Current status and future plan. Focus will be on dynamic management of Java security providers, trust roots, user authentication and on runtime code authorization.
• Brian Bauman
  • Tooling (PDE), an overview and what we are planning for the future.

Areas of Interest

The bulk of the summit will be divided into breakout sessions exploring various topics. All attendees will help establish and shape the particular topics to be explor. To kick things off, please add some Equinox-related topics of interest to you. These can be used to seed the list of discussion topics, and help attendees with similar interest to connect.

• Jeff McAffer
  • More contributions. This might be a meta-topic but there are likely tangible steps that the current team can take to be more open to new contributions.
  • Security directions. We have new contributions for JAAS, JCA, Keystore etc. Lets talk about where this work will take us
  • Services. Prosyst has contributed several new services recently. We should review these with an eye to graduating and integrating them into the main stream.
  • PDE build. How can we make it better (incremental, easier to setup, ...) and how will the provisioning work impact build.

• Chris Aniszczyk
  • PDE Build. How can we tool PDE Build... in terms of having an easy way to get a user started with an automated build. Similar to how PDE provides a .product file for helping build/package RCP applications, maybe we need something similar for an automated build.
  • PDE and "Components." PDE has notions of groups of plug-ins in various places... (target definitions, product files, features, etc...) does it make sense to abstract this concept out a bit so it can be reused by other places.
  • PDE and Provisioning. How will tooling for provisioning work, what happens to features and update sites?
  • PDE Build and Incremental Build. How do we make PDE Build do incremental build? How does this intersect with provisioning?

• Scott Lewis
  • Security: Authentication and platform login. Integration of JAAS. Extension points and services for extensibility? see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=200299
  • Security: Any connection between login and profiles in provisioning? Can login be tied to a certain profile/class of profile (e.g. role)?
  • Framework: Spring-OSGi support?
  • Bundle distribution: How to allow component-level (groups of plugins, with various dependencies) be easily distributed/installed? How do (bundle) repositories (e.g. OBR, JSR-something) fit in?
  • Related to bundle distribution: How to support EF project component distribution (without features).
  • PDE: Accessing PDE programmatically: Need PDE APIs...e.g. https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=169340
  • ECF: what enhancements are needed for file transfer both at API and impl: e.g. pause/resume enhancements, file caching, monitoring/transfer statistics collection?, support more/other providers, etc.
  • ECF: How to get/test/make available more providers (e.g. bittorrent, custom protocols, etc).

• Pascal Rapicault
  • Explore the intersection of the equinox provisioning and security work. Is the intersection secure provisioning, what does that mean, does it need to be built-in?
  • What integration are we seeking between PDE (UI/Build) and equinox provisioning?
  • Looking forward with PDE Build, should we just build in the workspace?
  • Making multi-user / shared install scenarios first class in the new provisioning story
  • In the previous update manager, transport was the number one source of complaints from the community (freezing download, various proxy pb, https, etc.). Are we on track to do better? What are we missing (e.g. auto detection of proxy settings from the OS, test suites), does that translate in any requirement on ECF?

• Stefan Liebig
  • Incorporating of post processing steps. With the introduction of post processing (e.g. unpack200, deltas) an artifact key is no longer a unique id for picking an artifact. There might be multiple artifact descriptors all with the same artifact key but different post processing. How does this affect artifact repository, download manager,..?
  • Logging. Logging is an essential tool for checking the health of deployed applications and tracking down problems. There are a lot of attempts in this area. Is there a preferred solution in sight?
  • Security and provisioning. Authentication and authorization (JAAS) are necessary for a controlled provisioning (governance). Trusted connections to ´update sites´ (client trusts server/server trusts client) are a requirement for secure applications (banking/finance). How does that impact provisioning?

• John Arthorne
  • Programming models: Coming up with an easier client story for service lookup; scalable (lazy starting) declarative services
  • Tooling: Interested in defining what is API, what constitutes breaking vs. compatible changes
  • Provisioning: Filtering and selectors on dependencies, director resolution algorithm, repository APIs; support for installs with multiple bundle pools; server-managed clients.
  • Meta: What can the current Equinox committers do to help new contributors join in? What are the barriers to participation? How can we remove them?

• Oleg Besedin
  • Framework: extension registry – discuss possible scenarios for future growth. How much dynamic support do we need?
  • Framework: component models in general – extension registry, OSGi, DS. Are we there yet?
  • Tooling: API tooling – what we have now; where we would like to be. Discuss common repository for API and reference information to be used by a mix of open source and commercial developers. Usage of Javadoc tags to specify API rules.
  • Security: What are the real needs of end users / developers / administrators? The org.eclipse.equinox.security contribution for JAAS support.

