future content of OpenJFX

Wed Feb 7 12:33:26 UTC 2018

It's off-topic but very relevant and indeed representative for many
projects.
Remember heartbleed? Almost the whole IT industry depends on OpenSSL yet
didn't fund it.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/18/technology/security/heartbleed-volunteers/

It it not easy to get funding for fundamental core technologies that
empower more visual but less critical technologies.

- Johan

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 1:09 PM Stephen Desofi <sdesofi at icloud.com> wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>>