Re: Code donations for RPGUI initiative -- WEB400

The broader issue isn't really the proprietary vs open source approach. In both cases people invest the same amount of intellectual property in the solution. The risk *could* be identical. I know plenty of proprietary applications and frameworks that have drifted into oblivion after huge investments of time and money. Some by very large companies, some by individuals. So risk and personal investment have very little to do with evaluating an open source vs proprietary approach.

It comes down to successful marketing and breadth of support. The goal of an open source project is to gain enough traction to be self-sustaining. The side effect is what Aaron mentioned and that is, as a primary committer, you gain some notoriety that can, in turn, generate revenue through speaking, programming contracts, authoring articles and books, and other activities that raise the visibility of the project. In our niche, it can be a handful of folks, versus something like PHP or Ruby or Rails that has thousands of developers and experts in the field. But the very few in our niche can have a very positive effect on the platform.

This is where I think IBM and Common could have/could still contribute marketing-wise and what I tried to do with the Open Source for i site. That is, promote open source projects that will leverage the strengths of the i platform. What would do more for the platform: A killer proprietary framework that costs $$$ or a killer open source framework? My money is on open source. Broad involvement and adoption through sharing of IP is ultimately better for this platform that any proprietary solution. IMHO.

Pete

Nathan Andelin wrote:

Hi Aaron,

It would be to risky for me to offer an open-source license to my Web application framework. That would be a really good way to lose a lot of personal investment, innovation, and opportunity cost required on my part over a period of several years. But we do offer a traditional commercial license to our Web Application Portal and programming interfaces for a reasonable fee, which would be a fraction of the cost of developing something comparable on one's own.

I looked at your RPG example which generates a JSON formatted stream using Mihael Schmidt's service program. About the only change required to deploy that program as a "Stateful Business Logic Server" under our portal instead of a traditional CGI interface would be to replace your call to QtmhWrStout, with an equivalent provided by our framework.

What would you think of integrating ExtJs, Mihael Schmidt's service program, and our portal under a traditional commercial license?

Nathan.

----- Original Message ----
From: Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wed, December 23, 2009 2:22:38 PM
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Code donations for RPGUI initiative

I could probably supply some expertise/code, however it would be nice

to see some sort of high level design document and specification on you
are planning for this to work.

Agreed. That is a must so we can know where we are going. I have been
taking a "vacation day" to put some stuff together. Here is what I produced
in the last hour that details a high level idea of what a full loop
request/response looks like:

http://mowyourlawn.com/pics/RPGUI_highlevel.jpg

I have a couple page document that I will clean up and post that details
more in-depth requirements.

Based on your web site post if somebody is funding your time on this is

there a commercial interest ?

The company I am working with has said they need a new front end for their
home grown software and are willing to let all of the non-company specific
code be completely open sourced (my requirement to them). I would have to
ask them if they want to be made known that they are monetarily supporting
this effort, though right now I am just happy to have somebody supporting
the effort so I don't want to rock the boat if you know what I mean ;-)

Concerning my interest: Right now my goal is to create a completely free and
open source solution that is easy for either regular shops or an ISV to use.
For myself, I plan to make money on the effort in a number of areas:
Professional services, write a book, write articles, write SAAS applications
that utilize the framework, etc (i.e. SalesForce is a SaaS type application
for those wondering what the heck that acronym is).

In the end I want to create something that keeps people on the IBM i using a
framework that is more simple to use than the others I have used in other
environments (i.e. JSF, PHP). This year I have heard of many shops leaving
the IBM i because they don't have a reality based modernization path -
everything out there leads them away from the IBMi: EGL, Java, PHP, .NET. I
am not looking to start a language war, but instead see what we can create
as a community that is fully intentioned to keep RPG programmers in RPG -
giving shops the most ROI. But the key is that the framework needs to be
open source and free (free as in beer and I need to see if GPL v3 works for
free as in "usage liberty" concerning ISV needs). I was hoping Niels from
IceBreak would have an update on that framework becoming open sourced
because that would negate my efforts, but I haven't been able to turn
anything up in my searches that it was in fact open sourced (last
collaborations on midrange lists is from late 2008).

Aaron Bartell
www.SoftwareSavesLives.com