[omniORB] omniORB without DSI/DII

[Roger Barnett]

At 20/07/2005 08:25:09, omniorb-list-bounces at omniorb-support.com wrote:
>
>That is cross-compiled for PowerPC and -O2. For my embedded target
>i want to get much lower than that. I just have interfaces that are
>known at compile-time; so - in my understanding - no need for DII.
>
>Basically i want to achive a minimum CORBA environment
>(http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?formal/02-08-01), however with
>Event- and Naming-Service.


The minimumCORBA document should be treated as a guide
rather than a spec, IMO.  The original idea behind "CORBAlite"
(sadly we weren't allowed to use that name) was heavily diluted
by the ORB suppliers at the time, who were perhaps unsurprisingly
still concentrating on keeping up with changes to the main CORBA
spec, as well as get a handle on realtime, fault tolerance, etc.
(  On the basis that embedded systems tended not to be part of
    arbitrary networks, it was suggested that it should be sufficient in
    terms of meeting interoperability requirements to leverage the
    QoS work to allow negotiation between ORBs as to what level
    of CORBA support they provided. This was not accepted. )

One consequence of the effective sidelining of this work is that
there is little or no allowance for minimumCORBA in the specs
for services such as Naming and Events, i.e. no "NamingLite" etc.
Again this is understandable if you want universal interoperation,
but of course it reduces the overall usability of minimumCORBA.

So, in the end the ease of implementing a stripped down CORBA
system depends on whether this is already part of the ORB product
you're using (e.g. as a special build option). Since the spec ended
up as basically a list of things to omit, people argue that this makes
it an ORB implementation issue, which in turn begs the question of
whether it should be an OMG spec at all.


Sorry, not much practical help.


Roger B.