On Jan 8, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Alan D. Cabrera wrote:
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David Blevins wrote, On 1/6/2006 3:24 PM:
On Jan 6, 2006, at 11:10 AM, David Jencks wrote:
Either I don't understand what is being proposed or I think it is a
recipe for disaster.
My past experience with open source projects leads me to believe
that
having more than one main development area that is leading to a
release is likely to cause only confusion, not progress towards
functionality.
In my opinion if we call head 2.0 and start adding JEE 5
features to
it, there will never be any more j2ee 1.4 releases with added
functionality. We will have a couple bug fix 1.0 releases, then a
year or so while we try to finish JEE 5. I don't think this is
acceptable.
Amen!
We can't go from two years of development on 1.x with little to
no user
interaction then abandon it after the first release and go back into
the development hole. We need to follow through on Geronimo 1.x
for a
few release cycles, get some user feedback, learn the lessons we
need
to learn for a while, *then* start Geronimo 2.0.
Now is not the time to turn our focus to the next shinny ball, now is
the time to focus on users of 1.x as they will need our dedication
before they can bring it into production.
Dave,
I don't think that anyone is advocating the abandonment of 1.x. I
think
we are merely acknowledging the fact that a lot of people will want to
work on, to use your choice of words, the next shinny ball. You can't
control what people want to work on. We can control how it's done so
that we can minimized the impact on 1.x branch.
This was the reason for my initial email.
I get it, and yes I am shoving words in people's mouths when I say
"abandon." And, yes, it's a pretty fine line.
But there is no way that just some people can start 2.x, meaning:
everyone will feel pressure to get their ideas in before things are
so far along and it's too late; people will be land grabbing to get
their name on their favorite part of the server.
I am pretty hypocritical though from a certain perspective though as
I feel it's critical to get OpenEJB 3 into light asap. But in both
cases, Geronimo and OpenEJB, I am driven by some level of guilt.
In OpenEJB we burned people badly as development on 1.x dried up when
2.x was started. People waited patiently but 2.x never turned out to
be something 1.x users could use. The goal for OpenEJB 3 and the
promise that we've made to our users is that it will be something
they can use.
In Geronimo we've told people so many times for so many months "hold
on", "just wait", "we're almost there." I feel like there was an
unspoken agreement there that it would be "their turn" next to be the
focus of our community and it's our turn to be the patient ones; more
over that if we don't do this, it will be the ultimate of insults to
those that did wait with enduring anticipation at our first major
release.
The bottom line(s) for me is I feel we need to show people that 1.x
is our highest priority for a while if we expect them to make a
serious investment in it (and ultimately, Geronimo). And when I say
our highest priority I don't mean a high priority, I mean a hot-bed
of exciting development and new things.
All that said, I do think it's a positive thing to explore JEE 5 and
experiment with ideas. I just think we need to be absolutely sure
that it doesn't overshadow 1.x.
I don't want to make too big of a stink about this as everything is a
balancing act and somewhere in the middle is commonly the optimal
answer -- I'm sure we can find it if we keep talking -- but there are
warning bells going off in my head at the thought of anything that
might further retard the procurement of users from our fairly large
potential user-base -- by saying that I'm not implying that anyone
with a different perspective doesn't share the same concerns. Just
trying to explain what's rollin' round my head.
-David
