Re: [ecf-dev] network discovery and distribution questions related to RF

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Carl,

Carl Cook wrote:
> <stuff deleted>
>
> So, my next question is: how does the ECF fit into this? Again, I am 
> showing my ignorance/lack of knowledge here, but the ECF is used 
> primarily for supporting communication between RCP applications, 
> eclipse plugins and the like. If I am correct regarding this, is the 
> OSGi implementation intended to support these classes of applications, 
> or branch out to provide framework support for mobile devices, new 
> types of servers/services, etc? Again, this could be an incredibly 
> stupid question, but I am intrigued to find out more!

I'll give you my view only...as I'm only one member of the community 
(others might have a different view of how ECF can/will be used for them).

But as a member of the RT project, ECF would like to support as 
many/many types of OSGi/Equinox applications as possible.   I think that 
OSGi and Equinox has value both on the small-end (networked devices, 
embedded, etc), the desktop (Eclipse, tooling, RCP apps, etc), and the 
large-end (enterprise servers) and with remoting and discovery we would 
like to support as many of these as possible.  That's why we've gone 
to/are going to some trouble to make implementations that are both small 
(in code size and EE requirements) and pluggable (i.e. allow using a 
variety of discovery mechanisms/protocols and a variety of available 
distribution mechanisms).  This so that users/consumers of discovery and 
remoting can use what fits for their use cases, rather than trying to 
fit (e.g.) a networked device's remoting into an enterprise server or 
the reverse.

This since I believe that discovery and remoting has so many use cases 
that there's not likely/not going to be a 'one discovery and 
distribution' protocol to rule them all.

> As mentioned previously, solving the challenges as to what the 
> "default" behavior should be for service discovery, resolution, 
> security, service lifetimes, etc seems like a great topic to tackle.

Yes.  I've started the work on an ECF 
'IRemoteServiceContainerFinder'...to allow for runtime adjustments in 
client configuration...based upon application-level needs.  Any comments 
thoughts would be appreciated.  See bug 
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=249240 for the recent 
proposed patch for review and discussion.

Thanks,

Scott