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Re: [nebula-dev] Future of Nebula
Hi,

sorry for the late reply, but here are my 2 cents. I have read all previous answers, but I'm not sure if I remember everything. :)

I completely agree with your analysis Wim. What I think needs to be improved is:
  • we need to create a "us" ... a feeling that we all belong to a great project instead of just as committer for single widgets
  • Nebula should consist as container project for single widgets. If every widget is treated by its own, than the importance of such widgets will get lost
  • from an outside view we should not move back to incubation as this transports the feeling that Nebula is not stable to users

What I have learned from conferences and talking to customers, developers and experts in the past is, that a project can only become important if it is seen and accepted. The problem with Nebula is that it is not visible enough. When I asked at conferences who knows Nebula there were fairly no response. And those who know it have a feeling of the controls to be not stable for productive use.

Please note, this is not my personal opinion, just what I have heard from others. So please don't throw stones at me.

So we need to improve two things:
  • Marketing so Nebula gets more visible
    This includes updating the documentation regularly, speaking at conferences, writing blogs, adding more widgets
  • Improve project management
    Don't missunderstand me, you are doing a great job Wim, but the last year there was fairly no action in Nebula. At least none that was promoted strongly.

Nebula is a container for widgets on top of SWT/JFace, so Nebula itself should only care about project management, quality and packaging. And yes, having a Nebula package that contains several widgets is from an outside view the right thing. A company doesn't like dependencies to several single widgets where they are not sure about support, quality, etc. But having a big collection of widgets where there is project management etc. is something more interesting.

To answer your questions:

Do you agree or disagree with my analysis?
I agree

Move back to incubation?
Definitely no, this will harm the state of Nebula and will lead to less users.

What would you improve in Nebula?
Marketing, the "we"-feeling, project management, regular updates (documentation, bugfixes if necessary), maybe connect to the Eclipse release train in some way

Do you think the project is still relevant?
Yes, it could be more relevant with some more widgets and better visibility. SWT and JFace still do not come with every widget users would like to have.

What do you think about adding other technologies besides SWT?
As Eclipse opens its mind about UI toolkits, we should also consider thinking about it. If it is RAP, JavaFX, Vaadin or whatever.

To be honest, currently I also do not feel as part of Nebula because of the lack of the "we"-feeling. I have several improvements and bugfixes for Gantt and two widgets I would like to contribute to Nebula in my workspace for a couple of months. Maybe I need some push and support by the project management to contribute soon instead of keeping it for myself ;). But this is definitely the greatest issue of Nebula at the moment. We just push our controls to Nebula and then people are free to use (or not). But there is no feeling of "yes my control added value to Nebula" .. and this is what needs to be improved.

Sorry for repeating stuff, I'm currently distracted by listening to the cool Eclipse4 training while I'm answering. I hope nobody feels attacked.

Greez,
Dirk


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Wim Jongman <wim.jongman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear People,

After a good year of serving as co-lead of Nebula it is time to reflect upon the status and future of the project. When I joined as co-lead there were a number of things that I wanted to help with.

* make the project easier to consume
* fix the build and continuous release
* promote Nebula out of incubation
* solicit for new widgets
* help widget authors to get on board as quickly as possible
* design a logo ;)
* Fix the Nebula example perspective

I think we managed to do this. Thanks again to everyone involved.

There are some things that are not fixed.

* the website 
* build the internal community
* build the external community
* ...

Especially the building of the internal and external community is something that is hard to get going. The internal community is you, the widget author and the contributors subscribing to this list.

My analysis for this is the following:

> Widget authors are pretty much individualists. We have many widgets and many authors but there is not sense of a "one product" like you would have for other projects. Every widget is more or less self sustained. Hence there is no "us".

> Most widgets are feature complete. They have a described function and there is no reason to evolve this from year to year.

> Widget authors have to move on. A widget is not ones live work.

> Feedback from the external community (consumers). I hear of many people consuming Nebula widgets, but there is not a desire or need to provide feedback apart from the occasional bug request.

Conclusion: Having these thoughts, I think we are better of being as we were, a perpetual incubation project. 

I am still soliciting around the web for SWT widget authors to join the Nebula project and we are speaking to two new sets of widgets [1][2].

I was also thinking to broaden the scope of Nebula and make it a home for widgets of other technologies like Swing, JFace, RAP and _javascript_. 

So please speak your mind about Nebula. I like to know how you feel. 

Do you agree or disagree with my analysis?
Move back to incubation?
What would you improve in Nebula?
Do you think the project is still relevant?
What do you think about adding other technologies besides SWT?

Cheers,

Wim


 



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