You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to general@jakarta.apache.org by "Andrew C. Oliver" <ac...@apache.org> on 2003/03/05 02:32:26 UTC
answer to Howard or State of the POI (WAS: Re: Jakarta-POI 1.10.0-dev
released)
This is going to be another one of my long answers to a short question...
I don't really attempt to measure this. It would be trivial to measure
the number of downloads from the access logs; however, I prefer to
mesure it subjectively.
Note that its documented on the Jakarta site that Opensource is not
about units shipped. I'd look up the page but I'm sure that if I don't
someone will do it for me so why bother.
== Start with Community aspects ==
We have an active and vibrant community which has improved the lives of
most of the project's members. Especially career-wise and financially.
We all work pretty well together and POI is devoid of the antipathy that
pervades other projects. We make decisions by concensus, but do not
seek the granularity of decision-making on other projects or projectless
mailing lists (in my view peanut galleries). All members feel free to
express dissent, but there isn't a great deal. Not saying its perfect,
but that its not held up.
We do have a bandwidth problem. Most members have real jobs and don't
get as much time to contribute as we'd like. There is also a
significant barrier to enter the community. Its like actually hard and
stuff. There are other projects with steep learning curves but
generally they are knowlege of a relatively well known technology.
Cocoon for instance just requires you to learn all about XML and Avalon,
and I do mean ALL about XML. However, POI requires you to understand
hexidecimal math and know how to use diff and investigate hex dumps.
This has frustrated some potentially contributing users, but in truth
we're not really so interested in helping folks who don't wish to help
themselves or POI (remember the bandwidth problem) or at least not for
free (too much like work). This keeps our community small, but also
serves as a natural QA control of sorts (snobby I know but it does).
However there are enough folks who wander in and say "Reading Hex dumps
is for me! Thats FUN!" so we grow...just slower than other projects.
Our attrition or partial attrition mostly happens due to the projects
tendency to cause excessive employment to its most active contributers.
I'm happy to say we've never lost anyone due to other factors so far.
== Next with my personal measures ==
First, POI attacts mail from some of the largest banks in the word,
financial institutions, governments, millitary institutions, nuclear
power plants, etc. There is even a large Apache backer flirting with
the idea of using it (while its irrelevant to me whether they do or not,
it is relevant that they are considering it).
Next, I measure the success of it by two other things: Microsoft's
flirting with open file formats (I'm sure it will be "open" in that
Microsoft sort of way) and the final crux will be the day this
http://www.tidestone.com/index.jsp goes out of business. The first clue
to eventual success is that Tidestone has re-emerged as a seperate
business entity instead of just a redirect to a page on Actuate's site.
The second is that they have lowered the price from 15k per processor to
5,000k per server (I'm sure there is a big astericks)
http://www.tidestone.com/pricing/index.jsp. This is after an extensive
advertising campaign including full page adds in Dr. Dobbs. This is
despite some functionality that we do not yet have.
My final measure is how much money I'm making and how many other POI
developers I'm able to cut in on it. Thus far (this year) I'm able to
derive 35% of my income from opensource efforts (a percentage which is
up about 800% from last year). I suppose all of those are directly or
indirectly related to POI. I'll undoubtably be flamed for this unique
viewpoint, but its a measure which I find important. I've managed to
pass on some of this work to two other POI committers thus far. (no one
bother writing me offering to do this work, I only pass this work on to
contributers to the project)
So to me how many people are using POI and not contributing to the
project in any way is totally irrelevant. I measure it in actual
benefit to myself and the other contributers. To me any other mesure is
trivial.
I know thats not what you want, but I hope it helps.
-Andy
Howard M. Lewis Ship wrote:
>Woops --- that was supposed to be private. But advice is still welcome.
>
>--
>Howard M. Lewis Ship
>Creator, Tapestry: Java Web Components
>http://jakarta.apache.org/proposals/tapestry
>
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Howard M. Lewis Ship [mailto:hlship@attbi.com]
>>Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 6:42 PM
>>To: 'Jakarta General List'
>>Subject: RE: Jakarta-POI 1.10.0-dev released
>>
>>
>>I'm looking for a bit of advice.
