I would refer you to my reply to Jeff. I really don't compare myself to others, nor
do I want to. Personally, I am an hack fiction writer, but I would never say I am
better then those in my class or in the world, for that matter. Yet I do have the
potential to make a contribution, as do all the others on this list. Some commercial
products choose to become open source, like Resin, and I don't see anyone using their
code to copy them, and they are very successful - as far as I can tell. Tomcat is non
commercial, but they have Sun, IBM, and Apache taking part in it, as well as other
bright people in the Apache community. Whether Orion chooses to become or not become
open source, is for them to decide -- I respect that decision either way. However, if
they did choose to be open source, then shape people on this list, such as yourself,
have the potential to help solve problems and make suggestions they may be too swamped
with to do by themselves.
-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph B. Ottinger
To: Orion-Interest
Sent: 2/17/01 1:13 AM
Subject: RE: ms access & Orion?
On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote:
> I am sure, at one point in time, the same was true with Apache. But
> now that the kid has grown up, look where it is today. Which is why I
Yeah, look where apache is today - used everywhere by people who don't
need it to do much, which fits its capabilities really well.
> make a big distinction between a plain open source, and a mature open
> source. Things like Apache, Linux, Mysql, and Postgresql are mature
> open source -- partly due to the fact that they been around for a
> number of years. Projects like Orion, Resin, Jboss, Tomcat, Enhydra,
They've been around for a number of years, meaning "for a while" - 0 is
a
number, too, after all - and maturity always comes with
age. Unfortunately, quality doesn't.
> Openejb, and Jonas have the potential to become mature open source
> (yes, Orion is not open - piety), some more then others (like Jboss,
> Tomcat, and Openejb) and they probably will be. People ask, for
Why do you say "pity?" (I'm assuming you don't mean "piety" here.) Why
should it be open source? Do you think you can apply patches faster than
the Orion team? (I don't think I could, nor do I think you could.) Do
you
think you understand what the spec is well enough? Do you think you have
the discipline to keep to the spec even when it's retarded? I don't
think
most people are. (I know that I'd be vastly tempted to fix the Servlet
API...) And do you REALLY think that the Orion team - which enjoys
development more than support - should be forced to change their chosen
business model just because YOU think YOU could do better with THEIR
source than THEY can? They enjoy what they're doing and how they're
doing
it, and their model fits them. Going open source means that they get
relegated to supplying services only, which may indeed be profitable,
but
is profit the only motive? (I say no, because if it were, they'd sell
Orion for more money.)
[SNIP!]
Personally, I certainly benefit from open source, but
realistically... it's not always the perfect solution.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://epesh.com/ IT Consultant
