Thursday, June 26, 2003
Necromedia: bringing dead software to life...
Macromedia have had plenty of opportunity to turn the whole Spectra debarcle around and give the source to the community at large. Two years ago I would have been jumping for joy. One year ago I would have been excited by the prospect of reforging Spectra anew with CFMX. But now I'm scratching my head -- who really cares??
Too little, way too late.
Don't get me wrong, Daemon built one of the largest Spectra portfolios in the world. The logos for Roche, Compaq, Accenture (then Andersen Consulting) and many more were from our accounts. No mean feat for a bunch of crocodile wrestlers in the small colonial backwater of Australia -- Crikey! We loved the product.
Given the number of Spectra clients we continue to support, there's no doubt we're interested to see what will happen. Certainly, I'm happy that we won't have to dance around the ludicrous issues of Spectra server licensing. Oh and I guess it means we can write an install guide for Spectra 1.5.2 that finally gets rid of the tantric-voodoo rituals -- too much pig-grease, chooks-blood for my liking.
But without some kind of community support, opensource projects just die in the ass. Spectra barely survives "community wise" as it is (picture an iron lung and lots of tubes). And it appears Macromedia will not be providing any funding or resourcing to nurture the open source community (picture the lung being switched off).
Spectra is now two years dead. If open source development is going to apply 1.21 gigawatts of power needed to bring Spectra back to life it needs:
- benevolent dictatorship
- knowledgable project drivers
- strict code management
- some sort of infrastructure
Hell, a sourceforge subdomain would be better than nothing. But without benevolent dictatorship the Spectra source will simply fragment into the projects that are left and be no more.
I don't mean to be unkind -- but Macromedia just don't get the open source community. You can't throw the stuff out there into the ether and expect a dinosaur to survive in the modern world.
Here are the basics we've picked up from our own open source project:
- develop trust with developers (eek)
- show that there is activity, energy & passion (yikes)
- provide active leadership for change (ow)
- listen but don't compromise (oops)
Are there any Spectra-hacks left out there who feel ready to step up to the plate?? Most are already leading other communities elsewhere...
Posted by modius at 02:57 PM | Permalink
Trackback: http://blog.daemon.com.au/cgi-bin/dmblog/mt-tb.cgi/140
While I think that Macromedia's decision is great, I have to generally agree with Geoff's comments. The community has seen Spectra dying slowly for two years. Despite that fact, my employer also still supports several large projects - I'm working on a NEW Spectra project as I type, in fact.
To move forward:
* Macromedia needs to be an active and driving participant in the ongoing development of Spectra as an open source solution.
* The project needs proper and skilled management and leadership, who have time to dedicate to the project (more fool Macromedia for ditching Ray Camden).
* The codebase needs skilled and structured management a la SourceForge.
* Enough people need to care (I think this opportunity has passed).
I'd be delighted to manage this stuff going forward, having worked with the product since version 1.0, but I already work 45-50 hours/week on other stuff, and I don't have ready access to cloning technology.
On many of the projects I work, the clients have very complicated document management and workflow requirements, with a multitude of document types being managed, and being published to several web sites (inter-, extra and intranet from the same CODB). I don't think there's a product out there (including FarCry, which I like A LOT), which we can customise as deeply as Spectra.
If Macromedia want to come up with the goods, Spectra can be the product it always promised to be. If not, it will go the way of Allaire Forums (you all remember Forums, don't you?)
Posted by: Steve Collins on June 26, 2003 03:08 PM
Hopefully, Sitespring won't die the long, lingering death that Spectra did!
Posted by: Mike on June 26, 2003 04:23 PM
And the Forums were a great product. I even refused to cash in my $99 rebate when it went open source. Oh, will there be any rebates on Spectra when ... nah, forget it.
I was hired for the best 23-month gig of my short life as a CF connoisseur primarily to do a Spectra site -- we put it up in 5 weeks, on the Intranet of a large government (U.S.) agency, rolling our own user profile and avoiding any advancedsecurity like the plague, and the advance caching techniques added all the scalability we needed. Try that with a competitor.
I, for one, do not mind the evolution to open source, but how many people still use the original Forums product now that it has lost visibility? I think keeping it visible is the hardest task and I hope the new 'management' is up to it.
