AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal

[Adam Peller-5]

AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal

0.  Rationale

While the term AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) has only recently
been coined, the underlying web standards and technologies (JavaScript
a.k.a. ECMAScript, DOM, XML, SOAP, and so on) have been around for years.
Although the term is used in a variety of ways, AJAX typically describes
techniques towards developing interactive applications on the web client
including asynchronous messaging, use of XML grammar in client-side
applications, incremental page updates, and improved user interface
controls. AJAX applications combine the rich UI experience of programmed
clients with the low-cost lifecycle management of web-based applications.

AJAX has raised awareness of the high potential of web applications, it has
encouraged companies to adopt rich web-based interfaces over traditional
"fat" clients, and it has spawned development activity to create toolkits
and abstractions to make AJAX-style development easier and more powerful.
This is an important trend for open source.  The client itself can be
composed entirely of open-source parts, such as Mozilla's Firefox or KDE's
Konqueror, and does not require any particular operating system, helping to
make a more level playing field for all development.  More importantly,
AJAX is back-end agnostic as transactions are done over HTTP.  Keeping the
client open forces vendors to keep the communication channel open as well,
and this can only continue as long as the client technology keeps pace with
proprietary alternatives.  The open, standards based communications channel
is what drives many technologies inside Apache, so success of the open
client is vital to Apache.  The mission of this project is to encourage
innovation around enterprise-strength client runtimes and tools and build a
community which can select and nurture a select set which will be most
beneficial to the web.

0.1 Criteria

Meritocracy:

Apache was chosen for an incubator primarily because of the guidance the
community can provide.  The two subprojects put forth are among the first
attempts to formalize this style of development.  Additional ideas, tools
or entire runtimes may come forward and indeed would be welcomed to the
project, either wholesale as new subprojects or incorporated into the
existing code.

Community:

The contributed work was inspired by open source development but needs a
strong and diverse community to validate its mission and carry it forward.
A primary objective of the project is to build a vibrant community of users
and active contributors.

Core Developers:

All of the initial committers are members of Zimbra and IBM development
teams.  All developers have worked on open source projects before and have
experience and understanding of open source principles.

Alignment:

Initial implementation consists of two sub projects.

The AJAX Toolkit Framework will provide a strategic framework for
Interactive Development Environments (IDEs) for the many different AJAX
toolkit offerings in the market. It provides a rich set of tools for the
AJAX / DHTML developer including: a JavaScript editor with edit-time syntax
checking; Mozilla web browser; integrated DOM browser; integrated
JavaScript debugger; and wizards and development aides tuned to specific
libraries and toolkits.  The Framework is extensible to support other AJAX
toolkits and has a wizard-based tool to facilitate the integration of new
toolkits in the framework.

The AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on  Mozilla XULRunner and
JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set of
Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds 4 other open source components:
Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
4 open source components specified. They are incorporated to accommodate
Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as-is by repackaging them as
part of the AJAX Toolkit Framework.

The Zimbra AJAX Development Toolkit, the first toolkit integrated into the
framework, provides a rich client library, similar in style to traditional
object-oriented widget libraries like Eclipse's SWT.  This toolkit hides
implementation details and browser quirks and makes web development more
accessible to the enterprise developer.  It provides

 * User interface development
 * Network communications (both synchronous and asynchronous)
 * SOAP programming
 * XML document creation and manipulation
 * UI event handling and management

For further information, please see the Zimbra AjaxTK whitepaper:
http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra%20AJAX%20TK%20Whitepaper.pdf

0.2  Warning signs

Orphaned products:

The initial code submission is based on colloborative work between IBM and
Zimbra to provide a toolkit and a framework to embed the toolkit in IDE
environment and provide additional enhancements. Both the companies believe
that taking a joint approach and making it available through open source
will make it widely accepted and create a community and unify Industry
momentum to consolidate requirements and accelerate community growth and
enhance the toolkit to ease development of AJAX applications.

Inexperience with open source:

Both the companies and several of the commiters are very experienced in
Open Source environment. All efforts will be made to ensure that the work
done and momentum will be in strict adherence to open source guidelines.

Homogenous developers:

The current list of committers includes developers who are geographically
distributed.  They are experienced with working in a distributed
environment, and with resolving technical differences.

Reliance on salaried developers:

All of the initial developers are paid by their employers to contribute to
this project and the employers track records for ongoing investment in open
source communities well known.

No ties to other Apache products:

The initial codebase will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.The
dependencies on other external projects are defined in the alignment
section.  While there are no direct build dependencies on other Apache
projects, the development of AJAX clients will often be driven by Apache
middleware and will have a positive impact on the open source movement as
described in the "Rationale" section.

