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Posted to dev@tomcat.apache.org by David Blevins <da...@gmail.com> on 2022/03/26 18:13:29 UTC
Potential mention on the website
Hey All,
I've never had the bravery to ask, but would there be some willingness to consider adding a mention of TomEE on the Tomcat website?
Any sign of pushback and I'll happily drop -- it's far more important to maintain good will, respect boundaries and keep things friendly. If there was some warmness to the idea, perhaps something very subtle at the bottom of the Tomcat description on the front page, "For distributions of Tomcat that contain Jakarta REST, Jakarta CDI, Jakarta Enterprise Beans (EJB) and similar specifications see Apache TomEE."
Thoughts?
-David
Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>.
David,
On 3/31/22 22:25, David Blevins wrote:
>> On Mar 31, 2022, at 12:13 PM, Christopher Schultz
>> <ch...@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
>>
>> Mark,
>>
>> On 3/29/22 19:40, Mark Thomas wrote:
>>> I worry that putting much more than a simple link on the which
>>> version page could cause confusion. Something like: "For users
>>> wanting a Java EE / Jakarta EE container that supports additional
>>> specifications like XXX see <a href="...">Apache TomEE</a>."
>>
>> +1
>>
>>> My preference is for a new menu item - probably under misc -
>>> called "Related Apache Projects" (a shorter, snappier title
>>> preferred) where we can link to the various ASF projects related
>>> to Tomcat and have a paragraph or two on each project.
>>
>> I like this. What else might qualify? If it's really only TomEE
>> (and flavors thereof), we could name that section "Enterprise ..
>> something".
>>
>>> Off the top of my head, there is Ant (initially created to build
>>> Tomcat), Commons Pool, DBCP, Modeler, Daemon (all spun off from
>>> Tomcat), httpd, TomEE and probably a bunch I have forgotten
>>> about.
>>
>> Digester, another Tomcat graduate.
>>
>> Other than TomEE (and httpd), those are all dependencies / upstream
>> from Tomcat, which IMO puts TomEE in a slightly different bucket. I
>> would say that httpd isn't really "related" to Tomcat other than
>> (a) they are both ASF projects and (b) they are both web servers.
>> But there's also ATS, ATC and probably one or two other web servers
>> under ASF umbrella I haven't heard of yet.
>
> On httpd, I know a very large number of Tomcat/TomEE users I see in
> the wild use httpd in front for load balancing.
Sure, but plenty of people use nginx, squid, haproxy, etc. and at some
point, listing them all is silly. It's fine if we want to have a
preference for ASF projects.
> I think a related projects page could be pretty great if we:
>
> - Mentioned why it is potentially interesting to Tomcat users and
> provided a pointer or two. I.e. treat it as documentation, not just
> a list of links. The section would still have to be brief -- no
> taking up a whole or even half a page.
We already have a "Load Balancing" section of the user guide. It's,
ahem, brief, but it exists:
https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/balancer-howto.html
> - Gave people a reason to look at it by linking to in other sections
> of the website beyond the left nav. It would be context dependent.
> For example, if we're talking about load balancing, we mention httpd
> and link to https://tomcat.apache.org/related.html#httpd. The
> whichversion.html could have the one sentence that mentions TomEE as
> a way to get more Jakarta EE impls on Tomcat out-of-the-box and link
> to https://tomcat.apache.org/related.html#tomee
>
> Could be a nice balance. We could still mention things like TomEE
> where needed, but they'd be going to a page with a great big "related
> projects" title and a clear statement these are external projects,
> which would allow us to give a bit more information on why it's
> useful for Tomcat people without potentially confusing people in
> thinking it's a Tomcat thing.
>
> Thoughts?
I think it makes sense to put a section under "Which Version" which says
something obvious like "Looking for Enterprise Features?" and then list
some of the biggies like JMS, EJB, JPA, other TLAs... with a link to TomEE.
I'm okay adding a "Related Projects" page into the menu as well.
David, want to take a stab at a doc patch? The web site still uses the
old svn repository. http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/tomcat/site/
The main menu is defined in xdocs/stylesheet/project.xml.
-chris
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Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by David Blevins <da...@gmail.com>.
> On Mar 31, 2022, at 12:13 PM, Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
>
> Mark,
>
> On 3/29/22 19:40, Mark Thomas wrote:
>> I worry that putting much more than a simple link on the which version page could cause confusion. Something like:
>> "For users wanting a Java EE / Jakarta EE container that supports additional specifications like XXX see <a href="...">Apache TomEE</a>."
