Hi,
As Camille indicates, this new feature structure was introduced to solve
bug 494931. Regarding the naming of the new nested feature it was discussed in the related
Gerrit change. As can be seen fromt the patch sets this new feature was actually named "base" initially (in patch set 1), but Christian opposed and Camille changed it to "all" (in patch set 2) based on Christian's input. On the other hand, Christian did oppose to the new nested feature itself.
Personally I think it is a little bit too late in the release cycle of 1.0 to start discussing the feature structure. We have had these discussion on and off numerous times on this mailing list, including a discussion if/how we are going to support advanced users to install using the ordinary "Install New Software..." menu in Eclipse which we so far never really have provided a good support for.
I would also like to understand who are the main stakeholders and what are the driving forces behind the different proposed feature structures? The driving force behind this change was a tool smith that was authoring an Oomph setup file. Which stakeholder in mind do we have for the different proposals? Tool smiths authoring Oomph setup files? Advanced end-users using "Install New Software..." (which we don't really support in a good way anyway)?
If we are considering the latter, we also have the aspect of how we categorize the features (so far we seem to only have focused on the feature structure and how it looks like *after* you actually have made the installation). To my understanding this new "all" feature is not even categorized, and thus does not even show up when using "Install New Software..." when you have the "Group Items by Category" enabled. And we other aspects when it comes to categories, e.g. why do we have a separate "Codegen" category where codegen, run-time and textual are placed? And only one "top level" for category for everything else (expect this new "all" feature then).
So at this stage of the release cycle, I would go for option 5, i.e. status quo. Regarding whether it shall be named "base" or "all" I really don't have any strong opinion. Maybe Christian who objected to the initial name of "base" on the Gerrit change should give his view regarding this.
/Peter Cigéhn