Mailing-List: contact ace-dev-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: ace-dev@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: neutral (nike.apache.org: local policy)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1078)
Subject: Re: Contributing code
From: Marcel Offermans <marcel.offermans@luminis.nl>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim4Lmwcue3-YoKyvyW9h26nYs2Kv4-9UaaCuHVT@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 12:33:20 +0100
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Message-Id: <0E33A65B-7768-4768-A0AE-74CE57A363B0@luminis.nl>
References: <AANLkTim4Lmwcue3-YoKyvyW9h26nYs2Kv4-9UaaCuHVT@mail.gmail.com>
To: <ace-dev@incubator.apache.org>

Hello Mike,

On May 31, 2010, at 23:36 , Mike Haney wrote:

> Hello.  I have been designing a provisioning and licensing system for =
our
> suite of applications, and I came across ACE which it looks like will =
give
> me a big headstart in implementing these features. =20

Great, we're looking forward in collaborating on this.

> However, I know there
> are some requirements that won't be fulfilled by ACE.  For example, we =
will
> need to be able to integrate with a third party licensing system,

Actually, we did keep that in mind when developing ACE. If you have a =
third party licensing system that basically can determine which =
"licenses" (or distributions as we call them in ACE) are licensed to =
which "targets" then there is an API for feeding that information =
programmatically to the system.

> and also
> be able to deploy user-specific configuration data either as property =
files
> or nodes in a JCR repository. =20

For configuration data we currently implement the Auto Config spec, =
which builds on Deployment Admin and Configuration Admin. On top of that =
we have some highly experimental templating system that allows you to =
have an artifact with certain parameters, where these parameters will be =
substituted based on attributes attached to targets.

> It occurred to me that some of those
> capabilities might be useful for other users as well, so I would like =
to be
> able to contribute them back to the community if they are something =
people
> think would be generally useful.

Definitely, we would welcome that.

> What would be the best way to structure my development environment so =
that I
> can modify ACE as needed to make it work for us, but still be able to =
easily
> commit those changes later? =20

Contributions are usually submitted back as patches. These patches are =
attached to Jira issues, so we can track their status.

> I've never contributed to an open-source
> project before, so maybe there is a standard way to isolate our =
changes from
> the development trunk that I'm not aware of. =20

There are no special things in place for that. Just checkout the =
project, make your changes and create a patch from that.

> Any pointers to documentation
> or tips in this area would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html provides some general =
information on how the Apache Software Foundation works.

How to best create patches depends on your favourite IDE. What are you =
using?

Greetings, Marcel