Hi Kevin,
That's a a very good Point, thanks for bringing it up.
One more aspect I would like to Mention is, how a qualifier like "RELEASE" or "GA" fits into the semantic versioning scheme?
One example of practicing that, while many other Jakarta EE 8 specs avoided using them would be Servlet:
https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/servlet-api/releases/tag/4.0.3-RELEASE
Especially in Sonatype/Mavencentral I learned, that some qualifiers also affect the way the latest version is sorted and displayed (ie. 4.0.3-RELEASE > 4.0.3)
We recently had a few discussions around using qualifiers like "RC1" or "M1" for incubating specs like NoSQL, but especially towards new releases they could also apply to the final ones.
Werner
Hi,
At the end of our Platform Dev call this morning, we started to discuss the versioning of the Jakarta Component specs due to the jakarta namespace update. As an example, with the jakarta package rename, should the next version of CDI be 2.x or 3.0? This was initially brought up as part of this thread:
https://www.eclipse.org/lists/jakartaee-platform-dev/msg00862.html
The initial response on the call was "Yes", the major version of the CDI Spec must increase with the change in package names.
But, as we continued talking, it was clear there were two aspects (at least) of semantic versioning that come into play.
- Semantic versioning at the Spec level (ie. JPA 2.2 -> 3.0)
- Semantic versioning at the Package level (ie. javax.persistence.* -> jakarta.persistence.*)
1. Spec level versioning. I'm going to assume that the initial response is still accurate and we expect the individual Jakarta components to increase the major version of their Specs. Sticking with the JPA example, this would require a new entry in the maven repo for a 3.0 release, which would have the following coordinates:
<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/jakarta.persistence/jakarta.persistence-api-->
<dependency>
<groupId>jakarta.persistence</groupId>
<artifactId>jakarta.persistence-api</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>
This usage would allow proper dependency management at the macro level -- at the Spec and API level.
2. Package level versioning. This is what BJ brought up at the end of the call. As an example, look at the MANIFEST.MF for JPA 2.2.3:
Export-Package: javax.persistence.metamodel;version="2.2.3",javax.persis
tence;uses:="javax.persistence.criteria,javax.persistence.metamodel,jav
ax.persistence.spi";version="2.2.3",javax.persistence.criteria;uses:="j
avax.persistence,javax.persistence.metamodel";version="2.2.3",javax.per
sistence.spi;uses:="javax.persistence,javax.sql";version="2.2.3"
Since we're moving from javax.persistence.* to jakarta.persistence.*, this is technically a new API package and, thus, should start over at 1.0.0. A few questions come to mind here...
- If we claim we want to follow semantic versioning, does it require us to recognize this name change and start over at "1.0.0" with the package export? Or, can we decide that this change from javax to jakarta is just a continuation of the old package and use "3.0.0" for the jakarta.persistence.* packages?
- If it's decided that the jakarta.persistence.* package rename requires a "1.0.0", does it make sense to have different package versions from the external Spec/API version? In this case, the packages would be exported as "1.0.0", but the Spec would be at "3.0".
- Do we even care? Do any of the Jakarta components currently import packages with specific version numbers? The JPA MANIFEST just imports the package names with no versions. I know this comes into play with an OSGI-based system (we use both export and import packages with versions in Open Liberty, for example). But, do we need or want to incorporate that level of dependency mgmt on everyone using Jakarta EE?
I have my thoughts on what we should do, but let's start with the discussion first. Thanks.
---------------------------------------------------
Kevin Sutter
STSM, MicroProfile and Jakarta EE architect
e-mail: sutter@xxxxxxxxxx Twitter: @kwsutter
phone: tl-553-3620 (office), 507-253-3620 (office)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinwsutter
