Jakarta is developer-centric because developers are the ones who volunteer to do the work. They need working products to use with their paying jobs, and find that sharing the development load works better than going it alone.
We don't get many marketing volunteers because there is very little payback. More marketing generates more users, but that doesn't always translate into more development or better products. Sometimes more users can actually hurt development, since user support distracts developers from developing. (Only so many cycles in a day.) I do a lot of work on product documentation myself, mostly becuase I have a mind like a sieve, and need it for my own reference. But for most developers and users, there is less of a payback, since once they know the product they don't feel the need to document it for their own use. Jakarta is here to build products. If someone wants to market those products, that's great. If volunteers want to provide commit-ready documentation, like Phillip did, I'll fulfill my responsibility as a committer, and post it. But the problem now is, who's going to maintain it over the long run? If the developers want to, that's great, but if they don't, well, how the other committers spend their volunteer hours is up to them. So, sure, some clear exposition about Jakarta would help a lot of people. If someone has an itch for more documentation, they should create it and share it with the group in a ready-to-commit format, as Phillip did. Though, I'm sure anyone ready to do the work doesn't need someone else to suggest the idea. Jakarta cannot be anything by design; it can only be what the volunteers make it. -- Ted Husted, Husted dot Com, Fairport NY US -- Developing Java Web Applications with Struts -- Web: http://husted.com/struts Chris Pheby wrote: > > I have to disagree! Speaking as a /user/ it is really hard to find projects > on Jakarta, and how the various projects relate to each other. I have spent > many weeks doing this and still haven't even scraped the iceberg. Which I > think is a shame. Some clear exposition would really help. > > I have heard on this list that the Jakarta project is developer centric, and > the site is hard to penetrate if you are not a Jakarta developer. I am sure > this is not by design, but that is my perception as well. Any suggestion > that helps improve this situation such as Philipp's I would hope has serious > consideration - even if it presents new challenges that need to be resolved. > > As to deciding such things as how to assess the maturity of the project, how > about taking measures such as: > > a) polls/votes of users > b) number of downloads > c) release number > > I'm sure there are other possibilities... > > Chris. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
