[ajug-members] Too use Open Source or Not
Vincent
vincent at xaymaca.com
Thu Oct 11 01:20:05 EDT 2007
I think it's a great idea.
Travis Bailey wrote:
>
>
> Keep in mind all that Wiki, Blogs, and Forums of both a work or personal
> nature could potentially count...
> As many times they all have a mechanism for supplying an RSS feed to
> some aggregator.
>
>
> Travis Bailey
> /www.travisbailey.com <http://www.travisbailey.com>/
> 404.664.7782 (c)
>
> "The greater the artist the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is
> granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." - *Robert Hughes*
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Vincent <vincent at xaymaca.com>
> To: ajug-members at ajug.org
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 4:59:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [ajug-members] Too use Open Source or Not
>
> I wonder how many AJUGers have blogs?
>
> Travis Bailey wrote:
>
> >
> > AJUG should install a blog...
> > I added a post to my recently created blog for ya... needs material
> anyway:
> >
> > https://blog.travisbailey.org/?p=7
> >
> > behind a self-signed certificate right now, so not production grade.
> >
> >
> > Travis Bailey
> > Travis Bailey Photography
> > /www.travisbailey.com <http://www.travisbailey.com>/
> > 404.664.7782 (c)
> >
> > "The greater the artist the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is
> > granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." - *Robert Hughes*
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Burr Sutter <burrsutter at gmail.com <mailto:burrsutter at gmail.com>>
> > To: ajug-members at ajug.org <mailto:ajug-members at ajug.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 11:11:38 AM
> > Subject: Re: [ajug-members] Too use Open Source or Not
> >
> > That is a good one.
> >
> >
> >
> > We should find the time to craft this into a blog entry or something….
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > *From:* Travis Bailey [mailto:mail at travisbailey.com
> <mailto:mail at travisbailey.com>]
> > *Sent:* Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:41 AM
> > *To:* ajug-members at ajug.org <mailto:ajug-members at ajug.org>
> > *Subject:* Re: [ajug-members] Too use Open Source or Not
> >
> >
> >
> > I agree substantively with all your points.
> > I think you might miss one Burr... ;-)
> >
> > F) Prognosticate and Pray: When making decisions about which
> > technologies to use on a new project, I think it is important to
> > consider it's maintainability. No one small firm is likely to be able
> > to take an OSS project into the mainstream, but that small firm is
> > looking to leverage the community with support of frameworks and
> > technology. When a team chooses to use newer projects like Struts2,
> > Spring2, jBPM, Drools, etc... they are really just trying, in part, to
> > bet on the horses that they think will be mainstream a year or two from
> > now. I think part of the value of developing software for a company is
> > developing that software with technologies that are appropriate and
> > hopefully are popular enough the customer can find developers to support
> > and maintain the software for years to come. Just because a technology
> > is best doesn't mean it will become mainstream...
> >
> > A lot of our decisions about the technology we use surrounds these
> points:
> >
> > * Does the technology solve a business problem?
> > * Will the technology offer a value proposition during it's
> > lifecycle (bleed to maintenance)?
> > * Is the technology within a core skillset of the largest pool of
> > developers? (minimize the skillsets needed for support)
> >
> >
> > We started this project last February with a target initial release of
> > end of Q1 2008 with a subsequent release schedule likely lasting another
> > year for "recognized" features.
> > It is really hard to guess what technologies I will be able to hire
> > smart folk for in 2009 without paying through the nose.
> >
> >
> >
> > Travis Bailey
> > */www.travisbailey.com <http://www.travisbailey.com>/*
> > 404.664.7782 (c)
> >
> > "The greater the artist the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is
> > granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." - **Robert Hughes**
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Burr Sutter <burrsutter at gmail.com <mailto:burrsutter at gmail.com>>
> > To: ajug-members at ajug.org <mailto:ajug-members at ajug.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 12:25:55 PM
> > Subject: [ajug-members] Too use Open Source or Not
> >
> > Travis’s recent response to my inquiry about jBPM has sparked an idea
> > that I want to discuss with the group (thank you, it created an
> > interesting thought and I’m NOT picking on Travis, please don’t take it
> > that).
> >
> >
> >
> > He made a point that jBPM had “headaches” and seemed to have flaws in a
> > given area (oracle & forking) both of which are I think are perfectly
> > reasonable assertions as someone who is interested in or trying to use a
> > technology. So here is my thought…
> >
> >
> >
> > Open source projects tend to have a number of quirks as they are
> > primarily driven by small numbers of contributors, working around the
> > global, in many cases during nights & weekends. The successful OSS
> > (open source software) projects often have a charismatic leader, someone
> > to evangelize the core ideas behind the value for the OSS project.