>>
>>People keep asking me "how many people are using Tapestry"
>>... and I honestly have no idea. Insufficient feedback.
>>
>>Do you have a way of determining the user base of POI? Any
>>guidelines based on downloads?
>>
>>--
>>Howard M. Lewis Ship
>>Creator, Tapestry: Java Web Components
>>http://jakarta.apache.org/proposals/tapestry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org
RANT: Licensing, Business models and success metrics (was Re: answer
to Howard or State of the POI )
Posted by Santiago Gala <sg...@hisitech.com>.
Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> This is going to be another one of my long answers to a short question...
>
Good! (I crosspost to community. I think it really belongs there ;-)
Some context:
Howard M. Lewis Ship asked about Tapestry/POI usage:
> People keep asking me "how many people are using Tapestry"
>> ... and I honestly have no idea. Insufficient feedback.
>>
>> Do you have a way of determining the user base of POI? Any
>> guidelines based on downloads?
>>
>>
Andy answers:
> I don't really attempt to measure this. It would be trivial to measure
> the number of downloads from the access logs; however, I prefer to
> mesure it subjectively.
> Note that its documented on the Jakarta site that Opensource is not
> about units shipped. I'd look up the page but I'm sure that if I don't
> someone will do it for me so why bother.
>
Specifically in server side applications. For instance, as Andy hints in
my next quote, a single download from a intranet server in a big
corporation can lead to tens of thousands of (unsuspecting) users.
(...big snip, not that I don't like it, but please read it in the archives)
> First, POI attacts mail from some of the largest banks in the word,
> financial institutions, governments, millitary institutions, nuclear
> power plants, etc. There is even a large Apache backer flirting with
> the idea of using it (while its irrelevant to me whether they do or not,
> it is relevant that they are considering it).
>
> Next, I measure the success of it by two other things: Microsoft's
> flirting with open file formats (I'm sure it will be "open" in that
> Microsoft sort of way) and the final crux will be the day this
> http://www.tidestone.com/index.jsp goes out of business. The first clue
> to eventual success is that Tidestone has re-emerged as a seperate
> business entity instead of just a redirect to a page on Actuate's site.
> The second is that they have lowered the price from 15k per processor to
> 5,000k per server (I'm sure there is a big astericks)
> http://www.tidestone.com/pricing/index.jsp. This is after an extensive
> advertising campaign including full page adds in Dr. Dobbs. This is
> despite some functionality that we do not yet have.
>
I don't agree that it is a good metrics, since it's a crisis situation
and a lot of other factors could be involved into pricing (product life
cycle, etc.). Also, we are not trying to make anybody unhappy, that
would be (at most) a side effect of our approach being successful. But
the post goes on:
> My final measure is how much money I'm making and how many other POI
> developers I'm able to cut in on it. Thus far (this year) I'm able to
> derive 35% of my income from opensource efforts (a percentage which is
> up about 800% from last year). I suppose all of those are directly or
> indirectly related to POI. I'll undoubtably be flamed for this unique
> viewpoint, but its a measure which I find important. I've managed to
> pass on some of this work to two other POI committers thus far. (no one
> bother writing me offering to do this work, I only pass this work on to
> contributers to the project)
>
> So to me how many people are using POI and not contributing to the
> project in any way is totally irrelevant. I measure it in actual
> benefit to myself and the other contributers. To me any other mesure is
> trivial.
>
This is the point I think merits further exposure/discussion. I'm not
going to flame Andy on this, since I fully agree with it. If we cannot
extract actual benefits from our involvement in Apache projects, the
projects will not work/scale well.
