Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 09:42:52 -0600 (MDT) From: Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com> To: "Koster, K.J." <K.J.Koster@kpn.com> Cc: "'nate@yogotech.com'" <nate@yogotech.com>, "'Greg Lewis'" <glewis@trc.adelaide.edu.au>, freebsd-java@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: JCK License implications (was: State of Server-Side Java) Message-ID: <200008201542.JAA08667@nomad.yogotech.com> In-Reply-To: <59063B5B4D98D311BC0D0001FA7E4522026D77CF@l04.research.kpn.com> References: <59063B5B4D98D311BC0D0001FA7E4522026D77CF@l04.research.kpn.com>
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> > Basically, we need folks who are actively pursuing and > > *fixing* bugs, not just folks who are willing to beta test > > the product and just watch over our shoulders to see how > > we're doing. > > > > Having done this whole open-source/freeware thing for ~6 > > years, there are *always* lots of the latter, and few of the > > former. > > > There is a third group, which I believe myself to be part of. I've been > hanging between "I can do this" and "it's just too hard" for a long time > (not just JDK porting, but FreeBSD hacking in general). Since I'm a fairly > ordinary guy, I figure there are a lot of people who are stuck in that > position. I'm a fairly ordinary guy too. I don't think *anyone* involved in the project is a god (although a couple of times Keith White pulled out some bug fixes in the JDK1.1 stuff that I'm still amazed with). > That is why I have set up my JDK web pages in the form that I have. My > intention is to lower the beam for people on the latter group to enter > the former group. And I *really* appreciate it. > For example: I can't write Alpha assembler, so necessarily I am not in > the active group. However, I can read enough C and x86 assembler to be > able to talk about what it should do. I hope that this will be the > stepping stone for someone else to move from being an onlooker into > doing some actual work. > > However, in order to minimize the # of folks who have access > > to Sun's licensed materials, we have to show that these folks > > have a reason to be involved, other than just wanting to see > > the work in progress. > > > > Limiting the number of people who have access to the work in progress > is exactly the opposite from what I'm trying to do. Doing that would > raise the beam again. It would also make true your observation that > there are only two groups, because it blocks onlookers from crossing > over into the active group. Onlookers have access to bits (the patchkit, etc..) on a fairly regular basis. They've *always* had access to the bits, so the bar height hasn't been raised/lowered anymore but not allowing them access to the 'new' bits. If they can't do anything with the existing resources, how can it be expected that they'll do something more if more resources are spent on them, slowing down the folks who *are* doing something? I'm not saying leave them in the dark, I'm saying put up and help. As I stated before, there are *always* lots of folks willing to 'beta test' or 'look over' patches for something, but rarely is there any feedback from these tests other than 'it works for my application', or 'it doesn't work for my application'. I'd much rather have motivated people willing to help work with me to help find and fix bugs in the tree, and then when we have something a bit more ready for prime-time, let it loose on the rest of the folks. Nate To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-java" in the body of the message
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