On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Kito D. Mann wrote:
I'm happy to see that you guys are seriously considering placing the components in a separate subproject. I think this will make the components seem much more palatable to people who aren't already using MyFaces. (I've seen a lot of confusion about whether or not you can even use the components without the MyFaces implementation).
Last year at JavaOne, Ed Burns (JSF 1.2 spec lead), Matthias Unverzagt, and I talked about the OurFaces project (https://ourfaces.dev.java.net/) and how we wanted it to be a standard repository for high-quality open-source JSF components. Of course, time is always scarce, so the project hasn't progressed quite as we would have liked. Matthias, the project's leader, did, however make a lot of progress organizing the project so that new commiters could easily add components. (You can read Ed's blog entry about this at: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/edburns/archive/2004/08/lets_learn_abou.html).
Since the MyFaces component work, in contrast, is quite vibrant, I think it would make sense to take the OurFaces concepts and transform the MyFaces components subproject into sort of a central repository for open-source components. Borrowing Matthias' work would make that process much easier, and we could also look at migrating any unique features of the OurFaces components over to the MyFaces component subproject over time.
Any thoughts?
My only comment is to remind people that the ASF and SourceForge are quite different in the way they work. The ASF is a meritocracy, while SF tends to be more of a free-for-all. The relevance of this to a component repository is that just because someone shows up at MyFaces with a new component doesn't mean that they can necessarily get it added. It would depend on whether or not they have a history with the project, and whether the existing community deems that they have sufficient merit to be invited to join - or whether existing committers are willing to take responsibility for the component themselves. Of course, SF *can* work this way as well. It's just not required to do so.
So basically you need to decide how you want a central repository to work before you can decide whether it should live at the ASF as part of MyFaces, or live somewhere else such as SourceForge.
-- Martin Cooper
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Kito D. Mann ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Virtua, Inc. (phone: 203-323-1244 fax: 203-323-2363)
Author, JavaServer Faces in Action (<http://www.manning.com/mann/index.html>http://www.manning.com/mann/index.html)
http://www.JSFCentral.com - JavaServer Faces FAQ, news, and info
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