Eclipse plugins to debian packages?

["Ivan S. Dubrov" <WFrag@yandex.ru>]

Hi,

I thought about the possibility of integrating Eclipse updates/plugins infrastructure into the Debian package system. And now I think it is time to start these efforts. :)

So, what I want? I want an easy way to install Eclipse updates and keep them up2date using the APT. The solution to this desire can be the script that automatically convert Eclipse update site into the Debian package. Consider the executing of the following:

$ecl2deb http://subclipse.tigris.org

This results in the following packages:

org.tigris.subversion.book, with version 1.1.1
org.tigris.subversion.subclipse, with version 0.9.30
org.tigris.subversion.subclipse, with version 0.9.34

So each feature in the update site becomes usual package.

The first question to me is where to place the plugins/features files.

I think, each feature should come in the /usr/share/eclipse/<feature-name>, so features are separated from each other and user can add only those he/she really needs (via Eclipse extension location).

The problem is that there could be features that have common subset of plugins (can they?). In the case described above these plugins will be duplicated.

Other question is how to add extension locations automatically to Eclipse (better in disabled state, so user enables those he/she needs), so user does not have to browse the filesystem searching for installed features. The problem is that information about the extension locations is stored in per-user configuration, so the user should execute some update script manually (or it can be wrapper around Eclipse executable that scans all installed in this way features and adds new ones in disabled state).

So, two questions:

1) The layout of packages generated. They should comply Debian java policy and conform to the Eclipse layout (I think, I will rely on the Eclipse packaged by the Michael Koch)
2) The per-user configuration update.

P.S. BTW, does anybody have seen something like that? Or may be it does not worth it? Any suggestions are welcome!

WBR,
Ivan Dubrov.