Hi Nikolaos Thank you for a great mail :) I have the same thoughts as you, and I am actually ready to step in to the community, if I could find the way. I must admit though that I wanted to get the feeling of the community at first. However, I think your mail was the trigger, so: how can I help? Anyone?
Regards Søren Den 01/09/2010 kl. 18.26 skrev Nikolaos Giannopoulos <nikol...@brightminds.org>: > Hi, > > <off-topic> > > This week I was looking for a JSP caching solution (something that is > right up the alley for Stripes Layout) and discovered that there was a > product with excellent features called OSCache whose feature set was in > deep alignment with my project's requirements. I became dismayed when I > looked at the last release and it was for 2.4.1 on 07/07/2007. Yes, > that is 3 years ago. The 1st thing that came to mind is that this > project is either a) incredibly mature (wishful thinking) or b) > abandoned for some reason. Looking at benchmarks I discovered that the > product throws exceptions on a cache miss... a bad practice... but worse > a known bad practice that has been in the product for quite some time. > Then I looked at the list of bugs and found 4 blocker bugs and at least > 11 critical ones. I then went to the support forums which were said to > be in the process of cut over in Nov of 2009 and the message was still > there almost a year later; worse yet there had been literally no > activity on the mailing list in the past few years. I emailed the admin > and my concerns were founded. > > Moreover I looked at other solutions like ehCache, Java Caching, > JSPCache, etc... and with the exception of ehCache and found that many > were also discontinued. In fact, even though ehCache appears to be the > defacto product it didn't suite my requirements anywhere near how > OSCache did (their web caching support is extremely feature poor). I > thought, here is this great product that despite its greatness has > fallen. Before anyone can say well this is nothing new... remember BETA > vs. VHS... I'll agree but there are stark differences with Open Source > software... as quickly as Open Source projects pop up and gain inertia > they can unfortunately fall from grace as equally fast. > > Also, *perception* is huge and moreover *perception* can kill an Open > Source project very quickly if the *perception* is that the project > isn't being evolved or may soon be on life support. > > </off-topic> > > Why do I go to great lengths to mention the above which has nothing to > do with Stripes. Because I am concerned. I am concerned because there > are *a few* current similarities between Stripes and OSCache but > *perception* is key. > > In looking at Stripes development: > --> 1.5.3 last svn update was December 16 2009 > --> 1.5.4 Snapshot was progressing at a feverish clip until June 10, > 2010 w/ a much hoped release that fizzled... > --> Trunk (1.6.0) has 3 commits in the last year... meaning lots of > fixes in 1.5.4 Snapshot still need to be ported to the trunk (which is > fine as this can obviously wait until 1.5.4 launches but is a little > surprising from an new feature / activity perspective). > --> Luckily other than a blocker issue in 1.5.4 Snapshot (which isn't > even released yet) there do not appear to be any other serious Critical > bugs and although there are many Major bugs a lot of them don't appear > to be as harmful as OSCache's race condition, synchronization issues, > etc... so that is a very good thing. > > In looking at Stripes releases: > --> Whether you like Maven or not one thing is for certain Maven will > *spur* adoption and provides positive *perception* assuming the releases > are kept up to date (very negative *perception* if releases are not > recent). Stripes suffers from some negativity in this regard with 1.5.3 > not being available... some time ago Ben was looking to setup Sonatype > repo but that too fizzled... > --> Although one can setup an Internal Maven repo quite easily... using > any web server... it is the negative *perception* that hurts most. I > think at very least this should be setup ASAP and 1.5.3 should be made > available via Maven (w/ site + doc links updated). > > In looking at Stripes mailing list there is a trickle in the developer > list (if any) in any given month and the user mailing list has low > volume. The good news though is that the community does still respond > to questions or calls for help in a very timely manner. > > What spurred this post was *perception*; *perception* of OSCache, my > recent fun with 1.5.4 Snapshot nested Stripes Layouts, 1.6.x future > development and finally Grzegorz's post which in part read as follows: > > Grzegorz Krugły wrote: >> I work with stripes on glassfish a lot, so could be able to fix/text >> some gf-related bugs for sure. When I have some spare time, I'll also >> look over the ticket list on Jira, perhaps I could offer my work on some >> of them. >> >> Best regards, >> Grzegor > I think *many* more developers need to step up to the table and start > helping with Stripes fixes and ongoing development otherwise I'm afraid > this project like many open source projects I have seen over the last > few years may end up like OSCache... a wonderful product but one that > simply lost its inertia and then most likely fell victim to > *perception*. My *perception* of Stripes is that it is a great product > but I think we all can agree that *perception* of its development and > future is lacking. This is not so much a *criticism* as much as it as > *observation* as clearly nobody is being paid money to provide their > time (of course rewards come in many flavours :-) > > Personally, at this time I have zero spare cycles to assist directly in > fixes unless they are show stoppers but hope later this year to offer my > services as well. In the interim, as I continue to leverage Stripes for > a large project, I hope that those experiences and incorporation there > can help makes Stripes a better product... through reporting issues, > testing fixes, providing workarounds, etc... and possibly producing patches. > > What does the community think? How can we improve things for all? > Comments / ideas??? > > ASIDE: One thing that isn't clear (to me at least) is how does someone > go about getting involved to directly contribute to Stripes > development? i.e. how can Grzegorz or I get involved when we are > available... . > > Regards, > > --Nikolaos > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: > > Show off your parallel programming skills. > Enter the Intel(R) Threading Challenge 2010. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-thread-sfd > _______________________________________________ > Stripes-users mailing list > Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: Show off your parallel programming skills. 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