Eclipse, osgi, and plug-in mechanisms

Eclipse 3.0 does not replace the original plug-in mechanism with osgi. It is only compatible with the standard: it provides users with a series of APIS for access. In this process, some changes must be made (such as plugin registry and loading mechanism) to be fully compatible with osgi standards. The original plug-in core only supports static expansion. That is to say, to change an existing plug, you must restart the core, that is, exit eclipse and restart.

Many people have asked why eclipse should be compatible with osgi specifications instead of other ones?
Before eclipse was donated, eclipse was developed by Oti to develop an embedded Java software development platform. On the Internet, many connections still direct to Visual Age Micro Edition (vame). This is also one reason why SWT is conceived and they want to use SWT in the user interface of embedded devices. This relationship explains why osgi specifications were selected at the time.

Another reason is that there are no other specifications except osgi. Osgi specifications are widely supported in lightweight service architecture applications. In addition, osgi is supported by many well-known companies in the telecom industry and some well-known companies in other industries. They need to use osgi to compete with Sun's j2s.