On 20/12/2011 03:21, David Jencks wrote:

I'll try and keep this response short too, but these are non-trivial issues...

If Geronimo prefers a 100% Maven build and needs to patch Tomcat then I can see why you created the Mavenised layout. However, I don't see that as a good reason for changing Tomcat's build layout. There are other folks that consume Tomcat that prefer the 100% Ant approach. If there was an overwhelming majority for Maven then the switch could make sense just for that reason but I don't see an overwhelming majority one way or the other at the moment. Therefore, on this point, the status quo is the right answer in my view.

OSGI bundles are a new requirement. And one that I don't recall seeing mentioned on the dev or users list. Is this just a Geronimo requirement or is there likely to be a wider demand for these? If it is just Geronimo then it might be easier to just leave this in Geronimo. If there is a wider demand, then the Tomcat project should probably take ownership of this. I have lots of questions on this which probably don't belong on this thread. If you think it would be better for the Tomcat project to produce these then please create an enhancement request and the details can be worked out there.

If there is an easy way to create these in Maven and creating them with the Ant script is difficult / painful / error prone, then that would be an argument in favour of Maven. How strong that argument is would depend on how easy it was to do this with Maven and how big the problems were with doing this with Ant.

I feel exactly the opposite and tend to avoid projects that use Maven for exactly the same reasons.

And I think Maven adds complexity and magic that makes it harder for folks to figure out what is going on. As I have said elsewhere, a lot of this comes down to how familiar you are with the tool. I'm not against learning how to use Maven, if the return is worth the investment. I remain to be convinced that that is the case.

Mark