Re: River and Backward Compatibility

On 9/5/07, Dan Creswell <[email protected]> wrote:

> (1)     The corporate world just doesn't work the same way - many things are
> done with side-conversations over beer or whatever between engineers who
> are notionally rivals or potential leaks not under a current NDA.
>
> (2)     Many feel they don't have the skills to represent themselves
> adequately and would prefer to work with an individual they trust to get
> their points across.
>
> (3)     Demanding open'ness has only so much effect.  Myself, Ewan Silver,
> Nigel Warren, Phil Bishop and others have all found that working closely
> with these "private individuals" and coaching them to be more open over
> time (in a way that suits them - e.g. contributing a patch, releasing
> something as opensource, writing up some notes on a Jini experience,
> presenting at a show, organizing a get-together over beer and pizza etc
> etc) works well.
>
> (4)     Much of the private conversation I have leads to further
> opportunities for Jini/River beyond current engagements as people I've
> worked with change companies and wish to take Jini/River with them.
>
> Thus whilst I'll advocate open'ness I'm not going to discourage people
> from taking the first step towards open'ness via private email
> discussion with me.

Well said Dan.

I suspect you have expressed the sentiments of many of us
out here building products using using Jini and JavaSpaces.
One thing I might add though, would be that many of us don't
speak up because we want to avoid getting drawn into one
of those endless "discussions" that -- to some of us -- don't
matter much, and often never come to any sort of conclusion
('tabs or spaces' seems to be like 'religion and politics' --
something I never discuss).

But your question about backward compatibility feels
important enough to cause me to risk it this time. Speaking
as someone working in a fully committed Jini and
JavaSpaces shop, backward compatibility is extremely
important to us. As a matter of fact, I suspect that should
river break compatibility in any significant way, we would
simply continue using the 2.1 JSK distribution. So far that
implementation continues to serve our needs quite
well, and we're very happy with it's stability and performance
in our system.

For what it's worth though, some of the suggestions I've
seen on the river list regarding the "direction" the river
community should take Jini and JavaSpaces makes me
concerned about a fork occurring; which wouldn't make
me particularly happy. If I had to guess, I'd guess that
other folks building products using the current JSK have
somewhat similar concerns. But of course, that's just
a guess, and all of this is just my 2 cents. Like I said,
take it for what it's worth.

Bottom line: +1 for backward compatibility (hey, you asked).

Regards,
Brian

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