Each and everyone involved in Apache projects should benefit in terms of:
* better career opportunities
* being better known in the industry
* having better tools in our daily work toolset
* higher productivity in integration
* knowing where technology is moving
* __fill more here__
The Apache licensing model is oriented towards consultancy/system
integration rather than product sales. This is in opposition to other
licensing schemes like GNU:
* If you hold the copyright of a GNU licensed stuff, you can re-license
it as closed source (a lot of GNU-licensed projects are doing this, see
Aladdin or Transvirtual with ghostscript and kaffe)
* If you hold the copyright of an Apache, BSD or Artistic licensed
stuff, it is far more difficult to do this, because everybody is free to
do the same.
This introduces an asymmetry I don't like WRT GNU licensed projects: the
person transferring copyright looses rights WRT the person holding it. I
don't critizise this approach with the FSF proper, but I don't like, for
instance, kaffe benefiting from my patch and I being unable to benefit
in the same way.
Thus, I find that people doing system integration and consultancy, both
in big and small companies will naturally prefer Apache-like licenses:
* you don't need to care about your customer wanting closed
modifications, as they can do them --> less overhead
* you don't need to care if your customer wants to redistribute the
output --> less overhead
* if you happen to find a niche where closed source or just integration
with closed source makes sense, you can do it
This, IMO, is one of the big "assets" and branding elements of the ASF
(together with quality). YMMV applies here.
Some people will find that this would enable commercial companies to
"cheat", by keeping their patches private. It doesn't work in the long term:
* Open "variant" evolves faster, so maintenance of patches is a
nightmare (Brian has an interesting essay on this (look for software as
a liability), I know this from my fingers :-) ).
* Private extensions/functionality requires inmense ammounts of money to
get people to know about it and use new APIs, while exposing a public
API and a RI in Apache can give this with far less investment
* Open knowledge flows ordins of magnitude faster than closed knowledge
Conclusions? not many:
* Community success is community (user and developer) benefit, not
downloads or size. This is what stroke me of Andy's post
* I find Apache licenses to make us "freer" than free software, removing
significant business opportunities from our portfolio
* I like being a small part of such a big movement.
(...)
Regards,
Santiago
P.S.) You know I'm in flux when I nest parenthesis in my writings
(inheritance of my LISP past, I noticed re-reading this rant) ;-) BTW, I
don't know if it is legal to do this in natural languages.
P.P.S) It's not polished, but I *needed* to express this. It's just what
I think, and I *don't* want a licensing flame war.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscribe@apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: community-help@apache.org
RANT: Licensing, Business models and success metrics (was Re: answer
to Howard or State of the POI )
Posted by Santiago Gala <sg...@hisitech.com>.
Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> This is going to be another one of my long answers to a short question...
>
Good! (I crosspost to community. I think it really belongs there ;-)
Some context:
Howard M. Lewis Ship asked about Tapestry/POI usage:
> People keep asking me "how many people are using Tapestry"
>> ... and I honestly have no idea. Insufficient feedback.
>>
>> Do you have a way of determining the user base of POI? Any
>> guidelines based on downloads?
>>
>>
Andy answers:
> I don't really attempt to measure this. It would be trivial to measure
> the number of downloads from the access logs; however, I prefer to
> mesure it subjectively.
> Note that its documented on the Jakarta site that Opensource is not
> about units shipped. I'd look up the page but I'm sure that if I don't
> someone will do it for me so why bother.
>
Specifically in server side applications. For instance, as Andy hints in
my next quote, a single download from a intranet server in a big
corporation can lead to tens of thousands of (unsuspecting) users.
(...big snip, not that I don't like it, but please read it in the archives)
> First, POI attacts mail from some of the largest banks in the word,
> financial institutions, governments, millitary institutions, nuclear
> power plants, etc. There is even a large Apache backer flirting with
> the idea of using it (while its irrelevant to me whether they do or not,
> it is relevant that they are considering it).
>
> Next, I measure the success of it by two other things: Microsoft's
> flirting with open file formats (I'm sure it will be "open" in that
> Microsoft sort of way) and the final crux will be the day this
> http://www.tidestone.com/index.jsp goes out of business. The first clue
> to eventual success is that Tidestone has re-emerged as a seperate
> business entity instead of just a redirect to a page on Actuate's site.
