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Re: Directions and Copyright [was Ozone Doc Project]
At 04:22 PM 6/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
Hi Eric,
I see there are some questions in the air, as to where Ozone is, where it
is going, what's its target use and users. I've personnally been looking at
Ozone for at least six months. I chose to get involved with Ozone because
it seems to me like the most promising java OODMS - oups, sorry, "Object
Server"...- out there. And I have been around:
-http://www.xl2.net
-http://www.ispras.ru/~knizhnik/goods.html
-http://www.db4o.com/
-http://www.w3apps.com/
-etc.
Mine you, all of the above are not open-source even (I think only xl2 is).
For starters, as far as Ozone is concerned, I think a good documentation
base will really do great things for Ozone - it will get more people
involved, it will provide answers to those who are reluctant to use Ozone -
and open-source in general - because of lack of information. I think this
the primary obstacle (not performance, not quality, people do not question
that anymore, I think).
Once the doc base is there, Ozone will stop being a hackers/geek -only
thing (oups, do not want to hurt anyone here, I am just talking about
general perception), we will be able to talk openly and loudly about Ozone.
I mean, writing articles in web publications (i.e.: Javaworld), advertise
ourselves has Ozone consultants-specialists and what have you. People will
get curious, come to Ozone's site, see that it's documented, alive; they
will download, try it, and love it. Have you seen Jason Hunter going (the
servlet guy)? Or Brett McLauglin (the XML guy)? These guys are salesmen,
I'm telling you; they're all over (JDOM, Apache Turbine project, etc.).
And have you seen http://www.zope.org? What a well done, well documented
(they are working on it but is very good any way), well lead, well
everything project. The product is the most original thing on web dev side
of things today - BTW, it uses its own Object storage facility, what they
call ZODB. And it's open-source, people contribute not only to Zope's code
base, but also to Zope's product offerings - people build their Zope apps
and post them on Zope's web site. One thing that makes Zope so visible is
that it has its own web development environment, so you actually build your
app - or what they call a Zope product - in the browser, and it lends
itself well to build user interfaces; so Zope products are very visual by
nature, which is good for publicity right? An image is worth...
Hey, I was not doing a sales pitch for Zope, whose object-storage
philosophy I am not totally fond of, and that uses Python as its
programming language. Although I like Python a lot, I prefer Java - a
strongly-typed language - for back-end development. And I think Ozone lends
itself better to more hardcore, back-end oriented apps (OK C++ fanatics,
who am I to talk about back-end and hardcore programming...?) . I like
Ozone; definitely, I can feel something here.
Yanick.
>Falko Braeutigam wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 05 Jun 2001, Per Nyfelt wrote:
> > >
> > > Lets sync our different suggestions. I just put what i did in
> > > CVS src/howto/ozone-documentation-howto.xml and also a licence text as
> > > src/howto/ozone-documentation-licence.xml. I saw some problems that i
> tried
> > > to solve in this suggestion. As far as i can tell there is no legal body
> > > that holds Ozone copyright other than SMB so I put SMB as the copyright
> > > holder for the document and propose we do the same for everything else
> > > coming, that is if SMB agrees ;)
> >
> > SMB just holds the copyright for 'the initial code and portions created by
> > SMB'. So everybody is free to add his/her copyright to modified files
> and/or
> > put his/her copyright on top of newly created files. At least this
> was/is my
> > understanding from how (L)GPLed code should be handled.
> >
> > Another, maybe better, possibilitity to handle the copyright problem ist to
> > finally switch to a BSD-style license and make 'The Ozone Project' the
> > copyright holder. The problem here might be that 'The Ozone Project' ist no
> > legal entity. And, it's not sure if ozone is big enough to benefit from
> a BSD
> > (maybe Apache) license and what's the benefit of the different licenses
> anyway.
