Re: [eclipse.org-planning-council] Re: [cross-project-issues-dev]Re: Ecl

[Markus Knauer <mknauer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 01 February 2008, Martin Oberhuber wrote:
> Is EclipseCon really the right place to promote EPP packages on the stick?

Yes, why not... in the past everybody complained that installing from update 
sites is too difficult, and nobody knows about the content which is behind 
those cryptic acronym like 'Data Tools Platform Intro' (sorry for that... I 
was just looking for an example).

Of course, the EPP packages are addressing the end user, maybe not the typical 
committer. On the other hand, if you are downloading the Platform SDK (just 
another example), and the first thing after unpacking is installing Mylyn or 
adding a few JVM memory parameters to the eclipse.ini, then why not use the 
RCP package?

> Some facts:
>
> * An EPP Package can also be downloaded fairly easily because it's a
> single download. Using the update site, however, is painful.

Yes. That means: EPP is easy to use for the end user, and a good starting 
point for a developer.

> * I thought that EclipseCon is for showing the breadth of the Ecosystem,
> and allow people try out something they haven't tried before.

Whenever we are talking about a 'Ganymede Update Site' it is about aggregating 
a set of well-known features from different projects in a specific version 
into a single update site. Maybe an EPP package should be compared to a 
product that combines features from many projects.

I want to remind here that

* EPP is open and waiting for input (see Ian's mail last week... 
[http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/eclipse.org-committers/msg00477.html] 
I'd like to discuss new packages in bugzilla, but haven't seen anyone who 
wants to maintain a package so far)

* EPP packages need testing which is in the end a product, integration, and 
cross-project testing between Ganymede projects. Having EPP packages on a 
memory stick at EclipseCon would give us all the possibility to start this 
year with cross-project testing early and to get feedback early enough to 
change things.
In know, you may argue now that not all projects are included in a EPP 
package, but read above and start maintaining a package.

> * You argue yourself that you expect most attendees to already have a
> JVM and "some" version of Eclipse on their Laptops. Wouldn't they be
> more interested in getting broad exposure to lots of projects, rather
> than just another version of the base Platform?
> * Looking at disk space, it appears we have 840 MB available.
>    - As of today, Ganymede/staging/plugins is 540 MB -- jars only no
> .pack.gz at all.
>    - Ganymede/staging/features is 9MB
>    - Base Eclipse is 78MB per Platform if we have them start with Java
> IDE (including XML Edit, Mylyn to promote these)
>   ==> should allow for 78 x 3 = 250 + 540 + 9 = 800 MB giving all 3
> win32, linux32, MacOS plus some slack space.
>
> Sounds a lot more compelling for me than duplication of various variants
> of EPP packages...

That point 'duplication' is definitively yours.

> Also note that the .jar only ganymede site would work with 1.4 JVMs.
> If we decided to ship 1.5 or 1.6 JVM's we could ship a .pack.gz variant
> instead, so that should also fit...

In the EPP packages many included projects *require* a JVM >= 1.5! Therefore 
this is defined as a minimum requirement and you cannot start an EPP package 
with a 1.4 JVM.

Markus