On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 12:36, A. Rothman <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I think JAMES is currently in a deadlock of sorts regarding contributors. > My base assumptions are - > > > 1. The only usable version of JAMES at the moment is 2.x. Other than core > developers, very few users will checkout trunk on some random day and use > that as a production system. 3.x is off-limits for normal users, at least > until there's some milestone release they can depend on. > > > 2. No one is going to contribute to 2.x. As everyone here seems to agree - > while it may be battle-worn (in the good stable sense), it is a dead-end > development-wise, and not even the core developers want to mess with it, for > all the reasons we stated earlier. It's abandoned. > > > 3. Contributors contribute to projects they use. As a consequence of being > a user, they stumble upon bugs and enhancements, hopefully report them, and > even more hopefully contribute solutions themselves. If they don't use a > project, the chances of contributing as an academic exercise is slim. > > > From these 3 assumptions, the potential contributor's deadlock is evident > - he will be willing/able to contribute only to 3.x, he will be > willing/able to actually use in his project/production systems only a 2.x, > and since it's unlikely that he'll develop for a product he doesn't use, he > thus he won't contribute at all, and keep bitchin' on 2.x being dead and 3.x > not getting anywhere, because no one else will either. While this is a > generalization, I think it does apply to many if not most potential > contributors. > > How do u break this deadlock? In my opinion - by making a 3.x release. Even > a Beta. It can get early adopters to adopt, send the message that it's > becoming ready for the average user, and start the use-interact-contribute > cycle that's necessary for the project to get back on track. > > What should be included in such a release? what do users want? As a start, > I'd say a Java mail server. That's what users search for when they find > JAMES. SMTP/POP3 and a DB backend. No fancy bells and whistles just yet. A > bare-bones replacement for 2.x. And as can be seen from some other Java mail > server projects mentioned here or googled, that's shouldn't become a 3-year > project, but a rather modest goal for a handful of core developers. One only > needs the very basics that will bring 3.x into the spotlight as an > alternative to 2.x, and after things get into motion it can take off to many > creative directions. > > That's my take on it, anyway :-) > > > -Amichai > > +1 on a 3.x release, which I'm waiting for ages :) BR, Zsombor
