But that is exactly the problem. The JSF does not have resources to burn. Unlike the Apache project which seems to have a lot of developers contributing to one code base, we have a handful of developers contributing to individual projects.
The end result is that the many small projects are all incomplete, or the projects that are well written and have a large user base are written in a language that is not as widely accepted and so does not get a lot of contributions. If those developers would all work on one client then the chances of that one client becoming what everyone wants is better. At least, that's the hope.
In talking with the other leaders of the Apache, Mozilla, and RedHat projects it seems that our "rotten"ness is based in the fact that we do not have a central project that is well documented and easy to get in and code on.
Problem is that the clients that are in development are probably quite close to the heart of those developers that made them as something "they made", and I dont see many of them abandoning all that work they have put in to work on something different that is not "their baby" as it were. Also even if there were a main project new clients will still spring up as people may prefer a different language or not agree with how that main project client was designed and think they can do better, having yet another client even one sponsored by the JSF is not going to solve this IMO. Personally I dont see the fact we have many clients as a "rotten" or bad thing necessarily, or the fact that there are lots of abandoned code/projects they are all facts of life in open source development, how many abandoned projects do you think there are generally?, i.e. this is not something that is unique to jabber development and so is not something I see much point in worrying too much about.
And by well documented, I don't just mean JabberDoc type docs. I mean documented source code, code guides to help explain things like NADs, stream object models, karma, etc... All of those are unique ideas, but if you actually try to use them, you can easily bog down and waste time trying to figure them out.
You can also make the argument that we should just focus on existing projects. Which I'm all for. The only problem is that for five years the jabberd v1.4 server has been open, and very few people have pitched in changes. It entered maintenance mode when Jer stopped working on it, and hasn't left yet. That was the purpose of jabberd v2.0. But now Rob has backed off.
The end result are two servers that have problems. But in reality, most people aren't looking for the power of 2.0 (larger number of connections), nor do they want the buginess of 1.4. They want a simple server, that they can hack on, and extend. They want it to support maybe 100 or so connections, and that they want it to be easy to install and get running (minimum configuration).
The only answer we can think given the track record of jabberd, is that jabberd is not the project to base this on. So start a new one, and write it in a currently popular language. With the main goal not being scalability/performance, but rather showcasing Jabber and XMPP.
Even if we start yet another jabberdpy project personally I dont see it ending up any different to jabberd1.4 or 2. IMO its far better to try and put the limited resources we have into continuing the development of the existing projects, rather than stretching the limited resources we have on yet another server that wont fulfill everyones needs anyway, before we think about starting any more projects it would be best to get a tally of the people willing to significantly contribute to such a project.
That's been our thoughts anyway... Part of the reason we are floating the idea instead of dictating requirements, is that in the end that won't work. Apache, Mozilla, and RedHat all agreed that the JSF just needs to be here to foster the community. You all are volunteers. We cannot dictate to you terms or tasks. We can only offer suggestions and advice.
But something needs to change if Jabber is to grow and draw in other Open Source programmers.
IMO the lack of documentation is the primary sticking point which is probably putting people off contributing, personally I dont really see how new projects are really going to help the situation in any way, but thats just my view on things, would love to be proved wrong.
Richard
_______________________________________________ jdev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://jabberstudio.org/mailman/listinfo/jdev
