Stefano & Carsten & Others :-), There is no doubt that this Cocoon community is one of the strongest Open Source communities around. Just look at the number of people subscribed to the lists to see that. Also, one of the reasons for this is that the people here are so diverse - as we can follow nearly every day on this list - And this is Great!
=> With Cocoon, the community has a fantastic chance. There is still (even after 2 years) nothing that can compare to it (neither OS or commercial) so we can establish Cocoon as _the_ XML application platform (that's my feeling anyway). => Releasing Cocoon will make the community stronger. There is no doubt about that. => Releasing Cocoon will increase the "visuality" of the project in the media. For example - Carsten and I are currently writing articles on Cocoon for several publications - to coincide (roughly) with the release. => Cocoon is ready for "prime-time", in fact I think after 2 years of development we _really_ need to release it. Otherwise no-one will take the project seriously. => Cocoon has also already made its mark on the commercial side. HP, our company and others are already using it to build industry-strength applications. And more will follow as soon as the release is out. So we also need "to get it right". We don't want to scare people off using Cocoon - do we? So we need to find the correct balance between our different and varied opinions. I agree that we need to remove the blockers before releasing 2.0 and make sure the documentation is enough to stop people panicking and using something else. In addition we need to make sure people _know about_ this great community so that they can find their way here - regardless of whether they are users, developers, lurkers, head-hunters :-). You name it - they should all know about Cocoon. And last - to quote Guy Kawasaki: "Build a great product - and they will come". So let's release this really great product! Matthew -- Open Source Group sunShine - Lighting up e:Business ================================================================= Matthew Langham, S&N AG, Klingenderstrasse 5, D-33100 Paderborn Tel:+49-5251-1581-30 [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.s-und-n.de ================================================================= -----Ursprungliche Nachricht----- Von: Stefano Mazzocchi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Gesendet: Samstag, 24. November 2001 13:06 An: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Betreff: Re: [tale+rant] The 2.0 syndrome and [Vote]: Final Release Date Carsten Ziegeler wrote: > > Hi Stefano, > > a really nice fairy tale... > > I totally agree with you, that we should get this release out very soon, > but as the last months when we released the betas and the rcs showed, > there were many new users which very totally frustrated with c2 as they > didn't get it working. And I think 80% of them could have been helped > if the documentation were more complete. OK, they all could use the > mailing lists to get their problems fixed, but the usual user doesn't > want to do so. He will something which simply works. And I really > don't want to say: "Who cares about them?" And I personally don't want to > say: "Hey, it's opensource, so what do you expect?" Oh, c'mon, did I ever say that? My point is entirely different: what would you choose? a perfect project with a perfect documentation that takes three years to get out, or a nice project with sloppy documentation that takes two and adds documentation down the road? *final* in my vocabulary doesn't mean *perfect*, doesn't even mean *the way I'd love it to be*. It simply means: I don't expect much back-compatible changes in the contracts between the framework and the user's code. Period. Everything else can (and *must*, I totally agree) come after this. Another choice: would you like a software with sloppy docs but solid contracts or software with nice docs but contracts that change every bugfix release? > We all here know that Cocoon is a great piece of softwarwe, but for > what, if noone except some geeks can use it? Ok, you argue that > all these users will join the developer site and help us. This > might be true. Who knows this? Nobody knows, but my personal experience (judge the value of it yourself) tells me that sloppy docs never harmed any open source project (linux kernel project was successful much before the linuxdoc project started), while moving targets did. > So, my plan was to get as much documentation as possible and use > this time to sort out some other areas (like the directory structure > etc. in the meantime). Not all of us are capable of writing good > documentation and they can spend their time on the other things. > But of course, you're a right that the directory structure should > not delay the release. > > Ok, at least, the gap between our opinion about the final release > date is not that wide. > Let's see how we can make it? What about this? We leave the directory > structure as it is for now and we add any documentation that is currently > in the pipeline. If noone is currently working on documentation, > we will do the release on monday as proposed some month ago. > If there is someone working on it, he should comeup now and say if he > it is worth waiting for it. Carsten, you've been the third release coordinator of this project (myself and giacomo before you) and, IMO, you've done an absolutely outstanding job. My tale/rant was *NOT* a critic to your proposal of directory changing, but a more general critic to the "priority list" that this project seems to have adopted. Is documentation more important than contract solidity? NO! Never! You should not sacrifice *any* solidity for docs. Again: is lack of commercial-quality documentation harmful for an open source project? NO! It might slow down adoption (this is absolutely correct) but sometimes it's even a good filter. Even more: which software is better to build a community around it? a perfect codebase or a buggy codebase? the *buggy* one!!! The *one* and *only* thing that harms an open source project is lack of solidity in the contracts (being them protocols, interfaces, APIs, schemas, design patterns) and lack of solidity and diversity in the development community. Please, read my lips: I'm NOT advocating that Cocoon should *NOT* have a good documentation or that Cocoon devs should not be making all possible efforts to make Cocoon simpler to use. I'm *JUST* saying that documentation and usability (despite their absolute and invaluable importance) [not even mentioning cosmetic cleanup] should *NOT* be *showstoppers* for a *FINAL* release. My simple idea is: let's get the release out and then improve it later on. I'm *NOT* advocating: let's get the shit out and let the users dig into it, we'll move on talking about RTs and more sexy stuff. I'm simply saying that postponing further the final release for some showstoppers that should not stopping any open source project, is hurting more than any addition that we could add. So, please, let's come up with a *showstopper* list and we'll identify which one is really stopping the release and what is not and can be postponed later on. Thanks. -- Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Friedrich Nietzsche -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
