Wrong OSGi relation between JCA 1.7 and JTA 1.3 (JavaEE8, JakartaEE8)

[grgrzybek]

I'm working on https://github.com/ops4j/org.ops4j.pax.transx OSGi project and I want to polish the dependencies related to different JavaEE APIs.
I also maintain my own matrix of versions (no JavaEE 9 yet) here

There is some confusion about JTA 1.2/1.3 and JCA 1.7 versions

• According to Oracle JavaEE 7 components, there should be JTA 1.2 and JCA 1.7
• According to Oracle JavaEE 8 components, there should be JTA 1.2 and JCA 1.7
• According to Eclipse EE4j 8 B.1. Java EE 8 and Jakarta EE 8 Specification Comparisons, Jakarta EE 8 should use JTA 1.3 and not 1.2 - which is explained in B.1.1. Transaction 1.2 vs 1.3 section

However I checked available Maven central artifacts:

• javax.resource/javax.resource-api/1.7 has Import-Package: ...,javax.transaction;version="[1.2,1.3)",javax.transaction.xa;version="[1.2,1.3)"
• javax.resource/javax.resource-api/1.7.1 has Import-Package: ...,javax.transaction;version="[1.3,2.0)",javax.transaction.xa
• jakarta.resource/jakarta.resource-api/1.7.4 has Import-Package: ...,javax.transaction;version="[1.3,2.0)",javax.transaction.xa

However each of the above has some problems...

• Javax JCA API 1.7 has too narrow version range...
• which was fixed in https://github.com/javaee/javax.resource/pull/4/files and Javax JCA API 1.7.1, but this version however should include JTA 1.2 API, as specified in JavaEE 8 (differently than in JakartaEE 8)
• Jakarta JCA API 1.7.4 gets it almost correct, but
  • Even if it's Jakarta version (and JTA 1.3 is justified here) the package is still javax.transaction and JakartaEE8 should be compatible with JavaEE8, so the range should be [1.2,2)
  • it exports doc-files package which is a result of wrong maven-bundle-plugin configuration

[smillidge]

Could you create a PR to review and I can investigate how to get a service release out there?

[grgrzybek]

Sure - I'll prepare it tomorrow (CET time here)

[grgrzybek]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused with the branches...

In theory, https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jca-api/tree/EE4J_8 branch should be used for JCA 1.7 work. However this branch' pom contains version 1.7.3-SNAPSHOT, while both 1.7.3 and 1.7.4 are already released.

However both 1.7.3 and 1.7.4 tags were created from anonymous branch and differ considerably with EE4J_8...
IMO, either EE4J_8 branch should be rebased on 1.7.4 tag, or there should be 1.7.x branch created starting from 1.7.4 tag.

[grgrzybek]

If the 1.7.x branch was created starting with 1.7.4 tag, I'd create a PR from https://github.com/grgrzybek/jca-api/commits/1.7.x branch.
The relevant commit is grgrzybek@e17582b where I extend the OSGi version range for javax.transaction package import from [1.3,2) to [1.2,2) and where I clean up unnecessary export of doc-files package.

[grgrzybek]

See also jakartaee/transactions#186