I think there should be a place in Jakarta (or ASF-land) where people
can just write packages, without having to hook them up to a specific
product.
Meanwhile, it should be easy for a subproject to expose a package
they would like to share, and still maintain that package.
On Struts, we actually have a Contributors Area library on the TODO
list for 1.1,
< http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/todo-1.1.html >
because we do actually get more user contributions than we can
shoehorn into a framework. I volunteered to help make it so, but
it wasn't my idea. It flowed from the user list.
I think a decent library catalog can put all of these together.
So, I guess I'm drifting back toward the CJAN model.
Except here, there is also a CJAN team, who will create and maintain
their own codebases, and are trying to set some useful standards for
community-based open source development at the package level.
To keep this in scope, we can require that each entry be associated with
one or more ASF products. For user contributions, someone should quickly
review these for spam. Jakarta and other ASF committers could be given
higher clearance, so their contributions sail through.
This then opens the door wide for another organization with a broader
scope to take our catalog application and setup a larger facility, open
to all Java packages.
-Ted.
