[rules-dev] Package based import/export in Guvnor

Hi, I am currently evaluating a Guvnor feature request which is to implement package based import/export. The idea is to use this feature to move a rule package from the DEV repo to QA to Stage to the Prod repo. For details please check https://jira.jboss.org/browse/GUVNOR-311. My initial investigation shows that it is not possible to do a single package import/export technically. A single package in Guvnor repository is never a self-contained unit. For example, every asset under the package has a mandatory attribute which is a reference link to category information. In short, package can not be exported/imported as long as it contains references to entities outside package. There are two things I would like to ask for your opinions. Firstly, can you think of any way to implement this import/export feature? Personally I dont see how this can be done. This is similar to relational database, generally it is impossible to export and import data from/to a single non-isolated table in database. Or sometimes it is possible but with extensive care normally involved in manual work to deal with dirty data. In our case, one example of dirty data is category, but what can we do with category information, we discard package information when we do package export? Secondly, if such feature can not be implemented, can we figure out a different way to help users to better manage the life cycle in Guvnor? The current version of Guvnor is not very strong on this part yet. If you are a Guvnor user or you have experience of using similar products, how did you manage and how do you want to manage the lifecycle of assets in your repository? Thanks, Jervis