[geotk] Milestone 4.0-M0 deployed, based on Apache SIS 0.3-jdk6

[Martin Desruisseaux]

Hello all

A "4.0-M0" milestone has been deployed on the 
http://maven.geotoolkit.org repository. This milestone is based on 
Apache SIS 0.3-jdk6. The official Apache SIS 0.3 release is not yet 
completed (it is under way), but we have deployed a branch on the 
above-cited repository too for Geotk purpose.

Apache SIS 0.3 [1] contains most of the ISO 19115, 19115-2 and 19139 
metadata functionalities that Geotk provided. Apache SIS contains also 
various improvements compared to the Geotk code base, including for 
example better support of supplemental Unicode characters (e.g. for some 
Asian characters). Peoples who were using Geotk only for the "metadata" 
part are invited to migrate to the Apache SIS project. Other services 
(referencing, coverage, feature, rendering, etc.) continue to exist only 
in Geotk for now, but will also migrate to SIS later.

The Geotk 4.0-M0 milestone contains both the Apache SIS and the old 
Geotk metadata objects, with all Geotk metadata objects marked as 
deprecated. The intend is to allow users to migrate gradually. This 
release requires JDK 6 for the "core" modules of Geotk, and JDK 7 for 
the "pending" modules of Geotk.

The Geotk 4.0-M1 milestone (to be released soon) will be very similar to 
the 4.0-M0 milestone, except that most deprecated classes will be 
removed and the JDK requirement will be JDK 7 for all Geotk modules, 
including "core" (note: the official Apache SIS releases will continue 
to target JDK 6). Users of Geotk metadata classes will need to complete 
their migration to Apache SIS before they can upgrade to Geotk 4.0-M1.

The Geotk 4.0-M2 and M3 milestones will repeat the same process for the 
referencing module. At some later milestone, the "core" and "pending" 
part of Geotk will merge in a single project.

Users who get their source from the Mercurial repository may want to 
stay on the 4.0-M0 tag [2] until they completed their migration, because 
the Mercurial tip is now close to the 4.0-M1 state. Migration can be 
performed by first running the "UpgradeTo4.xml" Ant script [3] from 
their project root, then review and test manually (please let me know 
any issues you may find).

     Martin


[1] https://builds.apache.org/job/sis-trunk/site/
[2] hg update 4.0-M0
[3] http://www.geotoolkit.org/3.x/UpgradeTo4.xml