Hi Robert, there's a few things I usually look at. Top-of-my-head:
1) CVS. Checkout, glance over, build distro. If it doesn't work, check the docs, mailing list archive, if there is no mention, subscribe, post message, and with the feedback... 2) evaluate developer community. There are very few projects out there which are so big you cannot rebuild them yourself in a lifetime. A lot of added value is the feedback 'n support from developers 3) evaluate use in other OSS projects. Ant is used across OSS dev land, so it rocks. Same goes for JUnit. 4) recommendations. Of course, the source of the original recommendation about the project also counts. If one of the avalon developers here says "check out this, it is cool" that's a plus automatically. 5) documentation. If there isn't a good amount of well-written stuff the project isn't ready for prime time (many people disagree with me here) 6) stability/maturity. Kinda logical, no? 7) google. If it turns up high in the results, it is referenced well from other pages so either has good marketing or something to offer. Coincides with #3. 8) license. Company policy is not to use GPL software unless it comes on a redhat CD (we keep things closed source 'till I convince everyone we're not going to make money by licensing, GPL 'kinda' prohibits that) 9) ties with apache. Some of the best OSS is developed here or in use here. This all for 'commercial' stuff. For hobbies, it all depends on whether things a) interest me b) are developed by people I like cheers, Leo On Tue, 2002-09-10 at 17:18, Robert wrote: > Since I know you guys are strong and well motivated on good design (the > 'passionate' discussions on this list can attest to that :-) ), I would > like you general opinion on, well your opinions. > > What I would like to know is if you actually look at the source code > from an open source project (Jakarta or otherwise) and have that > influence your usage of that particular API/Package. If not, are there > any other criteria that you use to evaluate something, such as its > following, reputation, etc. > > Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and you can feel free to > send them to me personally if you like: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Thanks a bunch gentlemen, > Robert -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
