[OPEN-ILS-DEV] woodchip configuration management

[Ed Summers]

Just a quick update to let you know what I learned on the ofbiz and
opentaps discussion lists about how people manage their applications
with revision control while retaining the ability to upgrade easily to
the latest/greatest ofbiz code.

It seems that the general consensus [1,2] is to bundle customizations
as an 'application' in ofbiz/applications. We can keep this code in
the woodchip subversion repository. When building the application(s)
can be checked out from svn, tested and then installed into an
existing ofbiz/opentaps instance. Presumably the component-load.xml
will need a bit of a tweak as well so that the application is loaded.
I imagine we can start out automating this with an ant build.xml and
move on from there to maven or something more fancy only if necessary.

In the cases when modifying the core framework is absolutely necessary
the lead developers for ofbiz and opentaps encourage:

- using existing ofbiz override and extension mechanisms (examples of
which are in  the exampleext component and the ecomclone webapp)
- committing changes back to the ofbiz project

There was also some talk about merging in changes with svk--mainly
someone offering up consulting services. IMHO this sounds like it
could be useful, but is also a bit more complicated than we need at
the moment.

//Ed

[1] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/ofbiz-user/200708.mbox/%3c46CCF855.3040808@hotwaxmedia.com%3e
[2] http://www.opentaps.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=78