[ANN] - RSE Extensions for WDSC 6

We are making some major changes in our free plugins for WDSC 6.0.  We do 
not have our web site or our official announcement ready yet, but since I 
know that some of you already have WDSC 6.0, I thought I should provide 
some information on this list.

The three free plugins, Spooled Files, Messages and iSeries Editing 
Perspective, have been repackaged as a single plugin that I have 
creatively named the RSE Extensions.  We are also now releasing these 
under an open source license agreement, the IBM CPL v1.0 which is the 
license agreement that Eclipse was originally licensed under.  There are a 
lot of reasons for doing this and it should bring a lot of benefits to 
WDSC users.

1.  Once they get their internal approvals, IBM developers can participate 
in the project and contribute enhancements to the existing plugins, as 
well as assist in keeping them up to date with changes in the internals of 
WDSC.

2.  If enough of you ask IBM for it, it should be possible for them to 
include these extensions in a future version of WDSC.

3.  We would like these extensions to become a delivery vehicle for 
additional user enhancements to WDSC.  For example, the Java code to write 
really cool extensions for the LPEX editor is actually fairly easy to 
write.  However, the process to take this code and understand all of the 
packaging requirements to deliver it as an Eclipse plugin can be 
overwhelming.  We are hoping that developers in the WDSC community will 
use this plugin as a base for adding features like this that they would 
like to see.  They can then piggyback for free on our existing packaging 
and delivery mechanisms.

4.  The project is being hosted on our iSeries in a Subversion repository. 
 Subversion is another major open source product that we have contributed 
to the iSeries community.  See: 
http://www.softlanding.com/subversion/index.htm  We are using the project 
for the RSE Extensions to showcase how incredibly cool and powerful 
Subversion is.  When I find the time I will be writing up a document that 
details how to install the Subversion plugin for WDSC 6 and then checkout 
the RSE Extensions plugin.

You can access the Subversion repository that is hosting this project at: 
http://support.softlanding.com/opensource/.  I will be providing the 
installation program and Eclipse update site directly from the Subversion 
repository.  One of the cool side benefits of Subversion is that since you 
can host the repository via http:// you can also serve files directly from 
the repository.

To make installation easier, I am providing a Windows installer program to 
install the extensions.  Updates can be downloaded using the WDSC 
automatic updates feature, or you can just download and run the installer 
again.

The installer is available at this URL in the repository.

http://support.softlanding.com/opensource/rse_extensions.exe

Remember, this only applies to WDSC 6.0.  If you are on an earlier version 
you should upgrade, but until then the existing plugins are still 
available from www.softlanding.com

Thanks and enjoy!

Mark







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