[ome-devel] LOCI & OME source code repository changes

[Curtis Rueden]

Hi everyone,

Please disregard this message if you are not a Java software developer or
otherwise interested in OME or LOCI source code.

We have recently made two major organizational changes to the OME & LOCI
Java software repository structures.

1) We have split the LOCI software codebase on
skyking.microscopy.wisc.eduinto separate component subtrees. For
example, Bio-Formats is now in its own
components/bio-formats, and no longer mixed together with source code from
any other component.

It is now possible to build each component as a standalone entity, although
at this time it is still required to check out LOCI's complete Java codebase
in order to compile, as many components depend on one another for
compilation, and the component build scripts derive from a common base
script.

There is also still a master Ant build script in the base folder, with the
same targets as before -- they just work a bit differently under the hood.
Please note that the dist-* targets (for VisBio and SLIM Plotter) are
currently nonfunctional, as we have not yet updated them to correspond to
the new structure.

Hopefully this split will allow developers to more effectively focus on the
modules that interest them, and reduce confusion about dependencies between
modules. It will also enable us to deploy an Ivy-driven dependency
resolution scheme at some point in the future.

2) We have separated the OME-Java library into two separate modules: the
OME-XML Java library for working with OME-XML metadata structures
(ome-xml.jar, ome.xml.* packages), and the OME-Java API for communicating
with an OME Server via XML-RPC (ome-java.jar, org.openmicroscopy.*
packages).

The OME-Java API package now resides on the OME SVN server as part of the
OME Server project, in the src/java subtree. See
http://www.openmicroscopy.org/site/documents/data-management/ome-server/developer/java-apifor
further details.

The OME-XML Java library package now resides on LOCI's SVN server, in the
components/ome-xml subtree. See
http://www.loci.wisc.edu/ome/ome-xml-java.html for more information.

The rationale for this change is that as the OME-XML Java library evolved,
it dropped its dependencies on the OME-Java API and became a standalone
entity -- as such, it makes more sense to package these two modules
separately so that developers can use one without needing to worry about the
other's dependencies. Specifically, the Bio-Formats library uses the OME-XML
Java library code as the backbone for its OME metadata support, but does not
need the functionality provided by the OME-Java API. (LOCI does have a
Bio-Formats-based reader/writer implementation for communicating with an OME
Server, which we call OME I/O, but it is now organized as a separate
component in the components/ome-io subtree.)

Please let us know if you have any questions about these changes, or notice
any problems relating to them.

Cheers,
Curtis
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