[equinox-dev] Plugins vs. bundles

[Dorian Birsan <birsan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been reading the equinox newsgroup
and mailing list archives and found very interesting technical discussions
on various issues. In particular, I had some interest in the update manager
story for an OSGI based Eclipse, and the mapping between various eclipse
concepts (plug-ins, features, etc.) to OSGI concepts (bundles, etc.).

When I read the specs, I get the feeling
that bundles are more of a crossover between plug-ins and features:
- both bundles and plugins are the basic
runtime units in osgi and eclipse, respectively
- in terms of packaging boundaries and
division, a plugin seems to capture the developer's need for function reusability,
features being the function delivery mechanism, whereas bundles seem to
be more like features in this respect. In other words, plugins seem to
be more fine-grained than bundles.

As such, one item I couldn't find in
the archives is how it was decided to pretty much equate an Eclipse plug-in
with an OSGI bundle. I see the similarities, but I was wondering whether
alternate "mappings" have been discussed and would appreciate
any pointers. 

-Dorian