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Posted to java-dev@axis.apache.org by Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com> on 2009/07/23 01:34:55 UTC
[Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and
thought it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to
reflect the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in
the release (as well as on the website). One of the main features
headlined in the release notes is the transport refactoring - but the
only transport available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination
to get out a release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why
splitting these off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't
even an entry in the WS-Commons page at
http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.html for the transports,
so it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's also no
indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with Axis2 1.5.
I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the
case, I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us
to know what's going on.
Thanks,
- Dennis
--
Dennis M. Sosnoski
Java XML and Web Services
Axis2 Training and Consulting
http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Afkham Azeez <af...@gmail.com>.
Dennis,
Axis2 is not a dead project. It is a matured project, and is quite
stable now. There are hundreds of thousands of downloads per month
from the main site itself. The download figures from mirrors will be
much larger.
http://people.apache.org/~vgritsenko/stats/projects/axis2.html#Downloads-N1008F
So the answer is no. Of course there are areas we can improve on, but
Axis2 is certainly not dying.
Azeez
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 11:34 PM, Dennis Sosnoski<dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and thought it
> might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>
> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to reflect
> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the release
> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting these
> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry in
> the WS-Commons page at http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.html
> for the transports, so it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with
> Axis2 1.5.
>
> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the case,
> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to know
> what's going on.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Dennis
>
> --
> Dennis M. Sosnoski
> Java XML and Web Services
> Axis2 Training and Consulting
> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>
>
--
Thanks
Afkham Azeez
Blog: http://afkham.org
Developer Portal: http://www.wso2.org
WSAS Blog: http://wso2wsas.blogspot.com
Company: http://wso2.com
GPG Fingerprint: 643F C2AF EB78 F886 40C9 B2A2 4AE2 C887 665E 0760
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Andreas Veithen <an...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 13:18, Davanum Srinivas<da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andreas,
>
> LOL!, Can you please point them to me?
Sure, the comments were related to the change in r785712, the change
in r785716 and to WSCOMMONS-477.
Thanks,
Andreas
> Each committer does his/her own thing...i was just pointing out what is
> being done as a whole team :)
>
> thanks,
> dims
>
> On 07/23/2009 07:15 AM, Andreas Veithen wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:55, Davanum Srinivas<da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dennis,
>>>
>>> Since my current employer's name came up...
>>>
>>> * We rigorously track latest changes in
>>> Axiom/Axis2/ws-commons/xml-schema/woden etc. Andreas is particularly very
>>> productive :)
>>
>> HELP!!! Big Blue has a file about me ;-)
>>
>>> * Any changes we have to these projects, we track those as well and make
>>> sure they get back into Apache SVN. But that tends to be in fits and
>>> starts.
>>
>> Do you also track the comments that people make about changes done by
>> committers from IBM? In my follow-up list I still have three comments
>> that I made about changes committed by Rich, but he didn't answer yet.
>>
>>> I really don't want to comment on anything else.
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> dims
>>>
>>> On 07/23/2009 03:54 AM, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Dennis,
>>>>
>>>> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
>>>> that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're
>>>> not
>>>> the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have
>>>> take
>>>> things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
>>>> up).
>>>>
>>>> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
>>>> using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as
>>>> one
>>>> of
>>>> the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
>>>> That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru
>>>> peak
>>>> development times and stable times. From my personal point of view,
>>>> Axis2
>>>> is
>>>> "done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know
>>>> how
>>>> to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing
>>>> that
>>>> bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or
>>>> find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
>>>>
>>>> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me
>>>> on
>>>> one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
>>>> projects.
>>>>
>>>> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up
>>>> then
>>>> we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>>>>
>>>> Sanjiva.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski<dm...@sosnoski.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and
>>>>> thought
>>>>> it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>>>>>
>>>>> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
>>>>> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to
>>>>> reflect
>>>>> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the
>>>>> release
>>>>> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
>>>>> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
>>>>> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
>>>>> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting
>>>>> these
>>>>> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry
>>>>> in
>>>>> the WS-Commons page at
>>>>> http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.htmlfor the transports,
>>>>> so
>>>>> it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
>>>>> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along
>>>>> with
>>>>> Axis2 1.5.
