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From: David Jencks <david_jencks@yahoo.com>
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Subject: Re: [VOTE] Policy change for use of unreleased (spec) apis
Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 11:00:03 -0700
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+1 [X] Adopt this replacement text

David Jencks

On May 20, 2014, at 10:01 AM, David Jencks <david_jencks@yahoo.com> =
wrote:

> Following some dev list discussion, proposal is to change  =
http://felix.apache.org/documentation/development/provisional-osgi-api-pol=
icy.html to this (markdown source):
>=20
> =
--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
------------
>=20
> The OSGi Alliance exposes provisional API that may or may not become =
part of future OSGI specifications.  This policy explains how and when =
Felix subprojects may relate to such API. Provisional OSGi API refers to =
anything in the `org.osgi.*` package namespace that is not part of a =
final released specification.
>=20
> ## Policy
> 1. No Felix release may contain or refer to provisional OSGI API.
> 1. Provisional API may be included and used in unreleased source code, =
however the API must be part of a final released OSGI specification =
before this Felix source may be released.
>=20
> 1. Although it is STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED, modified versions of =
provisional api may be released with these modifications:
>=20
> 1. Any provisional OSGi API must be recreated in the =
`org.apache.felix.*` package name space; this effectively makes it =
provisional Felix API.
> 1. All Felix provisional API must be marked as deprecated.
> 1. All Felix provisional API exported from bundles should be exported =
with a mandatory attribute of `status=3D"provisional"`.
>=20
> ## Discussion
>=20
> The first goal of this policy is to completely avoid using provisional =
OSGi API in released Felix projects given the potential confusion and =
questions by doing so. The second goal is to make the existence of any =
released Felix provisional API completely obvious to downstream users =
and make it difficult for them to use it unknowingly. However, any such =
release is likely to involve numerous problems such as incorrect =
semantic versioning or version mismatch between the provisional and =
eventual OSGI release and bundle version inflation if the Felix =
provisional api is removed after the OSGI API is released.
>=20
> As an example, to provisionally export the =
`org.apache.felix.service.metatype` package, the
> `Export-Package` statement would look something like this:
>=20
>    :::xml
>    <Export-Package>
>      org.apache.felix.service.metatype; version=3D"0.1"; =
mandatory=3D"status"; status=3D"provisional"
>    </Export-Package>
>=20
> When working with new OSGI specifications, constructing a Felix =
provisional API will likely result in parallel package structures =
between the provisional OSGi and Felix APIs. When working with existing =
specifications, it may be necessary to create extensions to existing =
OSGi interfaces in the Felix package namespace.
>=20
>=20
> =
--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
------------
>=20
> +1 [ ] Adopt this replacement text
> -1 [ ] Keep the existing text
> 0 [ ] Don't care
>=20
> Vote open for 72 hours or until I can get enough people to vote :-)
>=20
> thanks
> david jencks
>=20


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