> >
> > That said, personally currently I would prefer a BSD-style license but, in
> > contrast to Apache, oblique people/projects/products that use ozone to give
> > prominent notice that they do. So we would no longer focus on
> protecting the
> > code (GPL) but from now on focus on popularising our name 'ozone' and
> benefit
> > only from that.
> >
> > Ideas?
> >
> > Falko
> >
> > > Another possibility would be to use the GNU
> > > documentation licence. As you'll see this is a very rough and thin
> draft but
> > > i hope we can merge our versions and maybe spawn off some good
> discussion in
> > > the process :)
>
>This might be a good idea.
>
>I'd first like to say that I think the fact that people are interested
>in documenting and making tools to make development and maintenance of
>Ozone easier and better is great and a compliment to the development
>team to date. As such, I really think there needs to be a plan for the
>future of the product. Even though the product is open source, it still
>has the same basics of any product. It needs to fit a need, carve out a
>market, and have enthusiasm for users and developers. It could have
>corporate sponsorship, users, etc as well.
>
>The reason I pointed out the Poet/FastObjects.com product as this was a
>product that I considered using for the basis of Personal Java or other
>embedded type Object storage based applications.
>
>I personally like the GNU GPL license and I think in the Linux Kernel
>Linus says that eventhough it is GPL, people can build on top of it. As
>I'm not an expert, RMS says that GPL is preferred over LGPL. Anyway, GPL
>might not be best for Ozone but it might be fine. Certainly using an API
>to build a product on top of it is different to just taking the code and
>doing whatever with it as in BSD license case. I can't say from my
>limited knowledge which approach is best.
>
>I do know that making Ozone world class is a good thing to do. How do we
>do this?
>
>Here are a few questions that if answered could form a statement of
>direction, goals, and principles for Ozone that are probably critical
>for the future of Ozone.
>
>What are the target uses of Ozone?
>
>What is the scalability?
>
>How well are the code dependencies designed?
>
>This is in reference to what Java platforms or profiles are targeted.
>The first J2ME versions such as KVM didn't support Serialization and as
>such would support standard RMI. They are also weak on the math front.
>
>In this case I'm trying to get at the basic footprint of Ozone.
>
>What is the client footprint of ozone, Local Objectbase server
>footprint? Could it run on KVM on the Palm?
>
>This says what size of RAM/ROM needed to support the libs.
>
>The modules for Ozone is a great idea. The pluggable or semi-pluggable(I
>don't have enough knowledge) storage engine is great as this can
>increase the dynamic range or scalability of the product.
>
>I went to a talk were they said how the fact that MySQL is designed so
>the storage mechanism is independent of the API has allowed a commercial
>storage engine to be plugged in.
>
>I know this is just a bunch of partially formed ideas. I do think that
>the better we can communicate and document what we are trying to do can
>go a long way.
>
>To wrap up, I had a couple of suggestions for a name. I have no idea how
>these things would translate to German.
>
>Ozone Persistent Object Storage System. aka Ozone POSS Slogan: Consider
>the POSSibilities.
>
>Ozone Persistent Object System Environment aka Ozone Pose.
>
>Object could be Objectbase above. These are in contrast to Object
>Database Management System(ODBMS). Of course we had the Objectbase,
>Database discussions earlier so you know my opinion that we are not
>storing data but we are storing objects.
>
>Pose has two possible meanings in English that are both the first
>definitions. (1)If the person has pose, then they have grace, style even
>under pressure. (2)A person can pose for a picture. in (1) above the
>dictionary says that the origin is French. The definition: pose \'poz\
>with a - over the top of the 'o'. 1a. to put or set in place -- this
>sounds alot like persistence. Also the word is usually used for
>"artistic purposes".
>
>I like the second one(pose), meaning (1) better. The design of storage
>without intrusion, just as a normal Java object seems to be one of the
>major design goals. The word environment means we can create
>deployment, development, and management tools for the system.
>
>
>Anyway, hope this is what was meant by 'Ideas?' above.
>
>Regards,
>Eric