> > With that said OSS-based projects often lack formal documentation & QA
> > resources and since most OSS projects are founded by coders, not tech
> > writers/quality engineers you can see the problem. That is where the
> > community comes into play and adds significant value. Struts benefits
> > from having numerous individuals writing books on that framework,
> > consulting & training companies offering services and from having 1000s
> > of users put it through the wringer in every possible way imaginable.
> > Therefore the result is a well documented and well QA’d piece of
> > technology. Perhaps of the worlds best documented & QA’d technologies.
> > The community is also serves as the BA role and in some cases the
> > project manger role (demanding the core contributors finish on time by
> > nagging them to death, offering to buy them beer & steak dinners).
> >
> >
> >
> > Now here is the “catch-22” (or chicken & egg issue), in order to get all
> > of those extra documentation, QA and BA resources, you have to be pretty
> > popular and pretty “mainstream” where 30+% of most Java users know of or
> > are attempting usage of that technology. Struts, Spring, Hibernate,
> > Ant, JUnit are just some that fall in that category. The trick is
> > getting popular (therefore getting all the goodness of the community)
> > while at the same time have good enough quality, docs, email list
> > support, etc. Obviously there is the complexity factor as well. Ant
> > and JUnit are pretty simple tools therefore it is easier to provide
> > enough quality, docs & email list support to get a community.
> >
> >
> >
> > Here are the options I can think of:
> >
> > A) Wait: So you might wish to wait to adopt a technology after it has
> > gained popularity. Struts, Spring, Hibernate, Apache WS, Ant, JUnit,
> > JBoss App Server are all “safe bets” and have been proven by the usage
> > of thousands of individuals and companies. However, this puts you very
> > late to the game on OSS innovation. People adopting Struts now would be
> > considered to be “laggards” while people adopting MyFaces, Facelets
> > and/or Seam would be considered “early adopters”.
> >
> >
> >
> > B) Bleed: Or you might wish to bleed a little and adopt the less mature
> > technology and participate in the community (great community members can
> > simply be those who develop a test case to illustrate the issue and
> > attach it to a Jira task). Bleeding isn’t fun but you might want to
> > have the most innovative tech. You might want Struts2 or Spring2 or
> > Hibernate Shards or an OSS-based ESB to solve your business problem and
> > you are unwilling to build the framework from scratch or unwilling to
> > pay the huge fees to a major commercial vendor to provide closed source
> > software.
> >
> >
> >
> > C) Pay: To pay some open source “consulting” & “support” company some
> > dollars to help you overcome the lack of docs, best practices, etc and
> > perhaps even track down and fix bugs on your behalf. There are
> > several organizations attempting to make a profit in this space. Some
> > have already failed as businesses.
> >
> >
> >
> > D) Build: Build your own solution that solves your end-user’s specific
> > use cases. That is quite common for MVC, IoC/DI, ORM-lite and ESB. I’ve
> > met several who built their own Tomact/App Server like thing before.
> > Those who built their own clustering/grid-like frameworks. Plus a lot of
> > custom ESB-like solutions.
> >
> >
> >
> > E) Sell: If there is only a small community for a technology but you
> > really, really wish to use it then you work your butt off to evangelize
> > it. You become a salesman. A recent example of this was Ruby on Rails
> > and Dave Thomas. He was the “maven, connector & salesman” who helped it
> > reach its tipping point (must read: Blink & Tipping Point). Bruce Tate
> > also falls in that category. Now they make great money selling
> > consulting, books, training, etc. I’ve personally been accused of the
> > same, as far back as pushing the notion of the internet, modems, NCSA
> > httpd and CGI for a new application platform OR even the concept of
> > server-side Java as an application server. Some of you were around 10 to
> > 13 years ago when I was “selling” those ideas in Atlanta .
> >
> >
> >
> > I think this is important concept for current & future software
> > architects, those people who have to make hard decisions about which
> > tools/frameworks they’ll embed in the solutions they’ll create for their
> > end-users. Sometimes we gamble big (try any JAR file we find on
> > sourceforge.net <http://sourceforge.net> <http://sourceforge.net>)
> and sometimes we don’t gamble
> > at all (we use exactly what IBM tells us to use).
> >
> >
> >
> > What do you think about this topic?
> >
> >
> >
> > Burr
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > ajug-members at ajug.org <mailto:ajug-members at ajug.org>
> > http://www.ajug.org/mailman/listinfo/ajug-members
>
>
> --
> The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
> -William Gibson
>
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--
The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
-William Gibson
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