>
> +1
>
>> My preference is for a new menu item - probably under misc - called "Related Apache Projects" (a shorter, snappier title preferred) where we can link to the various ASF projects related to Tomcat and have a paragraph or two on each project.
>
> I like this. What else might qualify? If it's really only TomEE (and flavors thereof), we could name that section "Enterprise .. something".
>
>> Off the top of my head, there is Ant (initially created to build Tomcat), Commons Pool, DBCP, Modeler, Daemon (all spun off from Tomcat), httpd, TomEE and probably a bunch I have forgotten about.
>
> Digester, another Tomcat graduate.
>
> Other than TomEE (and httpd), those are all dependencies / upstream from Tomcat, which IMO puts TomEE in a slightly different bucket. I would say that httpd isn't really "related" to Tomcat other than (a) they are both ASF projects and (b) they are both web servers. But there's also ATS, ATC and probably one or two other web servers under ASF umbrella I haven't heard of yet.
On httpd, I know a very large number of Tomcat/TomEE users I see in the wild use httpd in front for load balancing.
I think a related projects page could be pretty great if we:
- Mentioned why it is potentially interesting to Tomcat users and provided a pointer or two. I.e. treat it as documentation, not just a list of links. The section would still have to be brief -- no taking up a whole or even half a page.
- Gave people a reason to look at it by linking to in other sections of the website beyond the left nav. It would be context dependent. For example, if we're talking about load balancing, we mention httpd and link to https://tomcat.apache.org/related.html#httpd. The whichversion.html could have the one sentence that mentions TomEE as a way to get more Jakarta EE impls on Tomcat out-of-the-box and link to https://tomcat.apache.org/related.html#tomee
Could be a nice balance. We could still mention things like TomEE where needed, but they'd be going to a page with a great big "related projects" title and a clear statement these are external projects, which would allow us to give a bit more information on why it's useful for Tomcat people without potentially confusing people in thinking it's a Tomcat thing.
Thoughts?
-David
Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>.
Mark,
On 3/29/22 19:40, Mark Thomas wrote:
> I worry that putting much more than a simple link on the which version
> page could cause confusion. Something like:
>
> "For users wanting a Java EE / Jakarta EE container that supports
> additional specifications like XXX see <a href="...">Apache TomEE</a>."
+1
> My preference is for a new menu item - probably under misc - called
> "Related Apache Projects" (a shorter, snappier title preferred) where we
> can link to the various ASF projects related to Tomcat and have a
> paragraph or two on each project.
I like this. What else might qualify? If it's really only TomEE (and
flavors thereof), we could name that section "Enterprise .. something".
> Off the top of my head, there is Ant (initially created to build
> Tomcat), Commons Pool, DBCP, Modeler, Daemon (all spun off from Tomcat),
> httpd, TomEE and probably a bunch I have forgotten about.
Digester, another Tomcat graduate.
Other than TomEE (and httpd), those are all dependencies / upstream from
Tomcat, which IMO puts TomEE in a slightly different bucket. I would say
that httpd isn't really "related" to Tomcat other than (a) they are both
ASF projects and (b) they are both web servers. But there's also ATS,
ATC and probably one or two other web servers under ASF umbrella I
haven't heard of yet.
Thanks,
-chris
> On 30/03/2022 00:25, David Blevins wrote:
>>> On Mar 28, 2022, at 10:12 AM, Christopher Schultz
>>> <ch...@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> On 3/26/22 14:13, David Blevins wrote:
>>>> I've never had the bravery to ask
>>>
>>> Why the heck not?
>>
>> Perhaps it's a Geronimo hangover, but I never wanted to risk creating
>> a situation where people felt forced or inadvertently create conflict.
>>
>>>
>>>> but would there be some willingness to consider adding a mention of
>>>> TomEE on the Tomcat website?
>>>
>>> I'm up for it. I can't imagine anyone on the Tomcat PMC would have any
>>> problem with this. Anyone?
>>>
>>>> Any sign of pushback and I'll happily drop -- it's far more important
>>>> to maintain good will, respect boundaries and keep things friendly.
>>>> If there was some warmness to the idea, perhaps something very subtle
>>>> at the bottom of the Tomcat description on the front page, "For
>>>> distributions of Tomcat that contain Jakarta REST, Jakarta CDI,
>>>> Jakarta Enterprise Beans (EJB) and similar specifications see Apache
>>>> TomEE."
>>> I guess the question would be "where is the best place to put this?"
>>> Does TomEE have versions that track Tomcat versions in any way? Or do
>>> you just use whatever version is "best at the time of packaging" or
>>> whatever?