>>>>>
>>>>> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
>>>>> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the
>>>>> case,
>>>>> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to
>>>>> know
>>>>> what's going on.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> - Dennis
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dennis M. Sosnoski
>>>>> Java XML and Web Services
>>>>> Axis2 Training and Consulting
>>>>> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
>>>>> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Davanum Srinivas <da...@gmail.com>.
Andreas,
LOL!, Can you please point them to me?
Each committer does his/her own thing...i was just pointing out what is being done as a whole team :)
thanks,
dims
On 07/23/2009 07:15 AM, Andreas Veithen wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:55, Davanum Srinivas<da...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dennis,
>>
>> Since my current employer's name came up...
>>
>> * We rigorously track latest changes in
>> Axiom/Axis2/ws-commons/xml-schema/woden etc. Andreas is particularly very
>> productive :)
>
> HELP!!! Big Blue has a file about me ;-)
>
>> * Any changes we have to these projects, we track those as well and make
>> sure they get back into Apache SVN. But that tends to be in fits and starts.
>
> Do you also track the comments that people make about changes done by
> committers from IBM? In my follow-up list I still have three comments
> that I made about changes committed by Rich, but he didn't answer yet.
>
>> I really don't want to comment on anything else.
>>
>> thanks,
>> dims
>>
>> On 07/23/2009 03:54 AM, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>>> Hi Dennis,
>>>
>>> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
>>> that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're not
>>> the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have take
>>> things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
>>> up).
>>>
>>> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
>>> using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as one
>>> of
>>> the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
>>> That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru peak
>>> development times and stable times. From my personal point of view, Axis2
>>> is
>>> "done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know
>>> how
>>> to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing
>>> that
>>> bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or
>>> find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
>>>
>>> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me on
>>> one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
>>> projects.
>>>
>>> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up
>>> then
>>> we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>>>
>>> Sanjiva.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski<dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and thought
>>>> it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>>>>
>>>> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
>>>> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to
>>>> reflect
>>>> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the
>>>> release
>>>> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
>>>> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
>>>> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
>>>> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting
>>>> these
>>>> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry in
>>>> the WS-Commons page at
>>>> http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.htmlfor the transports, so
>>>> it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
>>>> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with
>>>> Axis2 1.5.
>>>>
>>>> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
>>>> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the
>>>> case,
>>>> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to know
>>>> what's going on.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> - Dennis
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Dennis M. Sosnoski
>>>> Java XML and Web Services
>>>> Axis2 Training and Consulting
>>>> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
>>>> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Andreas Veithen <an...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:55, Davanum Srinivas<da...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dennis,
>
> Since my current employer's name came up...
>
> * We rigorously track latest changes in
> Axiom/Axis2/ws-commons/xml-schema/woden etc. Andreas is particularly very
> productive :)
HELP!!! Big Blue has a file about me ;-)
> * Any changes we have to these projects, we track those as well and make
> sure they get back into Apache SVN. But that tends to be in fits and starts.
Do you also track the comments that people make about changes done by
committers from IBM? In my follow-up list I still have three comments
that I made about changes committed by Rich, but he didn't answer yet.
> I really don't want to comment on anything else.
>
> thanks,
> dims
>
> On 07/23/2009 03:54 AM, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dennis,
>>
>> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
>> that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're not
>> the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have take
>> things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
>> up).
>>
>> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
>> using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as one
>> of
>> the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
>> That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru peak
>> development times and stable times. From my personal point of view, Axis2
>> is
>> "done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know
>> how
>> to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing
>> that
>> bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or
>> find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
>>
>> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me on
>> one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
>> projects.
>>
>> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up
>> then
>> we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>>
>> Sanjiva.
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski<dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and thought
>>> it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>>>
>>> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
>>> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to
>>> reflect
>>> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the
>>> release
>>> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
>>> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
>>> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
>>> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting
>>> these
>>> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry in
>>> the WS-Commons page at
>>> http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.htmlfor the transports, so
>>> it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
>>> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with
>>> Axis2 1.5.
>>>
>>> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
>>> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the
>>> case,
>>> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to know
>>> what's going on.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> - Dennis
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dennis M. Sosnoski
>>> Java XML and Web Services
>>> Axis2 Training and Consulting
>>> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
>>> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Davanum Srinivas <da...@gmail.com>.
