Improvements for CXF OSGi packaging

[Christian Schneider <ch...@die-schneider.net>]

Hi all,

we already have an extremely simple CXF installation in Apache Karaf 
with the feature file we provide. On other platforms it is much harder
to install cxf:

- Equinox
- Felix
- Eclipse RCP (for GUIs)

Currently people using one of these platforms often use the DOSGi 
distribution as it conveniently contains all needed bundles. Some use 
cases of cxf are not covered though as the necessary bundles are not 
part of the DOSGi distro.

Another big concern for me is that it is very hard to update the DOSGi 
distro to a new CXF version.  Basically this means to check and update 
all dependencies by hand.

So I would like to discuss how we could improve this.

The first thing is to make it easier to create the DOSGi distro. I have 
the idea to use the karaf feature files of CXF and DOSGi to create the 
DOSGi distro.
Probably we would need another feature that reflects the basic bundles 
that are normally already present in karaf and are a prerequisite for CXF.

The second thing is to create a P2 repository for each CXF release. The 
idea is to also use the feature files for this. The P2 repository would 
allow eclipse rcp users to easily and modularly add cxf to a target 
platform in the same way you can add eclipse features. The easiest way 
would be to publish the repo as a zip file in the maven repo. To make it 
more convenient we could also publish it as an update site on the web.

One last thing is the system package exports. In Karaf 2.3+ we support 
now special api jars that allow to exchange jdk apis and impls without 
tweaking the system package exports. Can we also do this for plain 
felix, equinox and eclipse rcp?

So what do you think? Should this be possible? Is it worth the effort?

Christian

-- 
Christian Schneider
http://www.liquid-reality.de

Open Source Architect
http://www.talend.com

RE: Improvements for CXF OSGi packaging

[Andrei Shakirin <as...@talend.com>]

+1 from me.

See a lot of users using or like to use CXF clients in Eclipse RCP applications.
Not sure about efforts.

Regards,
Andrei.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Schneider [mailto:cschneider111@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
> Christian Schneider
> Sent: Freitag, 12. April 2013 16:25
> To: CXF Dev
> Subject: Improvements for CXF OSGi packaging
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> we already have an extremely simple CXF installation in Apache Karaf with
> the feature file we provide. On other platforms it is much harder to install
> cxf:
> 
> - Equinox
> - Felix
> - Eclipse RCP (for GUIs)
> 
> Currently people using one of these platforms often use the DOSGi
> distribution as it conveniently contains all needed bundles. Some use cases
> of cxf are not covered though as the necessary bundles are not part of the
> DOSGi distro.
> 
> Another big concern for me is that it is very hard to update the DOSGi distro
> to a new CXF version.  Basically this means to check and update all
> dependencies by hand.
> 
> So I would like to discuss how we could improve this.
> 
> The first thing is to make it easier to create the DOSGi distro. I have the idea
> to use the karaf feature files of CXF and DOSGi to create the DOSGi distro.
> Probably we would need another feature that reflects the basic bundles that
> are normally already present in karaf and are a prerequisite for CXF.
> 
> The second thing is to create a P2 repository for each CXF release. The idea is
> to also use the feature files for this. The P2 repository would allow eclipse rcp
> users to easily and modularly add cxf to a target platform in the same way
> you can add eclipse features. The easiest way would be to publish the repo
> as a zip file in the maven repo. To make it more convenient we could also
> publish it as an update site on the web.
> 
> One last thing is the system package exports. In Karaf 2.3+ we support now
> special api jars that allow to exchange jdk apis and impls without tweaking
> the system package exports. Can we also do this for plain felix, equinox and
> eclipse rcp?
> 
> So what do you think? Should this be possible? Is it worth the effort?
> 
> Christian
> 
> --
> Christian Schneider
> http://www.liquid-reality.de
> 
> Open Source Architect
> http://www.talend.com