Re: Reasons *not* to open source WebObjects?

Hi Lucas,

I really do not like repeating myself, but I got the feeling I am a bit 
misunderstood... So will try again
On Mar 31, 2005, at 8:54 PM, Lucas Rockwell wrote:

> Hi Georg,
>
> From what I can see, there are two different camps at work here: 
> consultants (programmers for hire -- either alone or as a company) and 
> internal developers. For the consultants, perhaps the way WO handled 
> by Appleis ok and it does indeed give folks like you a competitive 
> advantage.

Our company does both - consulting and products. And it does 
applications for the finance sector, and for the education. So far SUN 
was the dominant factor in the field of astronomy. Now the first two 
truly robotic observatories will be 100% Apple shops - not because 
Xserves, but because our WO based application. In this case the 
telescope manufacturer and the universities who will run the scopes 
never read a word about WO - just we were the only one able to finish 
the project for the short time required.

BTW, none of our "internal" developers feels uncomfortable of knowing 
WO - in contrary....

> For internal developers, Apple's lack of marketing of WO is a 
> disaster. I am the only WO developer on the entire UC Berkeley campus 
> and it does not do any good for our community as a whole -- either 
> from the standpoint of me working alone on applications or the 
> standpoint of the rest of the community hacking away at overly complex 
> JSP/J2EE/etc. applications.

Taken in a vacuum, your statement makes sense. But normally 
universities are there to innovate, not to comply with technologies. 
Your university neither invented WO nor JSP - it is just a user of 
these technologies. So it is logical that statistics counts and wins. 
BTW, even if Apple was making a huge marketing noise about WO, JSP is 
just simpler to start for the novice, and therefore statistics (and not 
as many wrongly assume - lack of marketing) will prevail anyway.

Now imagine you develop the next generation ultra cool equivalent 
genetic crystal ball that allows to predict protein structure and 
function by newly discovered and completely not-homologous gene with 
the help of WO in a record time. You will get a superstar over night 
and WO will shine. And believe me, no one will tell you to rewrite it 
using other more popular technology.

The point I am trying to make is that the fact you are using WO gives 
you a slightly better chance to be the next superstar. First because by 
using WO you have more time to focus on the real problem, and second, 
because you can implement the solution faster. But Apple cannot help 
you with the killer idea.

> And it is not from a lack of trying -- I have given presentations of 
> the technology and evangelized it as much as I can, and no one wants 
> to listen. Why? Because they had never heard about it before I 
> mentioned it and they'll never hear about it again once I stop 
> mentioning it them every chance I get. And universities care very much 
> about the technology, not just the solution.
>
> Most programmers grow up in universities and yet I can't get anyone 
> here to even look at WO. I'm not a marketer, so I don't know what it 
> takes. But it strikes me as pretty odd that Apple is hammering away at 
> high-end computing and bioinformatics in higher ed and yet never 
> mentions one of the greatest programming frameworks ever created.

I have one interesting story to tell. I was called by a team of 
desperate WO developers who were to be laid off, just because the new 
CTO was Big Blue fan (this was a large mobile operator). I was asked to 
find a way to keep the team, and the investment this company already 
made in this technology. Taking with the CTO for about 20 sec convinced 
me that technological arguments will stay no chance. So I asked him 
what are the most burning business priorities. The answer was: 
communication between developers and management, and quality of their 
services. This smelled like XP, and yes, it turned out he was in favor 
of this methodology. This was the solution. I asked him to invite his 
top WebSphere folks, and just  "normal" WO developers to make one week 
iteration to test witch toolkit works better with XP. The rest is 
history. WebShere was never again mentioned in this company. Where is 
the lesson? Technology along does not count. We as developers are to 
solve problems and not to fight religious battles. Show your colleagues 
cool software solutions. If they like them, then tell them they are so 
cool because WO. I am sure many will respect it, some might even 
switch...

Georg Tuparev
Tuparev Technologies
Klipper 13
1186 VR Amstelveen
The Netherlands
Mobile: +31-6-55798196