Craig R. McClanahan wrote: > * As a completely new and separate project, commissioned through > the Apache incubator process, with an ultimate destination of > either Jakarta (as a subproject parallel to Struts) or as a > completely separate "Apache Faces" project with its own PMC (like > Ant, Avalon, and James).
Yes, this is what I actually had in mind. But, it's a chicken-and-egg scenario. To be incubated, you need something to incubate. IMHO, a good place to do that, when you are starting from scratch, is the Commons sandbox. Once there's some code on the table, and some Committers maintaining it, the code's community can decide where to go next.
Struts has always been an integrator of enabling technologies. Along the way we've had to create a technology or three, like BeanUtils, Collections, and the Digester, to name a few. And, being good citizens, we've been busily moving these to the Commons for other people to share. This approach has been quite successful. The number of projects using these technologies is stunning. Absolutely stunning.
But, that's why we invented the Commons: so that projects wouldn't have to start sub-projects to create enabling technologies. We built them, we shared them, and people are using them. (And in saying this, I'm using the royal we. I helped charter the Commons, but others, especially Craig, have made it so.)
It's my feeling that developing a JSF implementation is out of scope for a framework, whether it lives at Jakarta or at struts.apache.org. Frameworks should integrate technologies, rather than invent them. IMHO, it would *not* be a good idea to link an Apache JSF implementation to the Struts brand. As mentioned, the JSF scope is quite broad and can easily support a project on its own. It doesn't need another product to support it.
A JSF implementation is *not* something that only Struts would use. It's something any framework would want to use. It would be *much* easier for other communities to accept a JSF implementation if it wore the Apache or Jakarta brand. I think the Commons has proved that technologies are very easy to share when placed on neutral ground. I truly don't believe a Struts-Digester and Struts-BeanUtils would have gained as much acceptance as the Commons versions. I realize this is marketing stuff, but, sometimes, that's part of community building =:0)
If someone has an itch to create a top-level frameworks/tools Commons for web applications, IMHO, it should not wear the Struts brand, for all the same reasons we created the Commons in the first place. I'd certainly agree that there are technologies that Struts, Tapestry, and Turbine can share, but we would need to share them under a new brand.
Meanwhile, if for some reason, an Apache Java ServerFaces implementation were to cause Struts to whither away, then so be it. Personally, I don't believe JSF will have that affect. Standard technologies are never that good or that complete. Though, this will be one of the first standards with Craig in the thick of things, so maybe it will be different this time. =:0)
But it's not Struts that matters. What matters is that the community that uses Struts. Worst case, we have all the same heartbeats working on Apache Faces rather than Struts, and our community is served. Best case, we have a vibrant community around Apache Faces *and* another vibrant community around Apache Struts. Either way, our open source community wins =:)
-Ted.
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