Question is about [1] being still used by anyone. I haven't seen anyone using it/running it on git repos like it has been in the past. Changing copyright year in every file is not mandatory for Eclipse TLP since 2016 [2] and has never been mandatory for other projects AFAIK.
What I look for is removing this part of Eclipse Releng plugin to gain the following benefits:
1. Drop dependency on EGit in Eclipse Platform and thus circular build dependency.
2. Point 1 will allow to to build Eclipse Platform p2 repo in a way that includes all transitive dependencies [3]
3. Point 2 will allow to switch third-party dependencies to require rather than include and thus support version ranges.
4. Point 3 will allow updates of third party dependencies for security reasons to be far simpler as currently it's a terrible experience [4]
5. Point 3 will simplify updates of third party dependencies in Eclipse Platform releng as touching features should be far less frequent event just cause exact version is hardcoded in includes. e.g. [5]
The potential benefit is quite big so please come up with proposals how/what to do and still improve our procedures.
--
Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse Team