>>>
>>> For example, relegating TomEE to the "download" page(s) would mean
>>> that someone would have to know they want to download a specific
>>> Tomcat version, then decide at the last second that they instead want
>>> TomEE. If you don't release new versions every month (ish, like we
>>> do), then we could easily get out of sync.
>>
>> It's a mix. Each TomEE major version will fix itself to a Tomcat
>> major version.
>>
>> - TomEE 7 (Java EE 7) uses Tomcat 8.5
>> - TomEE 8 (Java EE 8) uses Tomcat 9
>> - TomEE 9 (Jakarta EE 9.x) uses Tomcat 10
>>
>> TomEE 9 is still in milestone, but should be released in a few
>> months. We've been basing our version numbers on the Java EE /
>> Jakarta EE spec number. For Tomcat 10.1, TomEE 10, Jakarta EE 10,
>> they'll be pretty close and might possibly sync perfectly at 11 -- for
>> a while at least.
>>
>> On release speed, we definitely don't keep up with Tomcat pace --
>> we're more once a quarter than once a month. As well it can take us
>> many months longer to reach final as there's a lot more in the box to
>> certify.
>>
>>> I'm thinking that maybe what we should do it put TomEE on the "Which
>>> version?" page (https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html). Below
>>> the grid of spec versions and associated Tomcat versions, we could
>>> put a heading which says something along the lines of "Jakarta Foo +
>>> Bar are packaged with TomEE" and just throw the user over to whatever
>>> page at TomEE makes the most sense.
>>>
>>> My only concern would be to properly inform users what is happening.
>>> I'm an Eclipse user and any time I have to download a new version
>>> from their web site I have to re-learn the differences between
>>> "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Java and DSL
>>> Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers"
>>> and I guess whatever the hell Thelia is, now.
>>>
>>> I wouldn't want anyone to inadvertently install TomEE if all they
>>> really want is Tomcat or "only" install Tomcat when they need the
>>> additional features and APIs that TomEE provides. Perhaps just a
>>> reference to here would be sufficient:
>>> https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html
>>
>> I'm open to what people think is the right. The whichversion.html
>> page idea could be good.
>>
>> A nice thing about a heading on the whichversion.html page is that
>> it's something we can link to in the tomcat.apache.org website, say
>> "https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html#tomee" or something.
>> When twitter polls like this happen we can paste the link and
>> hopefully not see 50% of people saying "yes":
>>
>> - https://twitter.com/brunoborges/status/1507591056086343681
>>
>> There were several TomEE mentions there, but my experience is unless
>> they see it mentioned on the Tomcat website they often perceive it
>> skeptically as a competitive effort against Tomcat.
>>
>> Under the heading we could have a few sentences with a bit more detail
>> on which specs (the most popular ones as the full list is large),
>> perhaps the Tomcat to TomEE version mapping, and a link to the
>> https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html page. Something brief,
>> that's no bigger (ideally smaller) than the "Alpha / Beta / Stable"
>> heading so as not to distract too much.
>>
>> If people are up for it, a very brief mention on the main page that
>> links to the whichversion.html page would be effective. My gut is
>> unless we put something there, most people won't see it and we'll
>> likely only educate 5% or 10% of people who say "yes" to polls like
>> one above.
>>
>>
>> -David
>>
>
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> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@tomcat.apache.org
>
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Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org>.
I worry that putting much more than a simple link on the which version
page could cause confusion. Something like:
"For users wanting a Java EE / Jakarta EE container that supports
additional specifications like XXX see <a href="...">Apache TomEE</a>."
My preference is for a new menu item - probably under misc - called
"Related Apache Projects" (a shorter, snappier title preferred) where we
can link to the various ASF projects related to Tomcat and have a
paragraph or two on each project.
Off the top of my head, there is Ant (initially created to build
Tomcat), Commons Pool, DBCP, Modeler, Daemon (all spun off from Tomcat),
httpd, TomEE and probably a bunch I have forgotten about.
Mark
On 30/03/2022 00:25, David Blevins wrote:
>> On Mar 28, 2022, at 10:12 AM, Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
>>
>> David,
>>
>> On 3/26/22 14:13, David Blevins wrote:
>>> I've never had the bravery to ask
>>
>> Why the heck not?
>
> Perhaps it's a Geronimo hangover, but I never wanted to risk creating a situation where people felt forced or inadvertently create conflict.
>
>>
>>> but would there be some willingness to consider adding a mention of
>>> TomEE on the Tomcat website?
>>
>> I'm up for it. I can't imagine anyone on the Tomcat PMC would have any
>> problem with this. Anyone?
>>
>>> Any sign of pushback and I'll happily drop -- it's far more important
>>> to maintain good will, respect boundaries and keep things friendly.