• Tom Watson
  • Framework: Constraint resolving implementations. How to tackle the NP-Complete problem of the OSGi constraint resolver.
  • Framework: Security/Trusted bundles what it means to enable this at runtime.
  • Future OSGi work: How much change to the core Framework will the new Enterprise Expert Group require? Is it time to consider a major restructure of the Framework implementation? What would we gain or loose from such a large undertaking? and who would contribute?
  • Programming models: Can we leverage the lazy activation model in the OSGi extender models (DS, spring etc.). Will this make DS and other extender models more attractive to the Eclipse community?
  • Programming models: Interests in DS vs Spring. What should Eclipse use, if any, and what are the tooling considerations.

• BJ Hargrave
  • Discuss subdividing equinox.bundles component: what is helpful in getting more clarity and participation in the various bundles under the Equinox umbrella. Should we do more bugzilla components? Should we do more commit groups? Do some level of (arbitrary) grouping help. We need to agree on what the goals are for subdivision to decide if some particular subdivision is useful.
  • Set up a branch (or something else) for development of the framework (and other bundles) RI for the next release of the OSGi specifications (since 3.4 will probably ship before OSGi spec closes.)
  • Discuss what is coming in the next OSGi specification release and impact on Equinox.
  • Discuss what in Equinox can/should be brought to OSGi for standardization. e.g. Extention Registry, P2, etc.

• Simon Kaegi
  • Provisioning Engine and Configurator. In particular extensibility, re-use of existing deployment technologies and reliable state changes.
  • Serverside meets provisioning. How we can make this happen and what it will look like.
  • OSGi Web Application approaches - Http Service vs. a closer mapping to the web app concept
  • Updating the Http Service to full Servlet 2.5 support
  • Logging -- Log Service vs. other approaches -- also see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=147824
  • Serverside tooling considerations. In particular building servletbridge based applications.

• DJ Houghton
  • Provisioning interoperability and backwards compatibility - How do we see the new Update story co-existing with the old update manager (and features, etc)? Living in harmony with 3.3 and 3.4. Update sites.
  • Migration to the new provisioning model - How do we sell the new APIs? In the past we have had problems with people not moving to new code. (e.g. preferences, plugin.xml vs manifest.mf, etc)

• Olivier Thomann
  • tooling: (API tooling) defining use cases. Definition of what an API is. What information needs to be stored? Where ? (remote vs local access). What kind of feedback we want to give to the users: reports, markers,...

• Tim Webb
  • Intersection of provisioning - How to enable shared install (Maya or Unix) and ensure user has positive experience (and can leverage knowledge from a "standalone" Eclipse install)
  • Reconciler vs. become operations - How far can we go in providing a best-effort in resolving conflicts between what a shared profile dictates and what an end-user has installed?
  • Repeat of DJ Houghton's harmony between 3.3 and 3.4 update sites

• Andrew Overholt
  • Provisioning - shared install; UI - how will things (updates, new installations, etc.) be presented to the user?
  • PDE Build tooling - I would love to see some standardization here as we have many kludges for building plugins that'd I'd love to get rid of

• Dave Stevenson - mostly interested in Provisioning topics:
  • Scalability of provisioning (think 1000's of bundles); see bugzilla 183882. Is the use of the current framework admin API causing inefficiencies in the current director dependency expansion/resolution algorithms?
  • Extensibility of repositories and the download manager. For example, support for volume repositories (media).
  • Architecture of native touchpoints for os/architecture.
  • Transactionality for complex installs with multiple configurations.
  • Learning more about ECF functionality: multi-threaded connections, peer-to-peer
  • Multi-user, shared installs (is there an echo in here?); admin interactions.
  • Logging functionality and conventions; support for problem diagnosis.
  • Factoring for selectable content; support in metadata generation.
  • ...lots of other provisioning stuff

• Carlos Sanchez
  • What role can play Kepler as a collaboration metadata provider
  • How to leverage Equinox provisioning with collaboration metadata
  • Learning more about Equinox server side and webapps, sharing user stories

• John Cunningham
  • Interested in all of Equinox - from server to remote embedded clients
  • Service oriented implementations using Equinox/OSGi
  • Embedded applications build using Equinox
  • Learning more about the server side implementations and issues
  • Very lightweight provisioning and configuration management for remote embedded devices

• Andrew Niefer
  • PDE Build & Provisioning
    • What kind of provisioning artifacts will pde.build be required to produce.
    • What about provisioning the build itself, can p2 replace the fetch phase
  • Pain points: What kinds of things are too hard to do with pde.build (for someone who already knows what they are doing)
  • PDE/UI: What can the UI do to help the transition from workspace to headless builds and lower the bar to entry.

• Frank Appel
  • User Management using equinox on the server side: Authentication and Authorization infrastructure (Equinox Security Project?). Filtering of available extensions depending on something like user roles
  • Cluster support of equinox server-side installations (configuration area, workspace?)
  • hot deployment of web applicationen/single bundles with Equinox
  • support for better configuration of webapplications (deployment descriptor, see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=162132 by Jochen Hiller)

Interests by topics

At the recent gathering we tried to estimate how many people registered for the summit would be interested in each of the four topics. We ended up with something like:

Topic	# of People
Framework	7
Provisioning	16
Server Side	7
Tooling	10