Dennis,
Since my current employer's name came up...
* We rigorously track latest changes in Axiom/Axis2/ws-commons/xml-schema/woden etc. Andreas is particularly very
productive :)
* Any changes we have to these projects, we track those as well and make sure they get back into Apache SVN. But that
tends to be in fits and starts.
I really don't want to comment on anything else.
thanks,
dims
On 07/23/2009 03:54 AM, Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
> Hi Dennis,
>
> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
> that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're not
> the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have take
> things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
> up).
>
> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
> using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as one of
> the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
> That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru peak
> development times and stable times. From my personal point of view, Axis2 is
> "done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know how
> to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing that
> bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or
> find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
>
> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me on
> one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
> projects.
>
> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up then
> we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>
> Sanjiva.
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski<dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and thought
>> it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>>
>> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
>> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to reflect
>> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the release
>> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
>> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
>> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
>> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting these
>> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry in
>> the WS-Commons page at http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.htmlfor the transports, so it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
>> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with
>> Axis2 1.5.
>>
>> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
>> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the case,
>> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to know
>> what's going on.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> - Dennis
>>
>> --
>> Dennis M. Sosnoski
>> Java XML and Web Services
>> Axis2 Training and Consulting
>> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
>> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>>
>>
>
>
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Sanjiva Weerawarana <sa...@opensource.lk>.
Dennis, ALL of the original people who worked on Axis2 from LSF/WSO2 are now
in different places - most of them are in grad schools. One of the really
great things that Axis2 has managed to do is attract a fairly broad
community of people - IBM has contributed a lot even though they're quiet
now. There are people from SoftwareAG contributing a lot and a lot of
others.
While I don't disagree with Glen that there are lots of places to improve,
it is a fact that Axis2 "just works" now. As a result, for example, I don't
expect to see any major work on say Axiom .. unless someone comes up with a
brilliant idea on how to make radical changes that would have a lot of
impact. One of the things we did reasonably well with Axis2 have a lot of
plug points - so for example in WSO2 we've used those a lot in WSO2 (to
write providers for other languages for example).
This is hardly a dying project - its a mature stable project and frankly,
WS-* core platform code is just going to be that for a while ... thank
goodness the damned specs are done.
I agree the transports issue is real - if the other transports don't work
then we do have an issue. Glen?
Sanjiva.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
> Hi Sanjiva,
>
> Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction of
> the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri Lanka
> university. Glen is, I believe, the current chair of the PMC, and was also
> the release manager for the 1.5 release.
>
> As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a latest
> Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not have any
> corresponding Rampart release? Some delay in getting these other components
> out is understandable, since they are separate projects (wisely so or not),
> but it's been a month and a half since Axis2 1.5 was released and there's
> been no noticeable move toward releasing these essential components.
>
> I don't know all the details of how Apache works - is this something which
> should be addressed by the PMC?
>
> Thanks again,
>
> - Dennis
>
>
> Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>
>> Hi Dennis,
>>
>> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
>> that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're not
>> the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have take
>> things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
>> up).
>>
>> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
>> using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as one of
>> the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
>> That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru peak
>> development times and stable times. >From my personal point of view, Axis2
>> is "done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know
>> how to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing
>> that bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it
>> or find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
>>
>> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me on
>> one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
>> projects.
>>
>> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up
>> then we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>>
>> Sanjiva.
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski <dms@sosnoski.com<mailto:
>> dms@sosnoski.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and
>> thought it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>>
>> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to
>> when it finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly
>> don't seem to reflect the amount of elapsed time. Even the
>> Javadocs are messed up in the release (as well as on the website).
>> One of the main features headlined in the release notes is the
>> transport refactoring - but the only transport available is HTTP,
>> since there seems to be no inclination to get out a release of the
>> new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting these off
>> into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry
>> in the WS-Commons page at
>> http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.html for the
>> transports, so it's hard to tell the state of this project.
>> There's also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to
>> go along with Axis2 1.5.
>>
>> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by
>> WSO2, and perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But
>> if that's the case, I'd appreciate it if they could make it public
>> for the rest of us to know what's going on.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> - Dennis
>>
>> -- Dennis M. Sosnoski
>> Java XML and Web Services
>> Axis2 Training and Consulting
>> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
>> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
>> Founder, Director & Chief Scientist; Lanka Software Foundation;
>> http://www.opensource.lk/
>> Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.; http://www.wso2.com/
>> Member; Apache Software Foundation; http://www.apache.org/
>> Visiting Lecturer; University of Moratuwa; http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/
>>
>> Blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/
>>
>
--
Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
Founder, Director & Chief Scientist; Lanka Software Foundation;
http://www.opensource.lk/
Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.; http://www.wso2.com/
Member; Apache Software Foundation; http://www.apache.org/
Visiting Lecturer; University of Moratuwa; http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/
Blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Davanum Srinivas <da...@gmail.com>.
Dennis,
fyi, I've been with IBM since Jan 2008.
thanks,
dims
On 07/23/2009 12:49 PM, Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
> Glen Daniels wrote:
>> Hi Dennis:
>>
>> Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>>> Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction
>>> of the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri
>>> Lanka university...
>>
>> I agree re: most of the committership having historically been from
>> WSO2, but
>> also IBM. You may not be aware that I'm no longer associated with WSO2
>> as of
>> January; these days I'm an independent consultant.
>
> Ah, I didn't realized this had changed. The WSO2 site had still listed
> you (and dims) as part of the team as of recently, but no longer does so.
>
>>> As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a
>>> latest Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not
>>> have any corresponding Rampart release?...
>>
>> (Note - all the transports are usable with Axis2 1.5, there just
>> hasn't been
>> an official release. It's not as if Axis2 1.5 "only" supports HTTP.)
>
> I can't even find the transports project on the web site, so it seems to
> be asking a bit much of users that they track this down on their own,
> build, and use a snapshot version of the code in their projects.
>
>> Although of course this is a team effort, I'll step up to take this
>> one since
>> as release manager I should have at least been pushing harder to get the
>> transports release happening in parallel. I did ping the Rampart guys,
>> but
>> everyone has been pretty busy (including me).
>>
>> I'm going to try and get 1.5.1 out the door ASAP, and will commit to
>> at least
>> the transports happening along with that.
>
> Sounds great, Glen! But Axis2 really requires compatible Rampart and
> probably Sandesha releases since these implement functionally which is
> crucial to Axis2's intended usage. The lagging releases of these other
> projects have been problems with past Axis2 releases, too. Is there
> anything we can do to assure that users get a fully-functioning web
> services stack based on Axis2 as part of a release?
>
> Perhaps in the future there should be a single release manager for at
> least Axis2, transports, and Rampart, with no official release of Axis2
> until the other essential components are also ready for release?
>
> - Dennis
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Nandana Mihindukulasooriya <na...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
> Glen Daniels wrote:
>
>> Hi Dennis:
>>
>> Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction
>>> of the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri
>>> Lanka university...
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I agree re: most of the committership having historically been from WSO2,
>> but
>> also IBM. You may not be aware that I'm no longer associated with WSO2 as
>> of
>> January; these days I'm an independent consultant.
>>
>>
>
> Ah, I didn't realized this had changed. The WSO2 site had still listed you
> (and dims) as part of the team as of recently, but no longer does so.
>
>
>>
>>> As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a
>>> latest Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not
>>> have any corresponding Rampart release?...
>>>
>>>
>>
>> (Note - all the transports are usable with Axis2 1.5, there just hasn't
>> been
>> an official release. It's not as if Axis2 1.5 "only" supports HTTP.)
>>
>>
>
> I can't even find the transports project on the web site, so it seems to be
> asking a bit much of users that they track this down on their own, build,
> and use a snapshot version of the code in their projects.
>
> Although of course this is a team effort, I'll step up to take this one
>> since
>> as release manager I should have at least been pushing harder to get the
>> transports release happening in parallel. I did ping the Rampart guys,
>> but
>> everyone has been pretty busy (including me).
>>
>> I'm going to try and get 1.5.1 out the door ASAP, and will commit to at
>> least
>> the transports happening along with that.
