Not everybody is in a position to throw away their investment in the 3.x
series just yet. While its fun to try the latest and greatest, not
everybody can do that. Craig, is java.sun.com running on Tomcat 4.0?
Jon, is www.apache.org running Apache 2.0 yet? When do you think they
will be ready to run those packages?
While this may be a "reference implementation," it is still being used
in production environments. Production environments have very different
requirements than development environments. Does Tomcat 3.x have bugs?
Absolutely. But we've found those bugs in our QA environment,
identified them, and worked around them as needed. Tomcat 4.0 will have
a whole new set of bugs that we will need to spend time working around.
We're still running our sites on 3.1, because we haven't had time to
re-do the verification work with 3.2 yet.
I'm just saying that while Tomcat 4.0 may have the most perfect design,
it is un-proven in production environments. Tomcat 3.x has been proven
for our application.
We need to continue the 3.x tree at least until 4.0 is proven as ready.
That takes time. 3.x has been brewing for a very long time. There have
been lots of changes, but more has stayed the same than has changed.
Tomcat 4.0 is almost entirely new code. We need something we can count
on for production. Tomcat 4.0 isn't there yet.
I also think that its appalling that people should tell Costin to go
away. The Apache project should be very very thankful that they have
somebody around to maintain the code that others have abandoned. Where
would we be if the latest stable version of Apache was 1.3.0, and all
the other developers had run off to work on 2.0? If that had happened,
the Apache project would have been dismissed by everybody as a toy, and
Apache wouldn't be in the position it is in today.
Paul Frieden
PS: www.apache.org runs Apache 1.3.15-dev, and java.sun.com runs Apache
1.3.3.
GOMEZ Henri wrote:
>
> >It really scares me that you are the only person (as far as I
> >can tell) that
> >is seriously interested in maintaining and developing Tomcat
> >3.x into the
> >future. It is not good to have the entire rest of the core
> >developers work
> >on Tomcat 4.x and having you sit here and say that you are
> >going to work
> >towards back porting everything that the Tomcat 4.x people
> >come up with on
> >your own. Talk about a complete duplication of effort by only a single
> >individual.
>
> * Costin is not alone on the TC 3.3 tree.
> You could see there is contributions 3.3 from Larry, Nacho and Dan.
>
> >I can't even understand someone wanting to base their work on
> >Tomcat 3.x
> >when all of the core developer support (ie: more than just one
> >person) is
> >going towards Tomcat 4.x.
>
> * Hey, don't forget that tomcat 3.x is now the only real running
> distribution.
> Me and others see TC 4.0 as an experimental product, a way to test and
> validate
> the servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 API.
>
> >I *personally* think that you should either drop your Tomcat
> >3.x development
> >and work towards making Tomcat 4.0 have all the features and
> >benefits that
> >you want to see in Tomcat 3.x (and thus show that we are all working
> >together instead of this constant fork within the overall
> >Tomcat project) or
> >simply fork what you are doing into another project that is
> >hosted somewhere
> >else.
>
> * The good point with TC 4.0 are all the good things inside (JMX, JAXP
> 1.0/1.1)
> The bad point on TC 4.0 are all these good things (JMX, JAXP 1.0/1.1).
>
> You have seens the thread on '[PROPOSAL] building is easy'. We need too
> many
> things now to build TC 4.0. Also even if TC 4.0 is an OpenSource projects,
> too
> many of the required packages are not 'Open Sourced' or not easily
> exportable.
> Also many peoples want to have a fast servlet engine with a low memory
> profile.
> I saw TC 4.0 to be much hungry.
>
> >In fact, I'm pretty strongly -1 on Tomcat 3.3. If anything it
> >would need to
> >be suggested as Tomcat 5.0 because as far as I can tell, we
> >have already
> >come to the conclusion that Catalina will be Tomcat 4.0.
>
> * Why not consider TC 3.3 as a light servlet engine ? It make sense since
> many sites
> will not need all the stuff inside TC 4.0. I hope that Apache Group will
> not forget
> that many of the web sites which run it's httpd servlet are personal
> computers and
> not clusters of Ghz CPUs and Gb of RAM.
>
> >Don't take what I said as me kicking you out or killing things
> >or anything even remotely personal.
> >What I'm most concerned with here is the overall Tomcat
> >project goals and
> >seeing you duplicating work and effort is really not making me
> >happy. Sure,
> >you could say that the goals might be flawed in your opinion, which is
> >perfectly valid, but the fact of the matter is that the rest
> >of the people
> >on the project are working towards making Tomcat 4.0 the future.
>
> * I don't saw that as a duplicate effort. TC 3.3 is the continuation of 3.x
> tree.
> TC 4.0 is much more ambitiuous and nice for the next future but the
> present now
> is Apache JServ, Tomcat 3.1 and some Tomcat 3.2. We need to have a
> continuation
> effort on existing software for present hardware.
>
> >One thing that Craig did with 4.0 that was the right thing to do was to
> >lobby the core developers into working on his vision of the
> >future, where
> >your "attitude" has been to simply continue working on your
> >vision no matter
> >what everyone else is doing.
>
> * That's may be the core of the problem. Craig has been just to good in
> lobbying. There is not too much core developpers now in TC 3.3.
> Another problem is that the majority of TC 4.0 developpers are Sun
> employees. Many could see TC 4.0 as a Sun projects with externals
> contributions and bugs reports. Please remember the discussions on
> Xerces list against IBMers and Suners about Spinaker and Xerces 2.0
>
> The danger now is that Apache Group seems to loose its heart.
>
> Majors software companies are flying and provide their software
> under the Apache Umbrella. Must we wait now for a Microsoft arrival with
> a .NET or C# contribution to Apache Group ?
>
> Did the operating system of Apache systems is still FreeBSD ?
> Please wake-up all and see that Costin may be one of the latest BSDers out
> of
> there. An excellent developper but a poor politic.
>
> All of us, have just too many politics in real life, so let it outside
> Apache wall.
>
> Let Costin and others continue their work on TC 3.3, 3.4, 3.5.
> Just saw TC 3.3 and successor as a lightweight alternative to the more
> ambitious TC 4.0.
> Jakarta must be able to answer to user with low cost system. And please
> don't forget that
> Apache has made it's reputation on a fast http server running nicely on a
> 386 with 12m RAM.
