I request to move this project to Git and GitHub. I am offering my help in the complete process. Including automatic builds with Maven/Tycho and GitHub actions
one further thing. iSphere is an open source project and the spirit of open source is, that any other can make forks of an open source project as long as he respects the copyright and the license conditions of the origin copyright holders. iSphere is released with the Common Public License v1.0. If you want to create a fork of iSphere to make a new open source project MiSphere, then you can do that, but I give you a good advice. DON'T BREAKE ANY OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE COMMON PUBLIC LICENSE v1.0. I will watch this very closely.
Greetings
Frank
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Thank you for the reply, and thank you and the others for creating ISphere and RapidFire. Both wonderful products.
Frank, you might not be aware of it, but I am an Eclipse committer since a very long time. I take care of the WindowBuilder project, I am the project lead for Nebula, a committer for Eclipse Platform since a couple of years and recently I stepped in as a committer for the BIRT project which was not taking care of properly by the company it was developed by.
I have open source projects on GitHub amongst which a completely functional IBM i application that anyone can use (as long as the license is respected and all modifications are brought back in the open source) and you are welcome to consume them.
I say this to convince you that I have no interest in violating any of the open source licenses, so maybe you can let your guard down a bit ;)
Creating MiSphere as a fork is not what I want to do. First of all, this project belongs to the iSphere project team. I have no interest in forking a well maintained project. I just want build MiW specific code on the base and also offer it to MiWorkplace users, just like RDi users can consume it.
Since we will be a consumer, we also want to contribute back to the ISphere base if possible/needed, however, coming from Git, working with SVN is not fun. I don't even have developers anymore that know it.
Maybe as a middle way, you can convert the repo to Git. Just a suggestion.
Cheers, Wim
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regarding your requests I talked to Thomas and we decided the following.
iSphere will get an official API to access the iSphere resources by third party products. All software vendors or open source developers worldwide can use this API to integrate iSphere in their products. The API of a old iSphere version will always be compatible with the API of a new iSphere version, so third party products will never get incompatibilities when they use a new version of iSphere. We will start with APIs to access e.G. the binding directory editor, message file editor, data area edtior, user space editor. If a specific iSphere resource has no API and someone wants to access the rescource by the API, then he can open a ticket with a new feature request.
In case, that someone wants to use iSphere in a None-RDi eclipse installation, we develop a new plugin with the plugin id com.ibm.etools.iseries.toolbox. This plugin has to be used for the iSphere connection management.
We are open to move from Sourceforge/Subversion to Github/Git, but this will be the last item on the todo list we will do and we have no time schedule when we will do it.
When we are done with item 1 and 2, then you can start to integrate iSphere in MiWorkplace. If you have a feature request regarding the API, then you can open a new ticket and we will give our best to realize it.
At the moment we will not grant a write access to the iSphere repository to you. In case you want to contribute significant new features to iSphere, we can talk about a write access to the iSphere repository. If you want to contribute MiWorkplace as a part of iSphere, we would be very happy.
Frank
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1/2/3/4. Thanks, that is good news. I was hoping that the move to Sourceforge+Git was something that could be done early. We would be able to join with patches in this case.
5a. Sure, write access is based on merits.
5b. Donating MiWorkplace: 😃 Surprising! The reason for purchasing it from Mihael was to see if it could go somewhere with a commercial drive behind it. We want to explore that path a little further ATM, but it is something to think about. Thanks for the idea ;) There are probably parts that can be contributed sooner. Maybe we can discuss offline to see if we can define a strategy that works.
Last edit: Wim Jongman 2021-03-09
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Hi Wim,
I can't agree with that. iSphere is an integral part of our change management system CMOne and Source Forge is a good home for this project.
Greetings
Frank Hildebrandt
Hi Wim,
one further thing. iSphere is an open source project and the spirit of open source is, that any other can make forks of an open source project as long as he respects the copyright and the license conditions of the origin copyright holders. iSphere is released with the Common Public License v1.0. If you want to create a fork of iSphere to make a new open source project MiSphere, then you can do that, but I give you a good advice. DON'T BREAKE ANY OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE COMMON PUBLIC LICENSE v1.0. I will watch this very closely.
Greetings
Frank
Thank you for the reply, and thank you and the others for creating ISphere and RapidFire. Both wonderful products.
Frank, you might not be aware of it, but I am an Eclipse committer since a very long time. I take care of the WindowBuilder project, I am the project lead for Nebula, a committer for Eclipse Platform since a couple of years and recently I stepped in as a committer for the BIRT project which was not taking care of properly by the company it was developed by.
I have open source projects on GitHub amongst which a completely functional IBM i application that anyone can use (as long as the license is respected and all modifications are brought back in the open source) and you are welcome to consume them.
I say this to convince you that I have no interest in violating any of the open source licenses, so maybe you can let your guard down a bit ;)
Creating MiSphere as a fork is not what I want to do. First of all, this project belongs to the iSphere project team. I have no interest in forking a well maintained project. I just want build MiW specific code on the base and also offer it to MiWorkplace users, just like RDi users can consume it.
Since we will be a consumer, we also want to contribute back to the ISphere base if possible/needed, however, coming from Git, working with SVN is not fun. I don't even have developers anymore that know it.
Maybe as a middle way, you can convert the repo to Git. Just a suggestion.
Cheers, Wim
I will try to talk to Thomas next week. We will see what we can do.
Have a nice weekend.
Frank
Hi Wim,
regarding your requests I talked to Thomas and we decided the following.
iSphere will get an official API to access the iSphere resources by third party products. All software vendors or open source developers worldwide can use this API to integrate iSphere in their products. The API of a old iSphere version will always be compatible with the API of a new iSphere version, so third party products will never get incompatibilities when they use a new version of iSphere. We will start with APIs to access e.G. the binding directory editor, message file editor, data area edtior, user space editor. If a specific iSphere resource has no API and someone wants to access the rescource by the API, then he can open a ticket with a new feature request.
In case, that someone wants to use iSphere in a None-RDi eclipse installation, we develop a new plugin with the plugin id com.ibm.etools.iseries.toolbox. This plugin has to be used for the iSphere connection management.
We are open to move from Sourceforge/Subversion to Github/Git, but this will be the last item on the todo list we will do and we have no time schedule when we will do it.
When we are done with item 1 and 2, then you can start to integrate iSphere in MiWorkplace. If you have a feature request regarding the API, then you can open a new ticket and we will give our best to realize it.
At the moment we will not grant a write access to the iSphere repository to you. In case you want to contribute significant new features to iSphere, we can talk about a write access to the iSphere repository. If you want to contribute MiWorkplace as a part of iSphere, we would be very happy.
Frank
Hi Frank,
1/2/3/4. Thanks, that is good news. I was hoping that the move to Sourceforge+Git was something that could be done early. We would be able to join with patches in this case.
5a. Sure, write access is based on merits.
5b. Donating MiWorkplace: 😃 Surprising! The reason for purchasing it from Mihael was to see if it could go somewhere with a commercial drive behind it. We want to explore that path a little further ATM, but it is something to think about. Thanks for the idea ;) There are probably parts that can be contributed sooner. Maybe we can discuss offline to see if we can define a strategy that works.
Last edit: Wim Jongman 2021-03-09
iSphere is available in GitHub at: https://github.com/taskforce-it/isphere