>>
>>
>
> Sounds great, Glen! But Axis2 really requires compatible Rampart and
> probably Sandesha releases since these implement functionally which is
> crucial to Axis2's intended usage. The lagging releases of these other
> projects have been problems with past Axis2 releases, too. Is there anything
> we can do to assure that users get a fully-functioning web services stack
> based on Axis2 as part of a release?
>
> Perhaps in the future there should be a single release manager for at least
> Axis2, transports, and Rampart, with no official release of Axis2 until the
> other essential components are also ready for release?
>
We were waiting for WSS4J and XMLSEC releases to spin the Rampart release as
we wanted to include the fixed versions for for XML signature HMAC
truncation authentication bypass vulnerability [1]. Sean released XML
Security 1.4.3 on 22nd July and Clom will call a vote for WSS4J 1.5.8 soon.
We can release Rampart 1.5 just after that.
thanks,
Nandana
[1] - http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/466161
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com>.
Glen Daniels wrote:
> ...
> IMO, this would be a bad idea. The goal of the kind of modularity we have,
> or at least one of the goals, is to enable the components to version and
> release at different rates. Unless there were incompatible API changes
> (which certainly do happen) we should be able to release several Axis2
> versions during a single Rampart release cycle, or vice versa. In reality,
> at least so far, we have needed to rev at least Rampart (Sandesha 1.3 works
> fine with Axis2 1.4 - not sure about 1.5) for compatibility.
>
I understand that in an ideal world we wouldn't have compatibility
issues, but until we get there I don't see how we can justify having a
current release of Axis2 without compatible releases of at least
transports and Rampart. If we do have such a release (as now), the main
page should clearly state that the "current" release only supports basic
web services functionality and if users need WS-Security or alternative
transports they need to either use the older release or work with
nightly builds (the latter probably not an option for anyone doing
commercial work). That way users would at least have the information
available to guide their choice.
- Dennis
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Glen Daniels <gl...@thoughtcraft.com>.
Hi Dennis:
Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>> I'm going to try and get 1.5.1 out the door ASAP, and will commit to
>> at least
>> the transports happening along with that.
>
> Sounds great, Glen! But Axis2 really requires compatible Rampart and
> probably Sandesha releases since these implement functionally which is
> crucial to Axis2's intended usage. The lagging releases of these other
> projects have been problems with past Axis2 releases, too. Is there
> anything we can do to assure that users get a fully-functioning web
> services stack based on Axis2 as part of a release?
>
> Perhaps in the future there should be a single release manager for at
> least Axis2, transports, and Rampart, with no official release of Axis2
> until the other essential components are also ready for release?
IMO, this would be a bad idea. The goal of the kind of modularity we have,
or at least one of the goals, is to enable the components to version and
release at different rates. Unless there were incompatible API changes
(which certainly do happen) we should be able to release several Axis2
versions during a single Rampart release cycle, or vice versa. In reality,
at least so far, we have needed to rev at least Rampart (Sandesha 1.3 works
fine with Axis2 1.4 - not sure about 1.5) for compatibility.
I'd like to continue pushing for this kind of "loose" coupling between the
various pieces, but I do want us to be sensitive to incompatible changes as
well - I think there might be a call here for a slightly richer versioning
system, but I don't think we need to make the stack all release in lock-step.
Thanks,
--Glen
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com>.
Glen Daniels wrote:
> Hi Dennis:
>
> Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
>
>> Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction
>> of the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri
>> Lanka university...
>>
>
> I agree re: most of the committership having historically been from WSO2, but
> also IBM. You may not be aware that I'm no longer associated with WSO2 as of
> January; these days I'm an independent consultant.
>
Ah, I didn't realized this had changed. The WSO2 site had still listed
you (and dims) as part of the team as of recently, but no longer does so.
>
>> As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a
>> latest Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not
>> have any corresponding Rampart release?...
>>
>
> (Note - all the transports are usable with Axis2 1.5, there just hasn't been
> an official release. It's not as if Axis2 1.5 "only" supports HTTP.)
>
I can't even find the transports project on the web site, so it seems to
be asking a bit much of users that they track this down on their own,
build, and use a snapshot version of the code in their projects.
> Although of course this is a team effort, I'll step up to take this one since
> as release manager I should have at least been pushing harder to get the
> transports release happening in parallel. I did ping the Rampart guys, but
> everyone has been pretty busy (including me).
