On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> --On Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:09 AM +0100 Stephen Colebourne > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> I think the ultimate question here is what organization best benefits the > >> committers. > > Huh! Is this not very self centered? Surely we should be asking what is best > > for ours customers/users. > > No. Because whether it is in Jakarta Commons, or ASF Commons, the users get > the same 'deal.' It's under the Apache Software License, freely available. > Websites are available, the infrastructure is the same. So, I think the user > wouldn't care whether its under ASF Commons or Jakarta Commons. > > I believe the only difference, in this case, is what the committers believe. > > > My problem with Commons remains its cross-language aims, and I have always > > disagreed with division by functionality. (For example start thinking about > > what the website home page will be like. It will have an introduction and > > then a list of Java components, and a list of Perl components and a list of > > C# components....... No way is that ever serving the users well.) > > Then, I think you are taking a very short-sighted view of the world. > Everything is not just Java. I think functional groupings are probably more > useful. Is an HTTP Client in Java and C *that* fundamentally different? I > don't believe so. We're back to this chestnut again, which I think will only be shown in the proof of the pudding [metaphors r us]. Both sides are short-sighted: 1) Yes, everything is not just Java. Java sites that use PHP+Apache for their sites fight this regularly. 2) Java is an insular community [due I believe to the fact that the other communities ostracised it]. Java developers are very tired of having to deal with antagonistic MS and open-source attitudes. A Java HTTP Client project can learn a lot from a C HTTP Client, but no user of a Java HTTP Client will ever consider the C HTTP Client as a valid alternative [okay, very small % might]. Now, Ant, Maven, Tomcat could all be written in C without a problem [I don't think a Java Web server has to be written in Java, just has to be able to compile/plugin Java], but I imagine it's unlikely to happen. > The problems that they have to solve are essentially the same. I > believe it'd be beneficial to pool our resources aligned on functional > groupings rather than language barriers that aren't very strong to begin > with. -- justin This is also short-sighted. There is a very strong language barrier between Java and other languages. It's not a wonderful thing to have, but pretending that it's the same strength as C to Tcl, or Perl to Python will just ostracise the Java [read Jakarta] bits more. Hen
