[wtp-proposal] June 1 Summary of Web Tools Project Proposal

["Bjorn Freeman-Benson" <bjorn@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(As part of the membership-at-large comment process, I will be summarizing
the discussions and feedback at the end of each week: April 30, May 7, May
14, May 21, and May 27. This is the fifth and last of those summaries. I
invite you to correct any errors I have made.)

The comment process has generated over a hundred posts and replies covering
a number of general topics:
(1) Offers of contributions - There have been a number of offers of
contributions, both of developers, and of code and, best of all, of both
developers and code. The project proposal has been updated to include these
offers where appropriate.
(2) Discussion about project goals and scope - There have been a number of
excellent discussions about the project scope, especially about what is and
is not included. And about whether something that is currently not included
will ever be included. For example, are Struts or hibernate or portlets in
scope? Which web servers will be support in the exemplar tools (Tomcat,
JOnAS, ??) The project proposal has been updated to attempt to clarify these
issues.
(3) Critiques about how it has not made clear how to contribute - The
project proposal has been updated a bit in the "how to contribute" area, but
this is a more general Eclipse issue than just a WTP issue.

The two most commented on issues in the proposal were:
(i) How big is "web tools", i.e., what is in scope for web tools and what is
out of scope? Web tools has an unfortunately wide set of possible
interpretations by the large and varied Eclipse community. The proposal is
clearer on this issue than when the review period started, but the issue
will never really go away. The problem is, of course, that for each person
"web tools" is what "I want it to be" but that too much scope will prevent
any progress from being made at all.
(ii) Is the project is delivering tools or frameworks? The proposal has
tried to make it clear that the project will deliver both, but that the
emphasis is on a solid framework with an competitive and high quality
exemplar tool set. There is a definite balancing act between producing tools
without a strong base layer and producing frameworks that have no users. The
Eclipse Platform and Eclipse Tools projects have done a nice job of
balancing these competing aspects, and I expect the leadership of the Web
Tools Project will be able to as well. However, one of the foundations of
Eclipse is to create solid and extensible platforms for further tooling; WTP
will be no different in that it will not rush to produce end user tools
without simultaneously creating the necessary base.

John Wiegand and I (and the WTP Proposal team of Christophe Ney, Arthur
Ryman, Naci Dai, and Mitch Sonies) thank the membership-at-large for their
feedback and their help in improving the proposal. We look forward to
presenting the proposal to the EMO at the Creation Review.

Following the Eclipse Development Process
(http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20Development%20Process%202003
_11_09%20FINAL.pdf), the next step is for the EMO (the Eclipse Management
Organization) to perform a Creation Review. If the EMO is satisfied with the
proposal, or the proposal can be easily modified to be satisfactory, the EMO
will request the Eclipse Board to approve the project. The next Board
meeting is June 25th.

Summarized by:
WTP Proposal Shepherd (Bjorn Freeman-Benson)