>>> If there was some warmness to the idea, perhaps something very subtle
>>> at the bottom of the Tomcat description on the front page, "For
>>> distributions of Tomcat that contain Jakarta REST, Jakarta CDI,
>>> Jakarta Enterprise Beans (EJB) and similar specifications see Apache
>>> TomEE."
>> I guess the question would be "where is the best place to put this?" Does TomEE have versions that track Tomcat versions in any way? Or do you just use whatever version is "best at the time of packaging" or whatever?
>>
>> For example, relegating TomEE to the "download" page(s) would mean that someone would have to know they want to download a specific Tomcat version, then decide at the last second that they instead want TomEE. If you don't release new versions every month (ish, like we do), then we could easily get out of sync.
>
> It's a mix. Each TomEE major version will fix itself to a Tomcat major version.
>
> - TomEE 7 (Java EE 7) uses Tomcat 8.5
> - TomEE 8 (Java EE 8) uses Tomcat 9
> - TomEE 9 (Jakarta EE 9.x) uses Tomcat 10
>
> TomEE 9 is still in milestone, but should be released in a few months. We've been basing our version numbers on the Java EE / Jakarta EE spec number. For Tomcat 10.1, TomEE 10, Jakarta EE 10, they'll be pretty close and might possibly sync perfectly at 11 -- for a while at least.
>
> On release speed, we definitely don't keep up with Tomcat pace -- we're more once a quarter than once a month. As well it can take us many months longer to reach final as there's a lot more in the box to certify.
>
>> I'm thinking that maybe what we should do it put TomEE on the "Which version?" page (https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html). Below the grid of spec versions and associated Tomcat versions, we could put a heading which says something along the lines of "Jakarta Foo + Bar are packaged with TomEE" and just throw the user over to whatever page at TomEE makes the most sense.
>>
>> My only concern would be to properly inform users what is happening. I'm an Eclipse user and any time I have to download a new version from their web site I have to re-learn the differences between "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Java and DSL Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers" and I guess whatever the hell Thelia is, now.
>>
>> I wouldn't want anyone to inadvertently install TomEE if all they really want is Tomcat or "only" install Tomcat when they need the additional features and APIs that TomEE provides. Perhaps just a reference to here would be sufficient: https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html
>
> I'm open to what people think is the right. The whichversion.html page idea could be good.
>
> A nice thing about a heading on the whichversion.html page is that it's something we can link to in the tomcat.apache.org website, say "https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html#tomee" or something. When twitter polls like this happen we can paste the link and hopefully not see 50% of people saying "yes":
>
> - https://twitter.com/brunoborges/status/1507591056086343681
>
> There were several TomEE mentions there, but my experience is unless they see it mentioned on the Tomcat website they often perceive it skeptically as a competitive effort against Tomcat.
>
> Under the heading we could have a few sentences with a bit more detail on which specs (the most popular ones as the full list is large), perhaps the Tomcat to TomEE version mapping, and a link to the https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html page. Something brief, that's no bigger (ideally smaller) than the "Alpha / Beta / Stable" heading so as not to distract too much.
>
> If people are up for it, a very brief mention on the main page that links to the whichversion.html page would be effective. My gut is unless we put something there, most people won't see it and we'll likely only educate 5% or 10% of people who say "yes" to polls like one above.
>
>
> -David
>
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Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by David Blevins <da...@gmail.com>.
> On Mar 28, 2022, at 10:12 AM, Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> On 3/26/22 14:13, David Blevins wrote:
>> I've never had the bravery to ask
>
> Why the heck not?
Perhaps it's a Geronimo hangover, but I never wanted to risk creating a situation where people felt forced or inadvertently create conflict.
>
>> but would there be some willingness to consider adding a mention of
>> TomEE on the Tomcat website?
>
> I'm up for it. I can't imagine anyone on the Tomcat PMC would have any
> problem with this. Anyone?
>
>> Any sign of pushback and I'll happily drop -- it's far more important
>> to maintain good will, respect boundaries and keep things friendly.
>> If there was some warmness to the idea, perhaps something very subtle
>> at the bottom of the Tomcat description on the front page, "For
>> distributions of Tomcat that contain Jakarta REST, Jakarta CDI,
>> Jakarta Enterprise Beans (EJB) and similar specifications see Apache
>> TomEE."
> I guess the question would be "where is the best place to put this?" Does TomEE have versions that track Tomcat versions in any way? Or do you just use whatever version is "best at the time of packaging" or whatever?
>
> For example, relegating TomEE to the "download" page(s) would mean that someone would have to know they want to download a specific Tomcat version, then decide at the last second that they instead want TomEE. If you don't release new versions every month (ish, like we do), then we could easily get out of sync.
