future content of OpenJFX

Wed Feb 7 12:08:57 UTC 2018

Johan,

I actually enjoy reading your “business talk”.  It’s very enlightening.  I had no idea that the FX team was such a small band of gypsies.   In fact I’m shocked that such a large industry can be powered by such a small team and not realize it themselves.   

But how could they know?   I’m much closer this and care more than most and I didn’t know either.

The lessons I’m learning right now I’m trying to wrap my head around because this team may be representative of  most software teams everywhere.  

 How could so few do so much for all of humanity on so many different levels and yet the whole world hasn’t got a clue.   It deserves some thought.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 7, 2018, at 2:47 AM, Johan Vos <johan.vos at gluonhq.com> wrote:
> 
> While it's good to know who is interested in what areas, I think it's hard to create a list of interested or capable people as that depends on motivations.
> There are many developers who used to work on the JavaFX team who are now working elsewhere. That means there is plenty of knowledge and potential in the world. I don't see a problem there.
> 
> I hate to sound like a business-first person, but I think the question is rather how many business is there in JavaFX? We can all do some things in our spare time (and most of us do), but in the end moving the platform forward requires more than this. It requires people working full-time on it, hence being paid to do this.
> 
> Now, all indications show that there is a big interest in JavaFX. For example, we see the download numbers of Scene Builder still increasing (about 30K downloads/month). JavaFX is much more popular on Google Trends now than Swing. 
> 
> One of the main problems is that JavaFX is used in "hidden" areas (see http://gluonhq.com/javafx-hidden-economy/)
> If only 1% of the money spent by companies on JavaFX could be used to maintain the core, we would be in a good shape, I believe.
> 
> But moving back to "the future content": rather than guessing "I'ld like to have that" it would be interesting to know what companies want to pay for. The hard thing is then that most of the work on the OpenJFX core is beyond the surface of what companies see, so translating those business requirements into technical ones is not always trivial.
> 
> Enough business talk for now, back to development :)
> 
> - Johan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 1:24 AM Stephen Desofi <sdesofi at icloud.com> wrote:
>> +1
>> 
>> This makes sense.    Having a list of who might be willing to contribute and in what areas they are willing to contribute dictates where we can go.    As Rumsfeld once said "You go to war with the army have, not the one you want".
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> Sent from iCloud
>> 
>>> On Feb 06, 2018, at 06:41 AM, John-Val Rose <johnvalrose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>>> Maybe Kevin could request that anyone who is seriously both willing and capable to contribute to OpenJFX email him privately so that the list doesn’t get to “see” anyone who wants to fly under the radar.
>>> 
>>> Kevin could then post the approximate number of resources actually available.
>>> 
>>> I realise of course that some people may not wish to even let Kevin know of their interest and availability initially but at least we would have a ballpark figure as to the size of the “talent pool”.
>>> 
>>> I think we need to have some handle on this number before any significant set-up work is undertaken (just in case the number is only 2 or 3 for example instead of 20 or so).
>>> 
>>>> On 6 Feb 2018, at 22:12, Stephen Desofi <sdesofi at icloud.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> A poll would definitely be useful because we may find ourselves another subset.
>>>> 
>>>> The subset of people who even want to go “off road” to begin with. Most people only consider going places where the road already leads—and that might be about 99%.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>> 
>>>>> On Feb 5, 2018, at 11:14 PM, John-Val Rose <johnvalrose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think there’s a small matter that is being overlooked here.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The size of the “talent pool”.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m just pulling numbers out of thin air here but first I’m guessing that the vast majority of JavaFX users do *not* read this list.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Then, out of those who do, only some *care* enough to contribute.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Out of those, only some are *competent* enough to contribute.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And then, out of that much smaller set, only an even smaller subset are in a situation that *permits* them to contribute, either because they have well-paid jobs and a bit of spare time or they really need a feature added for their own use.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Given that I don’t know what the “starting” number is (the total number of JavaFX users) and neither do I know what fraction to apply to each smaller subset, the end result (the talent pool) is potentially only a handful of people.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m simply mentioning this because in every discussion we have here regarding innovation, community participation or plans for new features, it looks like the same group of people get involved - and it’s not exactly a “crowd”.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Does this mean that we don’t have a “critical mass” or is it possible that there are lots and lots of “observers” or “lurkers” out there just waiting until all the hard work of setting-up the physical and formal infrastructure to enable community contribution has been finalised before they’ll put their hands up?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Maybe we could take a poll to see how many members of the community would be willing AND able to contribute, knowing that they may not necessarily end up working on features they are interested in AND who are prepared for their contribution itself & the value it adds to JavaFX to be their only tangible reward?