> The second is that they have lowered the price from 15k per processor to
> 5,000k per server (I'm sure there is a big astericks)
> http://www.tidestone.com/pricing/index.jsp. This is after an extensive
> advertising campaign including full page adds in Dr. Dobbs. This is
> despite some functionality that we do not yet have.
>
I don't agree that it is a good metrics, since it's a crisis situation
and a lot of other factors could be involved into pricing (product life
cycle, etc.). Also, we are not trying to make anybody unhappy, that
would be (at most) a side effect of our approach being successful. But
the post goes on:
> My final measure is how much money I'm making and how many other POI
> developers I'm able to cut in on it. Thus far (this year) I'm able to
> derive 35% of my income from opensource efforts (a percentage which is
> up about 800% from last year). I suppose all of those are directly or
> indirectly related to POI. I'll undoubtably be flamed for this unique
> viewpoint, but its a measure which I find important. I've managed to
> pass on some of this work to two other POI committers thus far. (no one
> bother writing me offering to do this work, I only pass this work on to
> contributers to the project)
>
> So to me how many people are using POI and not contributing to the
> project in any way is totally irrelevant. I measure it in actual
> benefit to myself and the other contributers. To me any other mesure is
> trivial.
>
This is the point I think merits further exposure/discussion. I'm not
going to flame Andy on this, since I fully agree with it. If we cannot
extract actual benefits from our involvement in Apache projects, the
projects will not work/scale well.
Each and everyone involved in Apache projects should benefit in terms of:
* better career opportunities
* being better known in the industry
* having better tools in our daily work toolset
* higher productivity in integration
* knowing where technology is moving
* __fill more here__
The Apache licensing model is oriented towards consultancy/system
integration rather than product sales. This is in opposition to other
licensing schemes like GNU:
* If you hold the copyright of a GNU licensed stuff, you can re-license
it as closed source (a lot of GNU-licensed projects are doing this, see
Aladdin or Transvirtual with ghostscript and kaffe)
* If you hold the copyright of an Apache, BSD or Artistic licensed
stuff, it is far more difficult to do this, because everybody is free to
do the same.
This introduces an asymmetry I don't like WRT GNU licensed projects: the
person transferring copyright looses rights WRT the person holding it. I
don't critizise this approach with the FSF proper, but I don't like, for
instance, kaffe benefiting from my patch and I being unable to benefit
in the same way.
Thus, I find that people doing system integration and consultancy, both
in big and small companies will naturally prefer Apache-like licenses:
* you don't need to care about your customer wanting closed
modifications, as they can do them --> less overhead
* you don't need to care if your customer wants to redistribute the
output --> less overhead
* if you happen to find a niche where closed source or just integration
with closed source makes sense, you can do it
This, IMO, is one of the big "assets" and branding elements of the ASF
(together with quality). YMMV applies here.
Some people will find that this would enable commercial companies to
"cheat", by keeping their patches private. It doesn't work in the long term:
* Open "variant" evolves faster, so maintenance of patches is a
nightmare (Brian has an interesting essay on this (look for software as
a liability), I know this from my fingers :-) ).
* Private extensions/functionality requires inmense ammounts of money to
get people to know about it and use new APIs, while exposing a public
API and a RI in Apache can give this with far less investment
* Open knowledge flows ordins of magnitude faster than closed knowledge
Conclusions? not many:
* Community success is community (user and developer) benefit, not
downloads or size. This is what stroke me of Andy's post
* I find Apache licenses to make us "freer" than free software, removing
significant business opportunities from our portfolio
* I like being a small part of such a big movement.
(...)
Regards,
Santiago
P.S.) You know I'm in flux when I nest parenthesis in my writings
(inheritance of my LISP past, I noticed re-reading this rant) ;-) BTW, I
don't know if it is legal to do this in natural languages.
P.P.S) It's not polished, but I *needed* to express this. It's just what
I think, and I *don't* want a licensing flame war.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org