[DS] How dynamically configurable should delayedKeepInstances be?

[David Jencks <da...@yahoo.com>]

As noted in a previous email I'm working on enabling the felix optional/extension features through component descriptor attributes.  I discovered that configuring delayedKeepInstances is more dynamic than I realized.

Currently you can fire up a delayed component, get the instance, change the delayedKeepInstances setting, unget the reference, and the configuration change will take effect immediately.  I'm not convinced this is a wonderful idea.  I kinda think that if we do this, then if we change the configuration from true to false we should go around and drop any delayed components that don't have current users, but I really don't want to write the code for that.

I propose we change the behavior so that the component's delayedKeepInstances setting is determined when its descriptor is read by combining the (new) attribute value and the current scr configuration setting.

This would be a behavior change and I don't feel very strongly about this so if anyone objects I'm happy to dynamically determine the setting when the last reference goes away from the combination of the scr configuration (dynamic) and the descriptor attribute (static).

thanks
david jencks