Frans, John will prepare a list of links to commercial tools in NHibernate ecosystem. What we would avoid is a "commercial" competition inside NH-Forge. To achieve that we will have an "aseptic" list of links with company-name and link to the homepage. no war for big-logo, no war for big-space, no war for opinions about which is the best... Peace and Love.
*For now on this discussion will continue in NH-development list.* Thanks to all. P.S I'm going to open the thread there On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Frans Bouma <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think its reasonable consider creating some area on NHForge that helps > > increase awareness of commercial offerings in the "NH space" so long as a > > few things are made very clear: > > > > a) they are commercial offerings (logos/links not co-mingled with those > of > > companies that *support* NH directly) > > commercial offerings also support NH, and so much so, that I think > without a pool of commercial tools, NH is going to be a marginal toolkit in > the next few years. Mind you, NH is competing against a growing elephant in > the room, called EF. Whatever one might thing of the quality of EF and what > MS puts on the table in case of tooling, .NET developers all over the world > are exposed to EF in a lot of material provided by MS, be it articles, > magazines, books, tools or frameworks. > > Currently the group of mature, supported ('alive') .NET o/r mappers > is very small. Only one of them is open source: NHibernate. The rest is > either commercial or from MS. My prediction is that within the years to > come, what MS offers will become more and more mainstream for developers > who > want to use an O/R mapper. Without mature, supported ('alive') solid > tooling, any other framework out there will keel over and lead a small > life, > if not die completely. > > As the lead developer of a commercial tool for O/R mapping, I can > assure you, free software needs a hell of a lot of 'hands' to get a mature > tool on the table, as it takes a tremendous amount of time to create proper > tooling for these kind of frameworks. I'm sure the energy and will is alive > and kicking in the NH community, the point is: is a large group of > developers willing to spend considerable time on this, for _years_? I think > that's unlikely. See for example the amount of time and effort already > spend > on the linq provider, which is still not ready: these kind of tools and > frameworks take so much time to build, if people aren't investing a lot of > time (and thus money!) into these tools/frameworks, they'll either never be > shipped, shipped in an immature state or way too late. > > In the beginning of .NET, one could get away with a tool in 'shoddy' > state and not proper support. Today, things are professionalized now. A > team > doesn't want to lose time on crappy tools, shitty support or both, they'll > move to the stuff which does work and which comes with full support. That's > also why I think professional tooling for NHibernate is essential for it to > make it survive in the next few years. > > > b) *none* of these commercial offerings are in any way 'endorsed' by NH > > With this you mean, NH should promote free, open source tools > instead of commercial ones? Or: it should keep everything at the same > level? > > > c) its made clear to everyone what the 'process' is for any other / > future > > commercial entities to submit their own logos, etc. to this new area for > > inclusion in the list (so that no vendor feels 'excluded' > > from this area) > > > > There needs to be a balance here IMO between wanting to make potential NH > > adopters aware of the available commercial offerings that can help make > > their NH 'experience' better, smoother, (whatever!) and not having > NHForge > > become a marketing site for commercial NH tooling/add- ons. > > offering logo's, links is marketing. So if you create a 'tooling' > page, you have to be aware the page is a marketing page: for tools it's > great to be linked on the website most of the potential customers will go > to > eventually. > > It works both ways though: for NHibernate it's good to show that > mature tools support the framework. Fabio enlisted some tools for mapping > yesterday (11 or so). Most of them are actually already what I consider > 'dead'. (dead==you won't invest time/effort in learning / using that tool > for a multi-year, multi-dev project, as it's not actively maintained nor > used very much). So it will take some work to keep the list up to date. > > It also boils down to who decides what though: in what direction > will NHibernate and the tooling eco-system move towards? This too is > important for people to invest time in. MS is re-creating a lot of what > NHibernate and other O/R mapper frameworks like our own already offer, in a > lot of cases with flaws all over the place, but that's not relevant now. > What's relevant is that the story towards developers and teams should be a > 'one stop' place to get what you want, from framework, tools to add-ons and > add-on frameworks, without having to search through a lot of (sometimes) > out-dated wiki's, blogposts or sourceforge project pages. > > > If there was a totally separate 'area' (page, tab, whatever) that merely > > listed such things (probably in alphabetical order or something that > didn't > > imply any kind of "ranking") and provided for a logo, title, and summary > > description of the tool (along with a link to the vendor's product page) > I > > would have no issue with this. Its when it inadvertently makes it appear > as > > if the NH project 'endorses' one or more commercial products or the > > commercial vendors are co-mingled with commercial entities that have > > provided support, tools, etc. directly to the project that I think we > cross > > a line that's a bad idea. > > Generally speaking: a company never invests something without > expecting some return (charities aside ;)). A company which is willing to > spend time (and thus money) on helping NHibernate forward, will expect > something in return. If you are not willing to accept that, don't accept > the > help. Sure things are ran by volunteers, but that's not an excuse anymore: > the rest isn't ran by volunteers and can spend all their time all day long > on the same things. To keep up with that, you sometimes have to make deals. > Linux is largely developed by commercial developers nowadays, employed all > by companies who rely heavily on linux. I.o.w. it's commercialized to the > last bit in every corner and I fear NHibernate to some extend will move > towards such a system as well, where developers working on it or on the > tooling, are employed to do that, either for 3rd party tools or directly on > the framework. > > This will IMHO eventually lead to a more mature ecosystem where > things will sometimes look a bit commercialized. This is inevitable. Like I > said: having a list of tools on a page is marketing, telling people to use > tool x or y IS marketing. Spending time on development of NHibernate or > parts of it full time, payed by the employer, IS marketing: the > employer/company expects to get something in return, be it support hours > payed by NHibernate users, exposure of the company as a team of seasoned > developers etc. I don't see why that's a bad thing, after all, NHibernate, > the eco system arounds it and the users of it benefit. > > FB > > > > > Just my two cents here. > > > > -Steve B. > > > > On Jul 16, 8:59 pm, Gareth <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Shouldn't our focus (all of us) be to grow and promote the entire > > > NHibernate ecosystem? A stronger ecosystem benefits everyone. When > > > managers and decision makers need to evaluate whether NHibernate is > > > well supported and growing - what better way than to show that the > > > core-development, community, tooling and commercial support are > > > flourishing. > > > > > > Where can the entire NHibernate universe be promoted well? I would > > > have thought that NHForge would be perfect - that's why we were all > > > asked a while back to add links to NHForge on our websites, which we > > > did (http://www.slyce.com/Links/). It would be good to have all the > > > links to tools (open-source and commercial) in one place. People have > > > different needs - some only like open-source and won't touch > > > commercial, others want what commercial tools offer. At the moment new > > > users need to google for these things. > > > > > > Let's make it easier for people to adopt NHibernate. > > > > > > Gareth Hayter. > > > Slyce Software > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "nhusers" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<nhusers%[email protected]> > . > > For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/group/nhusers?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "nhusers" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<nhusers%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nhusers?hl=en. > > -- Fabio Maulo -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nhusers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nhusers?hl=en.