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 6 Feb 2018, at 11:23, Stephen Desofi <sdesofi at icloud.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi Johan,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I read the article you linked to (http://www.tomitribe.com/blog/2013/11/feed-the-fish/) and it raises some very good points indeed.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I also spent a little time thinking over your list of interests:
>> 
>>>>>> * more alignment with mobile
>> 
>>>>>> * a clean and lean low-level rendering pipeline API that would allow easier
>>>>>> plugability with upcoming low-level rendering systems
>>>>>> * extensions for Chart API
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Those would be high on my list as well, but there is something else I'd like to throw into the equation.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If somebody can contribute money to fund the development of their wishlist, fine, that's the easy part, but asking people to contribute time is a bit more complicated. For example, I may want "more alignment with mobile", but I may be better qualified to contribute "extensions for the Chart API" even though that isn't my primary motivator.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Often the reason we want something is because we haven't the skills to do it ourself, but we have skills to do other things. How can situations such as this be factored into the equation? It seems like we need a way to "trade".
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Steve
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from iCloud
>>>>>> 
>> 
>>>>>> On Feb 05, 2018, at 12:07 PM, Johan Vos <johan.vos at gluonhq.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In order to separate the "What" from the "How" (discussed in another
>>>>>> thread), I would like to start a discussion about what people think should
>>>>>> be considered for future JavaFX work.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'd like to start with what I think is an important note on the context.
>>>>>> If I want feature X in JavaFX, I ask myself two questions:
>>>>>> 1. Do I want to contribute time and do it (at least for a large part)
>>>>>> myself?
>>>>>> 2. Do I want to spend money on it?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If that sounds too economic or commercial, I recommend reading the
>>>>>> excellent blog entry by David Blevins about funding Java EE development
>>>>>> (more than 4 years old and still very relevant):
>>>>>> http://www.tomitribe.com/blog/2013/11/feed-the-fish/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Actually, this is a model we've been using at Gluon for a number of
>>>>>> customers. When people ask us about a specific feature, we ask if they are
>>>>>> willing to pay us for the development, AND if they are ok with us donating
>>>>>> it back to an open-source initiative (e.g. OpenJFX, but also ControlsFX,
>>>>>> JavaFXports, Gluon Charm Down, Gluon Maps,...).
>>>>>> As a consequence, the features we are working on are all relevant to (at
>>>>>> least a part of) the industry. Some companies doubt there is business value
>>>>>> in JavaFX, we prove the opposite while making the Open Source community
>>>>>> better.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think by now it should be clear to all that there is no free lunch
>>>>>> (anymore). If your business depends on a feature being added to JavaFX, how
>>>>>> much (time/money) are you willing to contribute? If the answer is
>>>>>> "nothing", you can still hope that others want to do it, and in many cases
>>>>>> that will eventually happen -- but you don't control the timeline.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> This principle is a bit a simplification though. In many practical cases,
>>>>>> people want to have feature X and are willing to contribute "something"
>>>>>> (e.g. they want to work on it in spare-time, or fund 20% of a developer)
>>>>>> but not enough to do everything.
>>>>>> I think in this case it's a matter of gathering enough interest in this
>>>>>> community. Once enough developers are interested in that same feature, and
>>>>>> agree to spend resources on it, the burden can be shared. Having a sandbox
>>>>>> repositories with forks will make this easier.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Areas that I personally want to see on the roadmap:
>>>>>> * more alignment with mobile
>>>>>> * a clean and lean low-level rendering pipeline API that would allow easier
>>>>>> plugability with upcoming low-level rendering systems
>>>>>> * extensions for Chart API
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> - Johan
>>>>>> 