Re: Sponsorship

["Peter B. West" <li...@pbw.id.au>]

 > On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 08:27:45AM +0100, Peter B. West wrote:
 > > Jeremias Maerki wrote:
 > > >On 29.09.2005 11:58:57 Peter B. West wrote:
 > > >
 > > I can understand that some sponsors may be sensitive to divulging such
 > > information, for at least two reasons. Firstly, the treat of being
 > > inundated with begging letters, and secondly, the possibility that 
they
 > > might be upsetting their own business partners.
 > >
 > > Before you took up the sponsorship offer, you mentioned to me that it
 > > was on the cards, which I appreciated.  I assume you told others as
 > > well. Targeted sponsorship is potentially extremely disruptive to a
 > > group, and it seems to me that the process must be as open as 
possible.
 > >  If it can't be as open as the code, it should be nearly so.
 >
 > Do you mean that such a sponsorship changes the relations within the
 > group? It certainly does. I feel that Jeremias has done an admirable
 > job in managing the relations within the group, and in balancing his
 > full time input in FOP with the more limited input of other group
 > members.
 >
 > Simon,

I've been stewing on this for quite a while, and as you, at least, seem 
to have missed the point, I'll vent.

Some background.  I've been working on the implementation of this cow of 
a Recommendation since early in 2001, mainly on FOP.  In that time, I 
have had not one red cent of financial support.  I'm not the only one in 
that situation, just the one who has been doing it the longest. Others 
have had employer support to devote some (or all) of their time to FOP, 
and Jeremias has for some time been sponsored, whatever that means.

(The fact that some get paid to work on open source is not unusual, 
particularly at Apache.  Have a look through the committers on say, 
Xerces or Xalan, and look for the ibm.com addresses.  I could also 
mention Sun and BEA.)

The outside observer of the FOP code base and web site could be excused 
for thinking that I had never existed on this project.  I wrote code for 
a year before I got committer status, incidentally at the same time as 
Jeremias and Joerg.  The reason it took me so long was that I was not 
toeing the party line - FOP HEAD.  My contributions could not be 
incrementally added to the existing line of development, so they didn't 
exist.  The only way I got committer status eventually was through the 
intervention of Nicola Ken Barozzi, who was appalled that forked code 
was being hosted outside Apache.

That code was alt-design properties code.  It seems to me that many of 
the ideas and implementation details of alt-design are now sitting in 
the FOP code base.  This is true whether Finn ever looked at the 
alt-design properties code.  It ain't over yet.[1]

Does any record of any of this remain on the web site?  No.  All trace 
of alt-design has been vigorously scrubbed from the site.  A bit thank 
you to Glen and to Jeremias.  Not only does this amount to the 
re-writing of FOP history, but it was detrimental to the development 
effort.  A number of observations which have been made recently were 
discussed in detail in the alt-design documentation, notably in respect 
of space-resolution and footnotes.

Rewriting history is a pernicious activity at the best of times.  What 
infuriates me about this exercise is not only its immediately 
detrimental effects on me, but what I perceive to be its motivation.  As 
to the first, I cannot, for example, point anyone who is interested to 
the relevant parts of the web site and say, "That's what I was doing for 
the past few years."

This is important anyway, but in my case it is more important.  I 
started work on FOP at the beginning of the tech wreck.  That hit my 
home town particularly hard.  In addition, my skills were stale.  XSL-FO 
has been my school of Java.  The bottom line was that I had almost no 
work in IT over that period.  I lived off savings, I lived off 
unemployment benefits, I sold liquor at a bottle shop, I was supported 
by my wife.  My efforts on this project, and now Folio, were, and are, 
critical to my prospects of employment.

Jeremias has known my situation for some time.  Let me repeat that. 
When Jeremias went about the complete purging of all traces of my work 
from the site, he knew my professional situation.

You might say that it doesn't matter because I can simply put such 
things on the Folio site.  But of course, the Folio site is not, for 
some time, at least, going to get the traffic, nor does it have the same 
"weight".  Which brings me to the motivation.  I don't doubt that 
Jeremias does not believe in my design ideas.  That makes the behaviour 
even more bizarre.  If the ideas are no good, let them stand naked to 
inspection.  No-one will be interested.  No, that's not enough.  Someone 
*might* be interested, and Jeremias *might* lose a potential developer 
to Folio.  That is, someone probably working for nothing, might not 
contribute to FOP.  And that would not be in Jeremias' personal 
financial interest.  That's the bottom line, as they say.

This is not "community" as in "The Community of Scholars".  This is 
community as in drinking the blue Kool-aid.

