Http Service API bundles

[Felix Meschberger <fm...@adobe.com>]

Hi

I have modified our Http Service bundles today such as to separate the APIs from the implementations. The goal separate the coupling between API consumers and the actual implementation. Particularly in large OSGi-based web applications where notably the Servlet API is basically being wired in almost all bundles, updating the servlet container implementation may cause the complete application to not only be restarted but to actually be rewired.

This is tracked in FELIX-4427 [1] (and IIRC it has been discussed before, but nothing has been done).

The consequence of this change is that, going forward, besides installing the Jetty bundle also the Http Service API bundle and the Servlet API bundles have to be installed.

Why not merging the Http Service API with the Servlet API bundles ? While the Http Service API requires the Servlet API it has a much looser version coupling to the Servlet API than the Servlet Container implementing both the Http Service API and the Servlet API. So I think it gives the deployer a higher degree of freedom if we keep the Http Service and Servlet APIs in separate bundles.

Regards
Felix

[1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FELIX-4427