>
> I'm going to try and get 1.5.1 out the door ASAP, and will commit to at least
> the transports happening along with that.
>
Sounds great, Glen! But Axis2 really requires compatible Rampart and
probably Sandesha releases since these implement functionally which is
crucial to Axis2's intended usage. The lagging releases of these other
projects have been problems with past Axis2 releases, too. Is there
anything we can do to assure that users get a fully-functioning web
services stack based on Axis2 as part of a release?
Perhaps in the future there should be a single release manager for at
least Axis2, transports, and Rampart, with no official release of Axis2
until the other essential components are also ready for release?
- Dennis
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Glen Daniels <gl...@thoughtcraft.com>.
Hi Dennis:
Dennis Sosnoski wrote:
> Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction
> of the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri
> Lanka university. Glen is, I believe, the current chair of the PMC, and
> was also the release manager for the 1.5 release.
I agree re: most of the committership having historically been from WSO2, but
also IBM. You may not be aware that I'm no longer associated with WSO2 as of
January; these days I'm an independent consultant.
> As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a
> latest Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not
> have any corresponding Rampart release? Some delay in getting these
> other components out is understandable, since they are separate projects
> (wisely so or not), but it's been a month and a half since Axis2 1.5 was
> released and there's been no noticeable move toward releasing these
> essential components.
(Note - all the transports are usable with Axis2 1.5, there just hasn't been
an official release. It's not as if Axis2 1.5 "only" supports HTTP.)
Although of course this is a team effort, I'll step up to take this one since
as release manager I should have at least been pushing harder to get the
transports release happening in parallel. I did ping the Rampart guys, but
everyone has been pretty busy (including me).
I'm going to try and get 1.5.1 out the door ASAP, and will commit to at least
the transports happening along with that.
> I don't know all the details of how Apache works - is this something
> which should be addressed by the PMC?
This is a volunteer effort, as always. The PMC can certainly indicate
problems and discuss them, but they can't force committers to actually do any
work.
One thing I think we might suggest to improve the situation is a "JIRA-thon",
where we get committers to pledge that they'll fix a certain number of JIRA
issues (10 might be a good start) over a certain period of time, say two
weeks. It would be great if we could release 1.6 with a LOT of problems fixed.
Part of the problem is that we're not communicating well enough as a team,
and not keeping track of what really needs doing. I don't actually fully
agree with Sanjiva's assertion that Axis2 is "essentially done", because 1)
we REALLY shouldn't have hundreds and hundreds of JIRAs - sure, some are
frivolous but many are real issues causing real problems (case in point the
incorrect use of the HTTP connection manager I fixed recently), and 2) every
time I dive in there I see some really poor code somewhere. Not that we're
the only project to have less-than-perfect code, but I'm worried that
thinking too much along the lines of "we're a mature project" might lead to
complacency about fixing some of these problems.
Thanks,
--Glen
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com>.
Hi Sanjiva,
Whether officially led by WSO2 or not, certainly most of the direction
of the project has come from people associated with WSO2 and/or the Sri
Lanka university. Glen is, I believe, the current chair of the PMC, and
was also the release manager for the 1.5 release.
As to Axis2 status, you don't see a problem in pointing people at a
latest Axis2 release which only supports HTTP transport and does not
have any corresponding Rampart release? Some delay in getting these
other components out is understandable, since they are separate projects
(wisely so or not), but it's been a month and a half since Axis2 1.5 was
released and there's been no noticeable move toward releasing these
essential components.
I don't know all the details of how Apache works - is this something
which should be addressed by the PMC?
Thanks again,
- Dennis
Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
> Hi Dennis,
>
> First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more
> .. that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but
> we're not the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they
> seem to have take things in-house (again) but I may be wrong
> (hopefully someone will speak up).
>
> I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people
> are using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then
> as one of the developers should also look at it; there's no "company"
> action here! That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality,
> projects go thru peak development times and stable times. >From my
> personal point of view, Axis2 is "done" and its working. You've got
> something scratching? Well, you know how to itch it :). Of course
> there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing that bothers people it
> won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or find a way to
> make the bug something that bothers people.
