NEW ISSUE (v 1.2): Global domain channels creation inconsistent withpattern established by definitions.xml

[Eric Johnson <eric@tibco.com>]

Title: Global domain channels creation inconsistent with pattern established by definitions.xml

Target: Assembly 1.2 WD 03

Description:

The Assembly specification defines a "definitions.xml" file that can be used to declare/define constructs that are shared across multiple composites. This file currently encompasses implementation types, binding types, policy intents, XML Schemas, WSDLs, and so on. Quite inconsistently however, global domain channels (GDCs) are defined when deployed as part of any composite deployed directly to the domain (not as part of implementation.composite). The current version of the spec doesn't justify this inconsistency.

Besides the inconsistency, this triggers a number of related problems (which could possibly be solved in a different way):

• It obliges the "assembler" who defines channels in a composite to know up front whether their composite will be deployed directly to the domain, or rather be used as part of implementation.composite. If the former, their "private" channels may in fact risk name collisions with other already defined GDCs.
  
• Since GDCs are presumed to be shared across numerous composites & components, their lifecycle & scope is presumably distinct from the composites that use the GDCs, and therefore the model should encourage them to be deployed separately.
• When tooling goes to examine a domain contribution to understand the domain-level consequences of deployment, it will now have to examine all of the composites in the contribution, in addition to what it has to do now - scanning the definitions.xml file.

Proposal:

(In abstract form) Remove the text from section 5.8 that describes how channels defined in a composite directly contributed to the domain define GDCs. Add text which describes how they can be declared via definitions.xml.

-Eric.