All of this might seem peculiarly personal, and it *is* highly personal. 
  There are also, however, principles involved.  It is simply just (as 
in justice) that everyone know who is getting paid, as it happens. It is 
my own view that companies who wish to contribute to Open Source 
development need to get their head around the "Open". It is simply just 
that all efforts expended in the pursuit of the implementation be 
recognized.  What type of open  community is this to be?  Can this 
community tolerate diversity?  Can this community live with its own history?

Peter

[1] There was some discussion of integrating the alt-design code, as at 
the end of 2002, into FOP HEAD.  I wasn't interested in that for two 
reasons.

Firstly, I had discovered in writing it that it wouldn't work. 
Properties need area context for resolution.  It doesn't matter that it 
is only percentages that require this.  Percentages can occur just about 
anywhere a length is required, and almost all of them need area context. 
  This lesson is still being learned in the current properties code, if 
the recent changes instituted by Manuel are anything to go by.  It's a 
complex area though, and I don't pretend to understand how comprehensive 
the current code's treatment is.

Secondly, stream parsing was not necessary and had to go.  That wasn't 
going to work in terms of the existing structure of the code, or my 
plans for marker resolution and beyond.  More on this later.

-- 
Peter B. West <http://cv.pbw.id.au/>
Folio <http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio/>

Re: Sponsorship

["Peter B. West" <pb...@pbw.id.au>]

The Web Maestro wrote:
> 
> Sorry to hear that you were stewing about this. I suspect it feels  
> better now that it's out in the open (although I'm not convinced this  
> is the best place for it--it might be, I'm just not convinced...).
> 
> I don't have a lot of emotion about this either way (although I admit I  
> was sad to see you and Victor Mote curtail your contributions to FOP).
...
> 
> In any case, I for one continue to find pleasure in your continued  
> presence on FOP-DEV. I learn a lot about FOP from your POSTs and am  
> still feel sadness that you are no longer a member of the FOP Team  
> (although you still post, which counts, in my book!). If you would like  
> to talk further about this (either continuing this thread or off-line  
> which may be more appropriate), I welcome it.
> 
Clay,

You're a marvel.  I hope you get opportunities to exercise your people 
skills.

Peter
-- 
Peter B. West <http://cv.pbw.id.au/>
Folio <http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio/>

Re: Sponsorship

[The Web Maestro <th...@gmail.com>]

On Oct 6, 2005, at 1:30 AM, Peter B. West wrote:
> I've been stewing on this for quite a while, and as you, at least,  
> seem to have missed the point, I'll vent.

Sorry to hear that you were stewing about this. I suspect it feels  
better now that it's out in the open (although I'm not convinced this  
is the best place for it--it might be, I'm just not convinced...).

I don't have a lot of emotion about this either way (although I admit I  
was sad to see you and Victor Mote curtail your contributions to FOP).

> Does any record of any of this remain on the web site?  No.  All trace  
> of alt-design has been vigorously scrubbed from the site.  A bit thank  
> you to Glen and to Jeremias.  Not only does this amount to the  
> re-writing of FOP history, but it was detrimental to the development  
> effort.  A number of observations which have been made recently were  
> discussed in detail in the alt-design documentation, notably in  
> respect of space-resolution and footnotes.

Actually there is a mention on the FOP Resources page[1]:
-  [software] Folio[2] a renderer for XML files containing Formatting  
Object elements (aka FOP Alt.Design)

It may not be much comfort, but it appears that fop/design/alt.design  
wasn't totally removed[3]. Just the links to it were removed. That was  
either an oversight on my part (I thought I removed it), or perhaps the  
content slipped back in when we switched from CVS to SVN. I found it w  
a google search[4].

In any case, I for one continue to find pleasure in your continued  
presence on FOP-DEV. I learn a lot about FOP from your POSTs and am  
still feel sadness that you are no longer a member of the FOP Team  
(although you still post, which counts, in my book!). If you would like  
to talk further about this (either continuing this thread or off-line  
which may be more appropriate), I welcome it.

[1] FOP Resources:
<http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/resources.html#products-other>

[2] Folio:
<http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio>

[3] alt.design
<http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/design/alt.design/>

[4] Google Search for 'site:xmlgraphics.apache.org alt.design  
alt-design'
<http://www.google.com/search? 
hl=en&q=site%3Axmlgraphics.apache.org+alt.design+alt- 
design&btnG=Google+Search>

Regards,

Web Maestro Clay
-- 
<th...@gmail.com> - <http://homepage.mac.com/webmaestro/>
My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.
- HH The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet

Properties - was Sponsorship

["Peter B. West" <pb...@pbw.id.au>]