Posted by: Gene Brindle on June 27, 2003 12:26 AM
Scotts Valley, CA - Borland International today announced they would be releasing Turbo C++ 3.0 to the open source community. Turbo C++, discontinued in 1994, was once the leading C++ compiler for the PC.
"Borland is now pleased to announce that the full source of Borland Turbo C++ is to be released under a public open-source license." said product manager and company spokesman Kim Buntell. "The source will be available as a free download with which you can build and redistribute Turbo C++ applications as allowed by the Borland Turbo C++ license."
Most developers simply looked puzzled and asked "Why?" when told about the announcement but Borland seems to believe that although Turbo C++ was abandoned by them nearly a decade ago and uses obsolete API's, the release will rally the open source community into investing hundreds of hours and magically breathe life into it.
--------------------------------------------
P.S. Just kidding about the above, but Geoff's 'who cares' is a minor understatement. This whole thing is somewhat ludicrous and in some ways I had to struggle not to burst out laughing when I first heard this.
Posted by: The Ghost of Spectras Past on June 28, 2003 07:50 AM
While I think that Macromedia's decision is great, I have to generally agree with Geoff's comments. The community has seen Spectra dying slowly for two years. Despite that fact, my employer also still supports several large projects - I'm working on a NEW Spectra project as I type, in fact.
To move forward:
* Macromedia needs to be an active and driving participant in the ongoing development of Spectra as an open source solution.
* The project needs proper and skilled management and leadership, who have time to dedicate to the project (more fool Macromedia for ditching Ray Camden).
* The codebase needs skilled and structured management a la SourceForge.
* Enough people need to care (I think this opportunity has passed).
I'd be delighted to manage this stuff going forward, having worked with the product since version 1.0, but I already work 45-50 hours/week on other stuff, and I don't have ready access to cloning technology.
On many of the projects I work, the clients have very complicated document management and workflow requirements, with a multitude of document types being managed, and being published to several web sites (inter-, extra and intranet from the same CODB). I don't think there's a product out there (including FarCry, which I like A LOT), which we can customise as deeply as Spectra.
If Macromedia want to come up with the goods, Spectra can be the product it always promised to be. If not, it will go the way of Allaire Forums (you all remember Forums, don't you?)
Posted by: Steve Collins on June 26, 2003 03:08 PM
Hopefully, Sitespring won't die the long, lingering death that Spectra did!
Posted by: Mike on June 26, 2003 04:23 PM
And the Forums were a great product. I even refused to cash in my $99 rebate when it went open source. Oh, will there be any rebates on Spectra when ... nah, forget it.
I was hired for the best 23-month gig of my short life as a CF connoisseur primarily to do a Spectra site -- we put it up in 5 weeks, on the Intranet of a large government (U.S.) agency, rolling our own user profile and avoiding any advancedsecurity like the plague, and the advance caching techniques added all the scalability we needed. Try that with a competitor.
I, for one, do not mind the evolution to open source, but how many people still use the original Forums product now that it has lost visibility? I think keeping it visible is the hardest task and I hope the new 'management' is up to it.
Posted by: Gene Brindle on June 27, 2003 12:26 AM
Scotts Valley, CA - Borland International today announced they would be releasing Turbo C++ 3.0 to the open source community. Turbo C++, discontinued in 1994, was once the leading C++ compiler for the PC.
"Borland is now pleased to announce that the full source of Borland Turbo C++ is to be released under a public open-source license." said product manager and company spokesman Kim Buntell. "The source will be available as a free download with which you can build and redistribute Turbo C++ applications as allowed by the Borland Turbo C++ license."
Most developers simply looked puzzled and asked "Why?" when told about the announcement but Borland seems to believe that although Turbo C++ was abandoned by them nearly a decade ago and uses obsolete API's, the release will rally the open source community into investing hundreds of hours and magically breathe life into it.
--------------------------------------------
P.S. Just kidding about the above, but Geoff's 'who cares' is a minor understatement. This whole thing is somewhat ludicrous and in some ways I had to struggle not to burst out laughing when I first heard this.
Posted by: The Ghost of Spectras Past on June 28, 2003 07:50 AM