>
> Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of
> me on one side but on the other side its because there are so many
> dependent projects.
>
> Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up
> then we should do a 1.5.1 release.
>
> Sanjiva.
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski <dms@sosnoski.com
> <ma...@sosnoski.com>> wrote:
>
> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and
> thought it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>
> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to
> when it finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly
> don't seem to reflect the amount of elapsed time. Even the
> Javadocs are messed up in the release (as well as on the website).
> One of the main features headlined in the release notes is the
> transport refactoring - but the only transport available is HTTP,
> since there seems to be no inclination to get out a release of the
> new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting these off
> into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry
> in the WS-Commons page at
> http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.html for the
> transports, so it's hard to tell the state of this project.
> There's also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to
> go along with Axis2 1.5.
>
> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by
> WSO2, and perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But
> if that's the case, I'd appreciate it if they could make it public
> for the rest of us to know what's going on.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Dennis
>
> --
> Dennis M. Sosnoski
> Java XML and Web Services
> Axis2 Training and Consulting
> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
> Founder, Director & Chief Scientist; Lanka Software Foundation;
> http://www.opensource.lk/
> Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.; http://www.wso2.com/
> Member; Apache Software Foundation; http://www.apache.org/
> Visiting Lecturer; University of Moratuwa; http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/
>
> Blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/
Re: [Axis2] Is Axis2 dying?
Posted by Sanjiva Weerawarana <sa...@opensource.lk>.
Hi Dennis,
First of all, it is not true that Axis2 work is lead by WSO2 any more ..
that changed a long time ago. We're continuing to contribute but we're not
the only contributors. IBM was contributing too but they seem to have take
things in-house (again) but I may be wrong (hopefully someone will speak
up).
I think Axis2 is pretty much a stable product now and lots of people are
using it productively. If there are issues that matter to you then as one of
the developers should also look at it; there's no "company" action here!
That's simply not the way Apache works. In reality, projects go thru peak
development times and stable times. From my personal point of view, Axis2 is
"done" and its working. You've got something scratching? Well, you know how
to itch it :). Of course there are 100s of JIRAs but if its not a thing that
bothers people it won't get fixed. This is open source; please fix it or
find a way to make the bug something that bothers people.
Every Axis2 release took months to do. Why? Beats the hell of out of me on
one side but on the other side its because there are so many dependent
projects.
Totally +1 for fixing the Web site stuff up. If the docs are messed up then
we should do a 1.5.1 release.
Sanjiva.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dennis Sosnoski <dm...@sosnoski.com> wrote:
> I'm starting to wonder about the health of the Axis2 project, and thought
> it might be useful to initiate a discussion on this topic.
>
> The 1.5 release of Axis2 took 8 months from initial proposal to when it
> finally escaped out the door, and the results frankly don't seem to reflect
> the amount of elapsed time. Even the Javadocs are messed up in the release
> (as well as on the website). One of the main features headlined in the
> release notes is the transport refactoring - but the only transport
> available is HTTP, since there seems to be no inclination to get out a
> release of the new commons transports (which IMHO shows why splitting these
> off into a separate project was a bad idea). There isn't even an entry in
> the WS-Commons page at http://ws.apache.org/commons/projects-overview.htmlfor the transports, so it's hard to tell the state of this project. There's
> also no indication of when we'll have a Rampart release to go along with
> Axis2 1.5.
>
> I realize a lot of the Axis2 and Rampart work is being led by WSO2, and
> perhaps the people in that organization have a plan. But if that's the case,
> I'd appreciate it if they could make it public for the rest of us to know
> what's going on.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Dennis
>
> --
> Dennis M. Sosnoski
> Java XML and Web Services
> Axis2 Training and Consulting
> http://www.sosnoski.com - http://www.sosnoski.co.nz
> Seattle, WA +1-425-939-0576 - Wellington, NZ +64-4-298-6117
>
>
--
Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.
Founder, Director & Chief Scientist; Lanka Software Foundation;
http://www.opensource.lk/
Founder, Chairman & CEO; WSO2, Inc.; http://www.wso2.com/
Member; Apache Software Foundation; http://www.apache.org/
Visiting Lecturer; University of Moratuwa; http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/
Blog: http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/