Re: Open source WO - offer

Hello,

> > Where is the return on investment with WO for Apple today ?
>
> The return on investment comes from the ITMS, .Mac and the Apple
> Store.

Yes, I agree. This is a matter of Apple internal controlling how to
assign the WO development/maintenance costs to the various profit
centers or divisions at Apple.
I was trying to point out at no *direct* revenue return from WO
through services or licenses, sorry if I wasn't concise here.

> How does having a price tag make any difference? Providing and
> supporting a true opensource relationship for any of the developer
> tools would come at an additional cost. Making it "source available"
> is another matter, and much more achievable.

Again, I probably wasn't too concise. I never wanted to argue that
Open source is going to solve problems overnight. Others made the
point as well. Apple could over time make portions available slowly -
"Source available" or "Shource shared" and then integrate stuff based
on meritocracy from a few people.

> You could just as easily replace "WebObjects" with "Java" in this
> statement. Neither are open-source (yet).

Java will be soon  http://community.java.net/jdk/opensource/
and few people thought this was going to happen even if a lot of
people kept pressuring Sun...

 _______
> > # 1: Better WO Marketability in the Enterprise, Investment Safety for
> > Customer (no Apple consumer brand image attached)
>
> I fail to see how REMOVING the Apple association from the product is
> an advantage in Apple's eyes.

Sorry, I chopped off the title (which said why OS would be good for
both the community and Apple).

I agree #1 rather serves the community, not Apple -  but also  Since
the technology will no longer have an Apple association - as strange
as this sounds.

How many people know Ruby on Rails (citing the ever popular ;) ? Now,
how many people know the name of the company behind Ruby on Rails ?

Open source will positively detach WO from Apple and make the
community thrive based on the technology - again ensuring a much
bigger and community.

> > # 3: Thriving WO Community instead of Shrinking Community. Provides
> > better Resources and Human Capital for Apple in the future (Hiring for
> > iTMS etc.)
>
> I honestly don't think this is a concern they have on their radar.
> They have plenty of developers, and the training expertise to train
> new ones if necessary.

Yes, but training is not free. As we all now the learning curve for WO
is steep..does Apple want to hire skilled people or first train them
inhouse for a few months ?
If you weigh in this factor in HR costs vs the costs for engineers
overseeing/maintaining a potential WO Open Source, given the maturity
of the tool in many areas, the latter becomes a more viable option
long term...

> This is less to do with WebObjects as an App server and more to do
> with how you choose to use it. Ajax support, for example, is already
> available in Wonder, so this can, and already is being done as open
> source, without apple having to do anything.

I knew this was going to come and I shouldn't have used AJAX as an
example :) Yes, AJAX use is possible today and a lot is in Wonder 3.0,
but in general there would be better integration with Wonder/other
technology  & WO releases .and I suppose more smaller and frequnet
releases fixing things.

Now we can *hope* Apple fixes the bug and that new version will come
out in 12-18 months from today.

> Since Apple don't sell WO anymore, and have all but killed off their
> iServices division, they don't have a vested interest in what
> software you choose to use, they just want you to run it on their
> hardware.

Agree on the hardware side. And I don't see JBoss, PHP or RoR shipping
with OS X Server as an issue...let's give customers choice and as
Apple says "make Opensource" easy by providing a complete set (of
software versions)  that work together fine and are tested.

That's exactly why they should "free" Webobjects and concentrate on
what thesy do best - sell iPods and maybe a few servers also :)

Because of all the inhouse existing code base written in WO (iTMS
etc.), this will ensure  their own web development solution is/remains
one the best out there....again this will not be noticeble short term
but long-term.

> Or perhaps the open source tools made deprecating the
> existing tools a viable option?

Fully agree...and that was a wise decision for Apple long term IMO. No
way could they compete against the Eclipse juggernaut without wasting
resources IMO.

They just shouldn't expect community volunteers to play along forever
with Apple if it doesn't open up more over time IMHO.

To sum up, instead of saying "never" Apple should re-evaulate this as
an option for 2007 or 2008 - maybe  taking the toolset as a test case
whether this can actually work

Otherwise, the community will over on its own if  it's strong enough
(Andrus pointed this out nicely with the Apache Geronimo example /
IBM) - but this would be a terrible waste of resources and redundancy.

Finally, removing the "links" between Xcode and WO (using Eclipse) and
 EOF and OS X (by introducing Core Data, even that is sharing some
parts) could actually make it easier for Apple to open source WO  in
the future.

Never say never.

Marc