[p4] encapsulation of third party software

[Sheizaf, Yariv]

HI Monica,

We are managing the 3rd_parties in a special Perforce depot //3rd_party,
in two standard tree structures:

1.	For Java packages (no per-operating-system variants)

	//3rd_party/<package-name>/<version>/dist/...  

2.	For C++ packages ("platform" is usually operating system name,
include exact release number):

	
//3rd_party/<package-name>/<version>/<platform>/<package-name>/...

The official version of all 3rd-parties is assigned with Perforce label
"3rd-party_rel".

In addition, we have an automatic synchronization script for the
3rd-parties, based on a list of used packages per-project (VDD - version
description document - like  a BOM file).

Note that even you store heavy packages, from Perforce database view it
is not much data, because the changes (changelists, branches, jobs are
very few for 3rd-parties), so do not hesitate to upload 3rd-parties to
P4.

Regards, 

Yariv Sheizaf
bmc software
Identity Management BU
Configuration Manager
Office:  +972-3-6451-281