[ecf-dev] More interfaces on remote OSGI services page

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bob, Ken, and all,

This afternoon I put some more of the ideas for OSGI remote service API 
that I've been playing around with here:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Remote_OSGI_Services

Note as usual for ECF :-) this says exactly nothing about how these APIs 
would be implemented...e.g. they could be implemented with some existing 
RPC mechanism, or via RPC built on asych messaging (e.g. ecf generic).  
Clearly I think of missing functionality as a feature :).  Also, as 
discussed during the conf call today the actual implementation bundles 
(e.g. whether they are dynamically loaded/installed or rather must be 
there to begin with) is left unspecified...meaning that (for example) a 
call to getRemoteServiceReferences could actually retrieve the bundles 
holding the proxies associated with the given remote service.  I think 
that's a pretty exciting idea, actually.

Also note that the intention here was to present to remote clients an 
OSGI service interface that 'looks' a fair amount like the OSGI 'local' 
service interface (e.g. BundleContext.registerService, 
BundleContext.getServiceReferences, BundleContext.getService, etc).   
This may/may not be a good idea...as Ken hinted at during the 
call...that is, it's not clear whether a remote service interface is 
best...or some way to access remote bundle code, or certain packages, 
within bundle, etc.  The process-local OSGI service concept, though, is 
at least one that is standardized by OSGI itself...and used in Eclipse 
and other RCP apps.

Any thoughts/comments/criticisms/'you are crazy's appreciated.

Scott