Stale/bad repository references in EGit's p2 update sites

[merks]

Version

6.9.0

Operating System

Linux/Unix, MacOS, Windows

Eclipse version

2024-06

Bug description

I'm trying to understand the purpose and necessity of these references:

egit/org.eclipse.egit.repository/category.xml

Lines 250 to 251 in 830ade5

	<repository-reference location="https://download.eclipse.org/e4/snapshots/org.eclipse.e4.ui" enabled="true" />
	<repository-reference location="https://download.eclipse.org/tools/orbit/simrel/orbit-aggregation/release/4.30.0" enabled="true" />

These things in up in your release repositories, e.g,

https://download.eclipse.org/egit/updates-6.9

The current release of Orbit is this one:

https://download.eclipse.org/tools/orbit/simrel/orbit-aggregation/release/4.31.0

The next release will be referenced by this one:

https://download.eclipse.org/tools/orbit/simrel/orbit-aggregation/2024-06/index.html

So the reference to the 4.30.0 release is stale.

I have no clue why there is a reference to https://download.eclipse.org/e4/snapshots/org.eclipse.e4.ui/ which as last updated 2018.

Actual behavior

Stale and irrelevant update sites are added and used.

Expected behavior

Fewer references is better. Update-to-date references from which there really can be used updates would be best.

Relevant log output

No response

Other information

See eclipse-m2e/m2e-core#1751 for why this is a problem.

[Bananeweizen]

@tomaswolf The commit introducing these references was about phasing out the jboss utils (which previously generated an HTML page for the update site, in case someone comes along with a normal web browser). To me it looks like just removing the jboss stuff would not need these references at all, so we could eventually delete them?
Also given our versioned TPD files for each release train version, I would expect that we have all references available in the target platform, so do we need to repeat the URLs here at all?

@merks I was going to suggest that we remove the e4.snapshots URL and shorten the orbit one to just "...releases/" instead of a specific version, to "magically" have the latest stuff available as dependencies, when installing egit. But if I get your linked issue right, you explicitly want to avoid references to any older orbit update site than 2024-06 for the next release train participants, right?

[merks]

I think fewer references are better, at least for SimRel projects, especially if the references are not actually needed to install EGit.

If I were to add one Orbit reference I would add this:

https://download.eclipse.org/tools/orbit/simrel/orbit-aggregation/release/latest

Why? Because it always composes a single repository, so loads quickly, and always refers to the latest release, i.e., the release versions used by the SimRel projects also for the the latest release...

[tomaswolf]

The link to Orbit was added in commit 7d3e66a. IIRC we had at that time a problem with a release not including all its dependencies in the EGit p2 repository, so it was not possible to install EGit with just that p2 repository. The idea would be to keep the link in sync with the target platform. That "latest" link might also work.

The e4.ui link was added in commit 4e029c3. Possibly it's no longer necessary. Presumably it was added so that the then brand-new "smart import wizard" would always be found. Probably it was at that time in no release repo yet. I guess we could drop this link.

[laeubi]

The idea would be to keep the link in sync with the target platform. That "latest" link might also work.

You can use Tycho to add the references from the target, include all required units and enable the filtering of provided units, then it will always be up-to date and always be minimal but still complete.

[merks]

That solution works really well, if and only if the repo being referenced has stable never-ever-changing content. That makes it a bit of a challenge to build against not-yet-released dependencies. Of course the devil is in the details, e.g., what version ranges of the dependencies are permitted?

[laeubi]

I'm not sure how maintaining it manual would change anything in regards to content/versions?

[tomaswolf]

Gerrit change 1194668 removes the e4.ui snapshot link.

[merks]

I’m on my phone and can’t check comment on gerrit now. The link to what will be an outdated orbit repo seems strange. E.g., the version of bouncycastle in that repo is older than the one currently being used even now.