RE: [Webwork-devel] WW/JavaOne get together

[Chris M. <chr...@ho...>]

I have had little to do with OS, JBoss or WW as anything other than a user
who is very pleased to find high-quality alternatives to some of the Jakarta
offerings. However I'd like to add at least $0.01 to this thread.

When I first heard mention of WW moving under JBoss's "umbrella" (more like
"shadow"), my reaction was "Huh?". It didn't make sense to me. It still
doesn't, despite having read through this whole discussion. Tomcat and
Struts don't really belong together either, however Jakarta gets away with
it because they have 20 or so other equally disparate projects on the go,
and people think of Jakarta as a one-stop-shop.

About the only thing I can think of that WW stands to gain by being lumped
under the same banner as JBoss is (as has been pointed out) a
credibility/exposure boost, since JBoss has (AFAICT) a higher profile than
WW. I agree this is a good thing. There is a cost to that though, and I
think it's quite high - people *will* become confused as to the portability
and functionality of WW, and they *will* be hesitant to use it independently
to JBoss. JBoss currently has no branding that is equivalent to 'Jakarta' or
'OpenSymphony'. [Rickard I notice in your latest post you say that it is
both. Ask the man-on-the-street for his perception, I have a feeling you may
not get the same response. A quick poll in the office here certainly
suggests otherwise]. The only way to avoid that confusion is to create a
*new* brandname that is an umbrella for JBoss and WW, or alternatively go to
the trouble of truly establishing JBoss as an umbrella brand, that contains
JBoss Application Server, WW etc.

But what's the point, when there already exists such a beast going by the
name of OpenSymphony?

As several people have pointed out in this thread, OpenSymphony is a perfect
match for WW. OSUser, Sitemesh et al compliment WW very nicely indeed -
surely that cannot be denied? OpenSymphony's 'umbrella' struture parallels
Jakarta which will help ease the transition for new users. There have been
several other fairly compelling reasons mentioned on this list, all of which
to me make the move seem very sensible indeed.

I fear my voice is wasted, since, as was pointed out in the not too distant
past, we're not dealing with a democracy here. That I can even understand
and live with, as long as the decision makers make decisions based on logic
rather than desires.

Chris Miller