Peter B. West wrote:
> Finn Bock wrote:
> 
>> [Peter B. West]
>>
>>
>> The alt-design property code was, back then, in my eyes, code written 
>> by a person who did not intuitively create object oriented design.
> 
...
> 
>> It was, IMO, not a good fundation for further work.
> 
> 
> Fair enough, apart from the deferred functionality, but irrelevant.
> We're talking here about ideas and implementation details.
> 
>>
>> I have then later looked at different times, one where I made a 
>> incorrect description of how alt-design stored references from 
>> fo-object to properties, an other when I wanted to understand why you 
>> though alt-designs Property/PropertyValue was any different from 
>> head's PropertyMaker/Property.
> 
> 
> A discussion I am always willing to have, if only to learn more about
> your approach.  I *do* like pretty code.  I asked you about it, because 
> I had plans to adopt it.  But I was not persuaded that you had the 
> thorny problems solved, so I held off.  When it's completed, I'll look 
> again.
> 
Finn,

I've just had another look at the properties code.  It's not a pretty 
sight, is it?  Understandable, because the properties system does not 
lend itself to simple solutions.  I'll pass on adopting it though.  The 
properties code in Folio is already considerably more comprehensible, 
and will become even more so when the layout work converges.  In any 
case, it was reassuring to see the completely accidental correspondences 
between your work and mine.

Peter
-- 
Peter B. West <http://cv.pbw.id.au/>
Folio <http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio/>

Re: Sponsorship

["Peter B. West" <li...@pbw.id.au>]

Finn Bock wrote:
> [Peter B. West]
> 
> ...
> 
>> That code was alt-design properties code.  It seems to me that many of 
>> the ideas and implementation details of alt-design are now sitting in 
>> the FOP code base.  This is true whether Finn ever looked at the 
>> alt-design properties code.  It ain't over yet.[1]
> 
> 
> I did, before I became a committer. Back then I evaluated the different 
> branches (0.20, alt and head) and made a decision on which one to work on.
> 
> The alt-design property code was, back then, in my eyes, code written by 
> a person who did not intuitively create object oriented design.

Guilty as charged.  My apologies.  I'm kind-of old fashioned.  I was
looking to understand the problem, and solve it, especially the hard
parts.  For instance, parsing "font".  That problem was addressed in
2002 in alt-design.  When did that make it into FOP?  I can't say it was
solved, because there may well have been bugs in it at that stage.  But
the code was there, as it was for a number of other hair-raising
properties.  I don't know the current situation in detail, but for some
long time, alt-design had overall better coverage of properties than the
new code.  More importantly, it had been thought through.  There were
gaps, but all of the nasty stuff was covered, and there were no
surprises, except for the issue of percentages, which is what sent me in
another direction.  There were no kludges, waiting for me to confess
down the track.  Like I said, I'm old-fashioned.  When I say something
is done, I mean that it is done.  If there are areas that need fixing,
I'll say so, up front.

> It was, 
> IMO, not a good fundation for further work.

Fair enough, apart from the deferred functionality, but irrelevant.
We're talking here about ideas and implementation details.

> 
> I have then later looked at different times, one where I made a 
> incorrect description of how alt-design stored references from fo-object 
> to properties, an other when I wanted to understand why you though 
> alt-designs Property/PropertyValue was any different from head's 
> PropertyMaker/Property.

A discussion I am always willing to have, if only to learn more about
your approach.  I *do* like pretty code.  I asked you about it, because 
I had plans to adopt it.  But I was not persuaded that you had the 
thorny problems solved, so I held off.  When it's completed, I'll look 
again.

> 
>> Does any record of any of this remain on the web site?  No.  
> 
> 
> Plagerism?

Not an accusation I'm making, Finn.

> Not a single line from alt-design has ever been committed to head by me!

Not an accusation I'm making.  "...whether Finn ever looked..."  But
thanks for the response.

Peter
-- 
Peter B. West <http://cv.pbw.id.au/>
Folio <http://defoe.sourceforge.net/folio/>

Re: Sponsorship

[Finn Bock <bc...@worldonline.dk>]

[Peter B. West]

...

> That code was alt-design properties code.  It seems to me that many of 
> the ideas and implementation details of alt-design are now sitting in 
> the FOP code base.  This is true whether Finn ever looked at the 
> alt-design properties code.  It ain't over yet.[1]

I did, before I became a committer. Back then I evaluated the different 
branches (0.20, alt and head) and made a decision on which one to work on.

The alt-design property code was, back then, in my eyes, code written by 
a person who did not intuitively create object oriented design. It was, 
IMO, not a good fundation for further work.

I have then later looked at different times, one where I made a 
incorrect description of how alt-design stored references from fo-object 
to properties, an other when I wanted to understand why you though 
alt-designs Property/PropertyValue was any different from head's 
PropertyMaker/Property.

> Does any record of any of this remain on the web site?  No.  

Plagerism?

Not a single line from alt-design has ever been committed to head by me!

regards,
finn