Forum OpenACS Development: Response to Is ArsDigita forking the ACS?
Posted by
Dan Wickstrom
on 10/25/00 04:15 PM
>>>>> "phil" == bboardwrites: phil> I think one of the reasons that Oli forwarded the above phil> message to OpenACS is that we (I'm from the same company) phil> are very seriously considering joining and contributing to phil> the OpenACS project, not just on a personal basis but as a phil> company policy. We've now delivered a couple of systems phil> using ACS code and would More help is always welcome. phil> What I mean is, originally it looked as though OpenACS might phil> provide a viable community around a version 3.x of the ACS phil> (which we were looking for because our code is for phil> 3.x). More recently it seems that the OpenACS project is phil> commited to implementing ACS 4. From the questions I've been phil> reading here, and the slightly wistful answers Ben and other phil> have been giving, I get the impression that the OpenACS phil> community is not particularly happy with the way Ars Digita phil> are going - let's face it, it's just making extra work - but phil> don't feel any option but to trail along after it because I can't speak for everybody, but I'm actually quite happy with the direction that aD has taken with the acs 4.0 version. They have addressed a lot of the shortcomings of the 3.x series, and they have actually added some features that make porting much simpler - take a look at the new db api. The new db api provides a common point for all db queries which allows us to intercept and rewrite queries to conform to a postgresql format. phil> a) AD don't care enough about OpenACS to give up the phil> benefits of closer Oracle integration to support them They've actually made an effort to help us make the porting effort easier. aD has also been considering an interbase port, so it's in their best interest to make it easier to use different databases. phil> So instead OpenACS is going to try to "emulate" the core of phil> ACS 4. But with all due respect, this seems like a game phil> OpenACS can't possibly win, playing catch-up with, not only phil> Ars Digita, but Oracle as well. I disagree. Porting is much easier than development, and there are no show-stoppers in the acs 4.0 code that prevent us from porting it to postgresql. Postgresql also has some object-oriented features which make the implementation of objects much easier in postgresql than in oracle. phil> In other words, AD are symbiotically dependent on Oracle, phil> and will delegate as much to it as possible. Presumably, phil> whatever new services Oracle add will end up as part of the phil> ACS too. Great! But Oracle has no motive to make things phil> easier for an Open Source rival. They may even be able to phil> subtly "embrace and extend" the ACS. If that were their strategy, they could just make acs closed-source - end of story. phil> My aim here, though, is not to criticise AD, or even Oracle, phil> to but to start a discussion to guage how important the phil> OpenACS is within the larger community of ACS developers. Is phil> my characterization of the relationship between AD and phil> OpenACS correct or not? I don't think that you're seeing everything clearly. For the most part, acs 4.0 seems to be a huge improvement over the 3.x series, and I think it's in our best interest to port this new version.