RE: Open source WO (was: Apple, Microsoft, Java and the Web?)

1) "I'm going to build your project using this open source web framework
called Wicket (for example).  It's new and not that many people are using it
yet, but here's the web site and an article about it from JavaWorld."

2) "I'm going to build your project using this product from Apple called
WebObjects.  The developer tools are deprecated and only run well on a Mac
anyway, and there hasn't been a new major release in about five years, but
fortunately if I ever need to extend it I can just weave new bytecodes in
using AspectJ."

Which one do you think is going be more successful in a big company IT
department?

Bruce


-----Original Message-----
From: Q [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:56 AM
To: Bruce Fancher
Cc: 'Marc Oesch'; [email protected]
Subject: Re: Open source WO (was: Apple, Microsoft, Java and the Web?)


On 24/08/2006, at 2:20 PM, Bruce Fancher wrote:

> Because without open sourcing it, it's effectively dead.

A dead product is a dead product, opensource or not. But WebObjects is not
dead (neither is BSD before anyone asks); While apple keep using it
internally and they keep releasing revisions to the public, it will continue
to live on.

If WebObjects were to fade from favour at Apple, ignoring whatever they
might choose to replace it with. It's Java, it works now, it will continue
to work for years to come just as well as it does today. Even then there are
AOP tools like GluonJ (or AspectJ) that let you add or replace functionality
dynamically and projects like JOPE, Wotonomy and Cayenne waiting quietly for
their chance to fill the role.

> I work for a company that does custom application development for very 
> large companies.
> We recently evaluated Java frameworks for a project.  If WebObjects 
> were open-sourced, I would have suggested that we use it for the 
> project, because it would make it a safe choice.

What makes open source projects "safe" is not just having the source code,
but also the community that supports it and the availability of employable
talent experienced at using it. But this has its downsides also, I wouldn't
consider Tapestry a "safe" choice either at the moment because it has too
much volatility, with each major revision bringing significantly differences
to the previous one. That isn't to say it's a bad choice, only that it is
similarly "unsafe" for a long life product.

WebObjects might not be opensource, but it's well documented, stable and
highly extendable, Wonder is testament to this. The underlying question is
however, what is it that WebObjects is lacking that could only be solved if
it were an open source product? An even better question is what
features/functionality is WebObjects lacking that makes it an any less
capable product than the available alternatives?  
Can these features only to be implemented as part of the core frameworks,
rather than extensions to what's already there? There is plenty that can be
done, and has already been done, even without it being opensource.

What WebObjects lacks in spades is mindshare, marketing buzz and adoration
by people who know nothing about it (and it's a product from Apple no less,
inconceivable). Unfortunately WebObjects is to the App server world what
NetBSD is to the Unix world, very mature, extremely capable, acknowledged by
its peers, with a devoted following, but largely unknown to the vast
majority.

> But do you think I'm going to suggest that we use a product that's 
> owned by Apple and has no marketing behind it whatsoever?  Uh uh.

If you let product marketing decide what you should and shouldn't use then
perhaps not. I have recently been through a similar exercise and was in the
fortunate position of being able to pick the tools that were most suitable
without having to justify their existence in the first place.

--
Seeya...Q

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