Re: BeanShell alternatives (was Re: Status of projectand adding 1.5 generics)

On Dec 13, 2008, at 11:35 PM, seth lytle wrote:

> for starters, this argument is a red herring - our problem is a lack
> of development, not an excess.

I disagree. I think the discussion is important because what is needed  
is a clear direction to move forward. At least, that's what I want if  
I'm going to invest substantial effort in work on a public version of  
BeanShell. I have maintained our version, but it is not generalizable  
since it has entanglements in our code and log4j and since I did not  
make the effort to keep it compiling under versions prior to v1.5.

What you and fschmidt are advocating is sort of a collaborative  
anarchy. Either:
a) people contribute independently to a common trunk, or
b) people branch and contribute to their own branches, stealing good  
fixes from other branches and/or the trunk

Neither implies any kind of common vision, quality control, or release  
process. Open source does not necessarily mean people just pile in and  
do stuff; in fact most successful projects I have worked with and on  
have either dynamic and opinionated leadership or some kind of  
committee organization.

Given an unsupervised repository of fixes, I would have to  
independently provide testing and release management before I could  
use it in my software. That could be done publicly but then to all  
intents and purposes I will have placed myself in charge of accepting  
fixes and releasing versions. Unless my own vision of what BeanShell  
should be has broad support it's just not worth the effort.

I've been monitoring this list for a long time, and the lack of  
traffic is pretty damning. It seems like it will take a lot of work  
and evangelizing to get sufficient interest to keep BeanShell going  
for the long run.



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