Talk about OPENJFX's future

[Kevin Rushforth]

I note that this isn't really the right forum for discussing the cost or 
support model of JavaFX, but since the question has come up, I'll add my 
2 cents.

The notion of requiring commercial vendors to pay to use the latest 
feature release of JavaFX is impractical at best. As a community-driven 
open-source project, one can take the sources and produce binaries from 
the openjfx repo that can be distributed for free, so if someone started 
charging for binaries built from those same sources, there would be no 
incentive for anyone to buy them.

That leaves a support-based model, which seems more workable anyway. In 
this model, using the JavaFX libraries would remain free, but 
application vendors could pay for support from a commercial vendor 
willing to offer it.

-- Kevin


On 9/21/2018 9:51 AM, javafx at use.startmail.com wrote:
> Well a technical enforcement mechanism is impractical, it's true. What 
> would be involved is a commercial license- an electronic thing like 
> the agreement you clicked on when you downloaded the JDK from Oracle. 
> For people using it commercially, you just make a payment through the 
> usual payment processors. It's more or less an honor thing, right, but 
> we're an honorable lot, LOL.
>
> I buy my IDE. I buy other tools. That's all so I can use JavaFX. It 
> makes no economic sense to think this manna is always going to just 
> fall from heaven. Let's just all pony up and put our own futures on a 
> financially secure footing. For us, it creates a huge amount of FUD 
> watching this technology stagger around  from Sun to Oracle to 
> somewhere else because , financially, it is not perceived to  pay for 
> its own development effort
>
> If you need an enforcement mechanism then you could require that your 
> license GUID / license acknowledgment appear in your application along 
> with other such legal announcements. So that would be a 
> public-shame-based enforcement mechanism.
> We have corporations, schools, research institutes, ISVs who would not 
> miss 50 bucks a year and it would mean everything to JavaFX.
>
> Disregarding what each of us may think what OTHER people might think, 
> does anyone seriously personally object  to some lightweight  scheme 
> like this? I mean you personally- are you offended and likely to look 
> for an alternative on account of it? Serious question, not rhetoric 
> (email nukes nuances LOL).
>
> I would feel good about it. I would be more involved, feel like I have 
> an ownership stake and if the resultant cash flow means we can hire 
> (back) some talent and ease the burden on what devs are left, then we 
> all benefit from fewer bugs and more features, which is what we all 
> want and where real money ultimately comes from, right?
>
>
>
>
>
> Suggested donations have a less than 1% "compliance" rate.
> On Friday, September 21, 2018 at 12:13 PM, Scott Palmer 
> <swpalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I would focus on bug-free functionality and *performance* over new 
>> features.  Layout and CSS issues still seem to have a significant 
>> drag on JavaFX rendering.
>>
>> Much of the new features I want are somewhat motivated by performance 
>> anyway. E.g. getting native window handles… to handle performance 
>> issues with 3D and video overlays.
>>
>> I think #2, while cheap, will severely harm JavaFX adoption just from 
>> the added nuisance alone.  Is there a precedent where this has worked 
>> out?
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Scott
>>
>>> On Sep 21, 2018, at 12:04 PM, javafx at use.startmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Two items  for us
>>>
>>> 1) focus on bug-free functionality over new features.
>>> 2) require a U.S. $50.00 a year fee per corporate entity for 
>>> commercial application usage. This is very reasonable and  would 
>>> finally secure JavaFX's future as a development platform.
>>>
>>> I feel without 2) above we will find ourselves wandering around 
>>> cyberspace hoping for a benefactor or the charity of volunteers and 
>>> their spare time.
>>>
>>> hth.
>>>
>>> On Friday, September 21, 2018 at 5:52 AM, John-Val Rose 
>>> <johnvalrose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That video is typical marketing “smoke and mirrors”.
>>>> With no access to the code of either app, it is simply unfair and 
>>>> disingenuous to claim a performance advantage.
>>>> I am certain I could post an almost identical comparison video 
>>>> where the results would be the complete opposite.
>>>> Yeah, good programmers can write slow code (especially if you have 
>>>> a motive)...
>>>> On 21 Sep 2018, at 19:29, Johan Vos <johan.vos at gluonhq.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> We can't defeat QT in performance, but we can defeat it at 
>>>>>> applicability
>>>>>> and just don't get too far behind QT in performance. (bad example
>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh6K-yEp_JY)
>>>>>>
>>>>> That video demonstrates the creator has absolutely no development 
>>>>> skills in
>>>>> Java, or he intentionally misleads the viewer. I leave it to the 
>>>>> reader to
>>>>> judge what would be worst.
>>>>> I am not going to make performance statements without numbers, but 
>>>>> my first
>>>>> observations using JavaFX 11 with the Bellsoft Liberica VM are very
>>>>> encouraging (see 
>>>>> https://gluonhq.com/javafx-11-early-access-on-embedded/)
>>>>> - Johan