[eclipse-pmc] Approval request for PDE feature

[Darin Wright <Darin_Wright@xxxxxxxxxx>]

PDE would like to request PMC approval for the following feature 
(associated bug: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=275013)

REQUEST FOR ENHANCEMENT:

Target definitions have been enhanced in 3.5 to support software site 
locations. A software site location allows software from an update site to 
be added to a target definition (which effectively retrieves all 
associated bundles in a runnable form for building, running and 
debugging). The current implementation uses the p2 planner to determine 
what bundles are downloaded and installed into the target. The planner is 
restrictive in that bundles are downloaded for a specific environment (OS, 
window system, architecture, locale), and only if all dependencies can be 
resolved.

PDE would like to add two options to software site locations to ease these 
restrictions:

(1) Allow the user to add software to target definitions even when all 
dependencies cannot be resolved.

BENEFIT: Allow users to craft target definitions from incomplete 
repositories. Zipped repositories are produced by several projects and 
they will become more common. These repositories are generally incomplete, 
containing only the bundles that the producer is responsible for. For 
example, the Equinox SDK repository download contains only Equinox bundles 
but has dependencies on SWT which are not included. Enforcing all 
dependencies be met means developers cannot use the repository by itself 
to do server (non-UI) development.

(2) Retrieve content for all available environments (i.e. all platform 
specific fragments)

BENEFIT: Enhances the ability to build products for multiple platforms. 
The delta-pack provided with the SDK does not contain all platform 
specific bundles (only a subset deemed relevant by the SDK/RCP). This 
provides developers with a simple way to retrieve all platform specific 
content.

EXTENT OF CHANGES:
(1)     Two new check boxes will be added to the software selection dialog 
used when adding a software site to a target definition. The check boxes 
will be labeled “Include required software” (checked by default) and a 
sub-option “Include all available environments” (unchecked and disabled by 
default – only becomes enabled when “Include required software” is 
unchecked). 
(2)     When the user disables dependency resolution (unchecks “Include 
required software”), the p2 slicer is used in place of the p2 planner when 
retrieving content. When the user specifies all platforms, the slicer 
ignores platform filters.

Darin Wright