Well said Andrew. Re. Chris's point, I think we'll be hard pressed to reach consensus on what a project "maturity" means, let alone how to measure it.
If I were building this document (and if I remember correctly, I built this document: http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/components.html, which is rather similiar in some respects), I'd stick to factual information--brief description, release dates/numbers, etc. and let the facts speak for themselves. -----Original Message----- From: Andrew C. Oliver To: Jakarta General List Sent: 3/20/2002 6:27 AM Subject: RE: Jakarta Overview Perhaps you could become a Jakarta developer by altering the provided overview so that it is both useful to users and acceptable to the developers of the projects it covers. I should say a subjective (mature/immature/good/bad) information might be useful, but probably is more the area of a Jakarta "fan-site" ;-) then the Jakarta site itself. Furthermore, just a personal opinion, Documentation is an area I truly want to help improve at Jakarta as a whole. But, one thing I've noticed is that it is much easier to contribute documentation at the project level and work your way up then vice versa. I like the overview myself, its a clear and gives folks an easier way to find what they need. I yet understand the concerns about keeping it up to date and the likes. My suggestion is though is too fold. General tends to give new contributers who read the literature about community and the likes a trial by incident, a series of "-1 no I don't like it!" and depend upon the contributer to climb the mountain. Rough for a first timer. Perhaps trying to be a bit more positive and saying "good but have you considered" instead of the more traditional approach. ;-) Secondly, to the contributer of said documentation and future contributers. While end to end documentation is seriously lacking, I suggest contributing to the in developing Jakarta Manual and furthermore the lower level project documentation first. Try not to include too much subjective information (cause for debate) and don't take it personally ;-) or anything anywhere at anytime too seriously. (air raids and the likes excluded) -Andy On Wed, 2002-03-20 at 05:35, Chris Pheby wrote: > I have to disagree! Speaking as a /user/ it is really hard to find projects > on Jakarta, and how the various projects relate to each other. I have spent > many weeks doing this and still haven't even scraped the iceberg. Which I > think is a shame. Some clear exposition would really help. > > I have heard on this list that the Jakarta project is developer centric, and > the site is hard to penetrate if you are not a Jakarta developer. I am sure > this is not by design, but that is my perception as well. Any suggestion > that helps improve this situation such as Philipp's I would hope has serious > consideration - even if it presents new challenges that need to be resolved. > > As to deciding such things as how to assess the maturity of the project, how > about taking measures such as: > > a) polls/votes of users > b) number of downloads > c) release number > > I'm sure there are other possibilities... > > > Chris. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Ceki Gulcu > Sent: 20 March 2002 10:27 > To: Jakarta General List > Subject: Re: Jakarta Overview > > > > Isn't the "overview" document trying to substitute itself for the > documentation that > is already in subprojects (or should be)? The cornerstone of the Jakarta > and > Apache Software Foundation in general is that "management" delegates > responsibility for a given subproject to each subproject, intervening > as little as possible. > > Your introduction also raises further worries. Jakarta does not need > more publicity. Everybody knows Jakarta. What is needed is improving > the quality of each *subproject*. Marketing gimmicks are not helpful and > just > waste precious time. > > More importantly, who is to decide what project has what maturity? I find > the "overview" document a little too interventionist, perhaps less in > content > than in sprit. Until these concerns are addressed, here is my -1. > > At 16:36 18.03.2002 -0800, you wrote: > <snip snip>
