Welcome Jeanfrancois,

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Jeanfrancois Arcand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> Salut,
>
> after weeks of delay(ss), I'm back :-) Last time we discussed possible
> collaboration between the two frameworks. I've proposed the idea to my
> colleagues and as expected, every body were on the defense :-) The
> Sun-Apache collaboration hasn't always working really well over the last
> couple of years, and I suspect this didn't helped ;-). Let's no just discuss
> that here....
>

No worries.  Plus from my understanding you're already an Apache committer
right?  I don't really consider you a SUN employee.  You're just getting
checks from them to support your habit of writing Open Source Software.
:-D.  Who cares who flips the bill as long as that happens.  Everyone wins.

Regardless, I'm sure the Sun-Apache relationship will heal (if at all
damaged) and this is just a phase.  We've had a long history together where
several major influencial Apache projects progressed here thanks to their
support of our committers.


>
> So, one of the proposition was to merge the two projects. I don't think
> that one can happens :-)


We can still collaborate without merging.  No need to push too hard on this
front.  If it happens it happens.  Eventually I'm sure our projects will
feel very much alike as we share and build on concepts together.


> And the license isn't yet matching, although I'm trying to have Apache 2
> license support in Grizzly (actually I'm not trying, it's one task for our
> new Grizzly project lead :-)).
>

This would be excellent since it would facilitate IP issues regarding a
dependency on Grizzly especially with the new MINA transport on top of
Grizzly you proposed below.


>
> So my little proposal is the following. I would like to learn MINA and be
> involved as an individual contributor. One thing that I would like to
> explore is have MINA implemented on top of Grizzly, similar to MINA running
> on top of APR. What the MINA community will gain with that? Little except
> the feedback I will give....


That's worth while.  Plus, we would see how well the API handles your
transport.  Perhaps this will help us improve the API.


> but also it will means that application that wants to use Grizzly low level
> API can combine them with MINA high level API.
>

Sure this is valuable.  Everyone will benefit.  Just the ability to swap
transports while testing peculiarities in performance and behavior of MINA
based applications will help shed light on what issues my exist.  It's
another perspective on a problem possible with a simple switch.  I think
this is a great first step.


>
> Maybe nobody will want to do that, but at least it will gives me a chance
> to learn MINA and comes with comments.


I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how many MINA people would support
this idea.


> It may eventually brings the two community together and share on the low
> level works (directly or just the experience). Maybe not.


It's worth a try.  We all (users, committers, on both Grizzly, & MINA ) have
much to gain and nothing to loose.


> Still I think that starting small cannot hurt any community.


Starting small is always a good idea.  Things will progress on their own
without unnaturally forcing a fit.


> I will for sure gives feedback on performance, although we might discover
> than the current version of MINA is faster than Grizzly (naaa maybe :-)).
>

No matter, I want the best API and best performance at the end of the day.
I don't care how I get that of course as long as the licensing is business
friendly.  Knowing where we are and why is much more important so things can
improve on both frameworks.  In theory, Apache projects should not compete
with other similar projects.  Reality may be different but friendly
competition benefiting everyone is tolerable.  I think congenial
interactions will eventually lead to the projects coming together, because
we'll realize what's best in both and unknowingly begin merge concepts as we
evolve from each others influences.  Then I bet people will turn around and
say, "hey, why are we maintaining two separate code bases, and communities?"


>
> What peoples thinks?


I think this is a very positive start.  I welcome you and I would personally
lend a hand if you have any questions.  Feel free to ask on the ML and/or
just lounge out with us on #mina @ freenode.


> In any case, I will start looking at the design, something I've refrain
> myself before (maybe I should have looked, as peoples always tell me it
> quite trivial to write MINA applications!)).
>

Oh don't worry, the documentation is improving, slowly but surly.

Regards,
Alex

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