It's a mix. Each TomEE major version will fix itself to a Tomcat major version.
- TomEE 7 (Java EE 7) uses Tomcat 8.5
- TomEE 8 (Java EE 8) uses Tomcat 9
- TomEE 9 (Jakarta EE 9.x) uses Tomcat 10
TomEE 9 is still in milestone, but should be released in a few months. We've been basing our version numbers on the Java EE / Jakarta EE spec number. For Tomcat 10.1, TomEE 10, Jakarta EE 10, they'll be pretty close and might possibly sync perfectly at 11 -- for a while at least.
On release speed, we definitely don't keep up with Tomcat pace -- we're more once a quarter than once a month. As well it can take us many months longer to reach final as there's a lot more in the box to certify.
> I'm thinking that maybe what we should do it put TomEE on the "Which version?" page (https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html). Below the grid of spec versions and associated Tomcat versions, we could put a heading which says something along the lines of "Jakarta Foo + Bar are packaged with TomEE" and just throw the user over to whatever page at TomEE makes the most sense.
>
> My only concern would be to properly inform users what is happening. I'm an Eclipse user and any time I have to download a new version from their web site I have to re-learn the differences between "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Java and DSL Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers" and I guess whatever the hell Thelia is, now.
>
> I wouldn't want anyone to inadvertently install TomEE if all they really want is Tomcat or "only" install Tomcat when they need the additional features and APIs that TomEE provides. Perhaps just a reference to here would be sufficient: https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html
I'm open to what people think is the right. The whichversion.html page idea could be good.
A nice thing about a heading on the whichversion.html page is that it's something we can link to in the tomcat.apache.org website, say "https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html#tomee" or something. When twitter polls like this happen we can paste the link and hopefully not see 50% of people saying "yes":
- https://twitter.com/brunoborges/status/1507591056086343681
There were several TomEE mentions there, but my experience is unless they see it mentioned on the Tomcat website they often perceive it skeptically as a competitive effort against Tomcat.
Under the heading we could have a few sentences with a bit more detail on which specs (the most popular ones as the full list is large), perhaps the Tomcat to TomEE version mapping, and a link to the https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html page. Something brief, that's no bigger (ideally smaller) than the "Alpha / Beta / Stable" heading so as not to distract too much.
If people are up for it, a very brief mention on the main page that links to the whichversion.html page would be effective. My gut is unless we put something there, most people won't see it and we'll likely only educate 5% or 10% of people who say "yes" to polls like one above.
-David
Re: Potential mention on the website
Posted by Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>.
David,
On 3/26/22 14:13, David Blevins wrote:
> I've never had the bravery to ask
Why the heck not?
> but would there be some willingness to consider adding a mention of
> TomEE on the Tomcat website?
I'm up for it. I can't imagine anyone on the Tomcat PMC would have any
problem with this. Anyone?
> Any sign of pushback and I'll happily drop -- it's far more important
> to maintain good will, respect boundaries and keep things friendly.
> If there was some warmness to the idea, perhaps something very subtle
> at the bottom of the Tomcat description on the front page, "For
> distributions of Tomcat that contain Jakarta REST, Jakarta CDI,
> Jakarta Enterprise Beans (EJB) and similar specifications see Apache
> TomEE."
I guess the question would be "where is the best place to put this?"
Does TomEE have versions that track Tomcat versions in any way? Or do
you just use whatever version is "best at the time of packaging" or
whatever?
For example, relegating TomEE to the "download" page(s) would mean that
someone would have to know they want to download a specific Tomcat
version, then decide at the last second that they instead want TomEE. If
you don't release new versions every month (ish, like we do), then we
could easily get out of sync.
I'm thinking that maybe what we should do it put TomEE on the "Which
version?" page (https://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html). Below the
grid of spec versions and associated Tomcat versions, we could put a
heading which says something along the lines of "Jakarta Foo + Bar are
packaged with TomEE" and just throw the user over to whatever page at
TomEE makes the most sense.
My only concern would be to properly inform users what is happening. I'm
an Eclipse user and any time I have to download a new version from their
web site I have to re-learn the differences between "Eclipse IDE for
Java Developers" and "Eclipse IDE for Java and DSL Developers" and
"Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers" and I guess
whatever the hell Thelia is, now.
I wouldn't want anyone to inadvertently install TomEE if all they really
want is Tomcat or "only" install Tomcat when they need the additional
features and APIs that TomEE provides. Perhaps just a reference to here
would be sufficient: https://tomee.apache.org/comparison.html
-chris
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