Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Future directions for OpenACS

OK, I'm not a programmer, so my perspective is a bit different. I have to make recommendations to clients about how to solve their problems. Now, I don't really care if the solution is written in Java, tcl, or Logo. I just want to know that what I'm recommending (a) will work, (b) will continue to work, and (c) will not take so many resources to make/keep it working that we lose sight of the business problem we're trying to solve. So far, I've never heard anyone say that a Java version of the ACS will be more reliable, more scalable, easier to maintain, easier to interface with a database, or easier to customize. Quite the opposite. (I have to go by what people tell me since I don't have the expertise to judge for myself). The only thing I've heard on technical merits is that a Java version might be faster.

On the other hand, what I do hear a lot is that clients have a much easier time finding good Java programmers and that they have a comfort level with Java. It doesn't really matter how easy tcl is to learn; that's just not the way most of these organizations work. Furthermore, it sounds like it will take a very serious organizational effort to jumpstart AOLServer development. I'm not talking about patches and life support; unless there is a real, committed development team that will keep the platform moving forward--beyond just point releases--it seems to me that AOLServer will die as a platform that is useful to a community beyond AOL. It may take a long time to die, but die it will.

So it seems to me that there are a couple logical steps for the community to take. (Note that I'm incapable of "rolling up my sleeves," as Don put it, so you ought to consider that as you weigh my vote against those of people who can actually do the programming.) In the short term, AOLServer is clearly still the way to go. I don't see even aD saying that they're ready to build sites on ACS Java just yet. So there's no reason not to press ahead and do what can be done to brighten the future of the platform. Perhaps a new steward can be found--maybe one of the Linux distro makers or some other major Open Source player can be convinced to take it on. I don't know.

Long-term, though, I think the community has to take a hard look at where ACS Java goes. Hey, for some purposes, ACS 4.x tcl (or 3.x tcl, for that matter) will always be fine. That's certainly the case for legacy sites. But I have a feeling that more client money will eventually flow toward evolving ACS Java than ACS Tcl--not because aD will choose to do it that way, but because clients will ask for it. We'll have to wait and see.

It's a moot point at the moment. For at least the next 6-12 months--and possibly for longer--AOLServer is the only viable platform for OpenACS, as far as I can tell. I don't hear anyone arguing that mod_aolserver is anything more than a marketing tool to help increase mindshare for OpenACS on AOLServer. So that means solving the AOLServer community problem has to be a high priority.