Releasing mapsforge to a maven repository?

[Thilo Mühlberg]

Hello everybody,

i am trying to improve the infrastructure of the mapsforge project. With
our current setup each release requires too much handwork and is an
error-prone process. I would like to automate this as much as possible
and make use of maven to do snapshot and full releases. Eventually we
should be able to release as often as we like as each release takes only
a couple of seconds. This means that the time until a software fix or
improvement is available in an official release will be reduced from a
couple of weeks/months down to a few days/hours.

In order to achieve this we need to release mapsforge into a maven
repository. Unfortunately the process of releasing to the maven central
repository is quite complicate, at least for projects hosted at Google
code. I would like to avoid the overhead of a second repository at
Codehaus which is the recommended way according to the maven docs.
Google code works for us and i don't want to use another service.

Seems like the best alternative is to create a maven repository in our
own SVN repository as described in [1]. However, i know that this
approach has also some downsides as for example described in [2]. Using
mapsforge via maven would not only require adding a dependency but also
adding the mapsforge maven repository to the pom.xml file. We cannot
guarantee that this URL is valid forever and will never change.

So before we make a bad decision, i would like to know your opinion(s):
Do you think that releasing mapsforge to the maven central repository is
absolutely essential? Is the described alternative also acceptable? Or
do you have a better idea how we can solve this problem?

Greetings,
Thilo


[1]
http://www.dev-articles.com/article/Google-Code-personal-maven-repository-30001
[2]
http://www.sonatype.com/people/2009/02/why-putting-repositories-in-your-poms-is-a-bad-idea/

[Neil Boyd]

Hi Thilo

Interesting that you think it's overly complicated to release to Maven Central.  One of the reasons I started using Maven was because mapsforge was using it and it looked interesting.  osmdroid also went to Maven and Maven Central recently and it wasn't totally simple, but if you follow the instructions properly then it's not such a difficult experience.

Regards

Neil

[Corey Wallis]

Hi,

I have no experience with maven other than using it as a client to
build parts of the current mapsforge development code.

With this in mind my only comment is that if changing to maven makes
it easier for you to continue to work on the project and meet your
goals then you should do it.

My only suggestion is to maintain the ability to download compiled
versions of the latest library code via the Google Code website for
those who either can't or won't use maven and all they need is a
compiled version of the library / writer plugin.

With thanks.

-Corey

[Thilo Mühlberg]

Hi Daniel,

we are currently working on releasing mapsforge to the maven central
repository (via Sonatype). Not sure when we will actually deploy our
first release but it is a top item on our to-do list.

Greetings,
Thilo


On 26/10/12 17:50, Daniel Nüst wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> was there any update on this? I think having mapsforge in a public Maven
> repo would be great!
>
> /Daniel

>
> Am Sonntag, 29. Juli 2012 18:29:50 UTC+2 schrieb Neil Boyd:
>
> Hi Thilo
>
> Interesting that you think it's overly complicated to release to
> Maven Central. One of the reasons I started using Maven was because
> mapsforge was using it and it looked interesting. osmdroid

> <http://code.google.com/p/osmdroid/issues/detail?id=199> also went

> to Maven and Maven Central recently and it wasn't totally simple,
> but if you follow the instructions

> <https://docs.sonatype.org/display/Repository/Sonatype+OSS+Maven+Repository+Usage+Guide>

> <http://www.sonatype.com/people/2009/02/why-putting-repositories-in-your-poms-is-a-bad-idea/>
>
>