Equinox/Restlet Integration

This document is a project proposal for the GSoC project: Restlet integration with Equinox and was created by [Rajeev Sampath]. You are welcome to edit or add things.

Restlet integration with Equinox

Synopsis

Restlet [1] is an open-source comprehensive REST Web framework for Java which can be used for developing both server and client side applications. With the emergence and growth of OSGi technology, there has been efforts to build OSGi web applications due to the implicit dynamicity and flexibility they provide. This project aims to integrate Restlet Framework 2.0 with Eclipse Equinox [2] OSGi runtime which will provide a dynamic platform for REST applications.

One strong use case for this project comes from within the Eclipse community itself, which is to create an ECF [3] Remote Services Provider by leveraging this integration, which can be carried out as a follow-up project.

Description

There has already been a Restlet integration done by NASA, which provides an Equinox extension point for Restlet. However, the implementation is said to be non-friendly for commercial use, which is the basis for this project. There have already been several discussions going on this integration in Restlet community [4], which points out the major requirements.

So far the following have been identified as major requirements for this project.

1. Supporting various OSGi environments
2. Dynamic Restlet applications - Typical features of OSGi applications such as Hot deployment and update, multiple versions of a Restlet application.
3. Leveraging Eclipse Extension points
4. Dynamic Restlet Helpers
5. Leveraging a RestletService

Follow up

Implementation of an ECF Remote services provider

References

[1] http://www.restlet.org/
[2] http://www.eclipse.org/equinox/
[3] http://www.eclipse.org/ecf/
[4] http://wiki.restlet.org/developers/172-restlet/124-restlet.html