[OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers 2.8 RC2

[Dan Little]

Forward:
I do not represent the development community of OpenLayers, I am a user of the library for various projects and keep up to date on OL development.   I am not speaking for OpenLayers but answering this email because it was causing an awkward smell to develop in my inbox.

----- Original Message ----
> From: C E M Harrison <c.e.m.harrison at cemh.eclipse.co.uk>
> To: Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) <bartvde at osgis.nl>; c.e.m.harrison at macfh.co.uk
> Cc: dev at openlayers.org
> Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:24:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers 2.8 RC2
> 
> Hi Bart,
> 
> >     with open source it's not as simple as saying something does
> >     not work,
> >     and expecting people to fix it for free.
> 
> I'm afraid it is, the situation is exactly analogous with users of my
> website.  If you want people to use your product, and why else would anyone
> spend the time creating it, then it has to work.

Being the lead developer and administrator of another open source project, I can say that it is not analogous.  You're providing your website as a service to others.  Given it is a display of your work I assume that it benefits you in some purpose (recognition, advertising), however, many of the open source projects have no motivating factor.  The origination of OL was originally written (from my understanding; Chris can correct me if he wants as I was only eavesdropping on him and Schuyler) to further a project at MetaCarta.  The results of the project were "given" to the community and now there are many contributors.  My project (GeoMOOSE) has the same origins, it was originally written for a specific purpose and then open-sourced.  MapServer, Linux, etc., all started as either a personal interest project or a small sponsored project which the originators were willing to open source.  No one is trying to further it's use for any particular reason.  So
 while you may want people to use your product, the rest of us that are running these projects are relatively indifferent to whether people are using it.

> 
> >    Remember, Chris is spending
> >     lots of his spare time unpaid on OpenLayers
> 
> Just as I have on my website.

This is not terribly important other than that we're all proud that you've spent time on your website.

> 
> >     If things don't work, and it seems like you are the only one running
> >     into it, it probably means not many people are using that feature. So
> >     you've basically got two choices: fix it up yourself and
> >     provide a patch
> >     with testcases, or hire a developer to do that for you.
> 
> Or go to a different mapping API, which, if this is not fixed, I may well be
> forced to do.  You and or other OL contributors may not be overly concerned
> of course, that is your and their right, but in the analogous position, I
> would consider the time spent developing my website wasted if I thought lack
> of proper functionality was driving customers away.  Similarly, I would
> suggest that it is not in OL's long term interest to drive its users away.
> 

Again, feel free to go to another javascript web mapping framework.  When you run into bugs with them, please feel free to tell us exactly how responsive the development community was to fixing those bugs.  In fact, why not go to an ESRI product!  Then, when you run into bugs for that, please relay to us on the mailing list exactly how quickly they were able to fix YOUR bug!

MfG,

-Duck


> Regards Charles.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Dev mailing list
> Dev at openlayers.org
> http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev