i chatted with you at the booth and i have been looking at the documentation since. one thing i didn't ask about …

context:
(1) you showed how a web application can (via spring configuration) be wired to a named service with a given interface type), the instance of which was provided by a bundle.
(2) you also showed how a bundle can import packages and bundles.

question: can a bundle import a service (according to interface type) like the application, rather than just importing a package or a bundle? obviously, the dependent bundle must import the package (associated with the service interface type) or the bundle (which contains the service interface type), but a bundle which advertises a service dependency must do more than just import a package or a bundle because it doesn't necessarily know how to do anything with that service type other than invoke methods on it.

am i making any sense?

the answer might already be out there, but i need some dope now.

-jonnie

Eclipse is "just" a set of bundles that run on top of Equinox. In principle therefore you could install all of the Eclipse bundles into the AP and have them run. At the heart of the AP the Equinox bundle we use is unmodified from the one that Eclipse distributes. There would be three technical considerations involved in getting this to work:

1) Creating the structure that the Eclipse bundles expect to find (plugins and features directories) under the "repository/bundles/usr" AP repository location
2) Resolving any conflicts with Equinox hooks (this one would definitely need some investigation). The reason that we can use Equinox unmodified, and that Eclipse can do the same, is that Equinox provides a large number of low-level hooks for customizing its behaviour. The AP takes advantage of these hooks to integrate its special features, and so does Eclipse. I don't know without investigation whether the two could easily co-exist.
3) Providing a "par" file to install into the AP that would bootstrap Eclipse when run (this one should be relatively easy).

Although running Eclipse the IDE on the AP would be of limited benefit (but an interesting demonstration), running Eclipse RCP applications, and especially Eclipse RAP applications is a very attractive proposition. Both of these use an OSGi-based development model and deploy most naturally to an OSGi-based runtime. This should make the AP the natural home for deploying and running Rich Internet Applications written using Eclipse RAP. We have yet to develop this support, but it is certainly a direction of interest for us.

Dan, we've updated the FAQ on the repository site itself to address this question. Please see question 13: "I currently use the public Maven 2 repository to access my Spring JARs. How does this effect me?" (http://www.springsource.com/repository/app/faq#q13) and question 14: " Can I mix use of the SpringSource Bundle Repository with other artifact repositories, for example, the public Maven 2 repository?" ().

Hope this helps clarify things,
Regards, Adrian.