RE: Policy question

[Humphrey Sheil <Hu...@Kadius.com>]

Lists like EJB-INTEREST, JSP-INTEREST and XML-INTEREST @java.sun.com will
also definitely find it useful to know about the release.  From being on
these lists, I know that a lot of folks on these lists are active users (and
supporters) of ant.

Humphrey

-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Bodewig [mailto:bodewig@bost.de]
Sent: 19 July 2000 10:15
To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: Policy question


I'd like to announce the release in comp.lang.java.softwaretools. 

Any objections? Any other place we should give a heads up?

Stefan

Re: Policy question

[Stefan Bodewig <bo...@bost.de>]

>>>>> "SL" == Steve Loughran <st...@iseran.com> writes:

 SL> Stefan, As well as informing people who actively use ant,
 SL> consider a mini-press release sent to the various on line new
 SL> sites.

Argh.

No, *I* do not feel comfortable doing so, if anybody else wants to
step in, please go ahead (and I'd even give my name to one of the
funny quotes in your sample).

My reasons: 

(1) I'm the rookie commiter of this project and don't actually feel
like speaking for the project as a whole. A press release should be
made by somebody much closer to the ASF.

(2) I'm don't have the right mindset for any marketing activity,
sorry. That's why I'm software developer and consultant and not a
salesman.

I really enjoyed reading your sample press release.

Stefan

Re: Policy question

[Steve Loughran <st...@iseran.com>]

Stefan,

As well as informing people who actively use ant, consider a mini-press
release sent to the various on line new sites. This helps get a wider
audience, and doesnt usually hurt too much (except the contact keeps on
fielding stupid questions for months if they are not careful)

If you haven't done one before the standard layout is

date
contact details (email , phone, URL)
On line summary
details, including a few named quotations from {engineers, analysts/industry
pundits, marketing}
closing URL

The jakarta pages also need to tweaked so the the news and ant pages made
more of a fuss of the relase.

The content could be something like the following (with names replaced by
people willing to repeat the quotes) :-
------------------------------------------
July 19, 2000

Contact: your name,  disposable email address, [phone number]

ANT1.1 MAKES 'MAKE' OBSOLETE

Apache releases the first official version of their java build tool.

19 july 2000, The Jarkarta Project within the Apache Software Foundation
announced the release of version 1.1 of Ant -the Java/XML build tool used
for manage the build process for the Tomcat web server and servlet engine.
Ant is a Java replacement for programs such as Make which are slow to build
java programs and not at all portable. Ant takes an XML description of the
build targets of a project and the tasks needed to create them, and executes
these to produce the desired outputs. Built in tasks include: javac and
javadoc, web access, revision control with CVS, XSL tranformations and many
others. Optional extensions add weblogic support and scripting.

Ant meets the need of many Java developers to have a build tool which will
run across many different platforms. It also compiles Java applications
exceedingly quickly, as it can compile source without starting extenal
processes.

"It's the future of build tools", quoted J Random Hacker of Somewhere.com,
"there are so many Java IDEs out there that co-ordinating the build process
can be a bit of nightmare. After we standardised don Ant for the nightly
build and deployment tasks, things got much easier. Soon everyone adopted it
for their own use". One of the developers of ant, K Random Developer, said
"The strength of Ant is its exensibility -anyone can add new Java tasks
which can be shared with the rest of the community".

An industry analyst, L Random Pundit, explained "Although Java has been
cross platfom, the build and deployment process has long relied on non
portable 'Makefiles', the limited functionality of IDEs and shell scripts
and batch files. Ant is cross platform and covers the functionality which a
modern web service needs: Java compilation, EJB support and easy deployment.
As competitors to the Java vision emerge -such as Microsoft's .net, tools
like ant are critical in ensuring that the productivity of Java developers
remains significantly better than those of developers who work with
alternative, proprietary platforms."

The ant build tool is an open source project, making it easy for developers
to not only use it, but to extend it to meet their own needs. Developers are
invited to join the Ant team to help evolve the tool to even greater
heights.

To obtain the Ant build tool, please see the Jarkarta project's home page at
http://jakarta.apache.org/

ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION [ASF]
The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial
support for the Apache open-source software projects. Formerly known as the
Apache Group, the Foundation incorporated as a membership-based,
not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Apache projects continue to
exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable
contributions of intellectual property and financial support, and to provide
a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source
projects. For more information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see
http://www.apache.org/



>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefan Bodewig [mailto:bodewig@bost.de]
> Sent: 19 July 2000 10:15
> To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Policy question
>
>
> I'd like to announce the release in comp.lang.java.softwaretools.
>
> Any objections? Any other place we should give a heads up?
>
> Stefan
>