Research projects (older)

Typing and substitutability

The basis of most subsequent projects is the implementation of type-based component substitutability. It uses a representation of component surface consisting of exported+imported types and services. See details on the group’s page.

OSGi bundle update checks

• since ca 9/2006

The goal is to provide built-in support for checking bundle substitutatibility prior to or upon update. The checks are based on analyzing syntactical structures of the bundles (mainly exported and required types) and verifying their compatibility.

A related sub-project is to automagically set bundle meta-data, version numbers in particular, based on the bundle comparator’s returned values. We have an ant-task implementation for this purpose.

Eclipse plugin pre-update checks

• since 9/2006

This work aims at checking validity of Eclipse plugin prior to update, in order to prevent undesired consequences of incompatible bundles. The checks are based on OSGi implementation of type-based component substitutability (bundle comparator).

Currently the implementation is driven towards a full featured PDE extension to set plugin and feature meta-data, enhancing the bundle versioning ant-task above.

Components Simplified — an experimental component model and framework

• since 5/2005

This project aims at creating a barebone component model which is simple to implement and enhance. Its main purpose is to support research of component substitutability and versioning. Implemented in a language with dynamic typing (PHP5, Groovy), further evolution will include extra-functional properties.