A fascination with the Apache brand:

The committers are intent on developing a strong open source community. We
believe that the Apache Software Foundation's emphasis on community
development makes it the most suitable choice.

1. Scope of the subprojects


The subprojects will include development tools necessary to encourage
browser-based, AJAX-style development for individual users as well as in
the enterprise.  The tools will be driven by an extensible IDE Framework
and may include utilities to assist in code development, analysis, and
testing.  The tools will be adaptable to different AJAX runtimes, some of
which will also be subprojects in the incubator.  The initial submission
includes an IDE and one such runtime.

These initial projects are intended merely as starting points and should
not be taken as bounding the scope of the project as a whole. Some other
potential projects may include:

 * WYSIWYG tools for building AJAX-style interfaces
 * Declarative grammars or abstractions for AJAX programming
 * A common data model to facilitate efficient server communication with
Javascript or DOM access

2. Identify the initial source from which the subprojects are to be
populated

AJAX Toolkit Framework was developed at IBM as a set of plugins based on
the Eclipse Framework and WebTools Project.  Zip files containing snapshots
of CVS directories are provided with this proposal at
http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-ibm.tgz and
http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-contrib.tgz

The Zimbra AjaxTK is available today in open source, and can be downloaded
as part of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (choose the source code version)
at
http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.php.  A snapshot of the AJAX
toolkit code is provided at http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/Ajax.tar.gz

2.1 External Dependencies of the project

AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on Mozilla XULRunner and
JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set of
Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds four other open source components
Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
four open source components specified. They are incorporated to accommodate
Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as is by repackaging them as
part of AJAX Toolkit Framework. In the future any AJAX toolkit that is to
be supported can be included as another plugin.

3. Identify the ASF resources to be created

3.1 mailing list(s)

    * ajaxtk-ppmc
    * ajaxtk-dev
    * ajaxtk-commits
    * ajaxtk-user

3.2 Subversion repository

    * [WWW] https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/ajaxtk

3.3 Bugzilla

    * AJAXTK (AJAXTK)

4. Identify the initial set of committers:

    * Craig Becker
    * Leugim Bustelo
    * Andrew Clark
    * Conrad Damon
    * Ross Dargahi
    * Becky Gibson
    * Javier Pedemonte
    * Adam Peller
    * Roland Schemers
    * Donald Sedota
    * Parag Shah
    * Greg Solovyev

5. Identify Apache sponsoring individual

We request that the Apache Incubator PMC sponsor the AJAX Toolkit Framework
as an
incubating project, with the eventual goal of graduation as a TLP.  The
initial contributors feel the scope of the project doesn't clearly
overlap with any existing TLP, and is broad enough to justify eventual
TLP status.

Champion:    Sam Ruby

Mentors:     ??


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[pzfreo]

Adam

I offer to help mentor this.

Paul


--
Paul Fremantle
VP/Technology, WSO2 and OASIS WS-RX TC Co-chair

http://bloglines.com/blog/paulfremantle
paul@...

"Oxygenating the Web Service Platform", www.wso2.com

On 12/20/05, Adam Peller <apeller@...> wrote:

>
> AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal
>
> 0.  Rationale
>
> While the term AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) has only recently
> been coined, the underlying web standards and technologies (JavaScript
> a.k.a. ECMAScript, DOM, XML, SOAP, and so on) have been around for years.
> Although the term is used in a variety of ways, AJAX typically describes
> techniques towards developing interactive applications on the web client
> including asynchronous messaging, use of XML grammar in client-side
> applications, incremental page updates, and improved user interface
> controls. AJAX applications combine the rich UI experience of programmed
> clients with the low-cost lifecycle management of web-based applications.
>
> AJAX has raised awareness of the high potential of web applications, it
> has
> encouraged companies to adopt rich web-based interfaces over traditional
> "fat" clients, and it has spawned development activity to create toolkits
> and abstractions to make AJAX-style development easier and more powerful.
> This is an important trend for open source.  The client itself can be
> composed entirely of open-source parts, such as Mozilla's Firefox or KDE's
> Konqueror, and does not require any particular operating system, helping
> to
> make a more level playing field for all development.  More importantly,
> AJAX is back-end agnostic as transactions are done over HTTP.  Keeping the
> client open forces vendors to keep the communication channel open as well,
> and this can only continue as long as the client technology keeps pace
> with
> proprietary alternatives.  The open, standards based communications
> channel
> is what drives many technologies inside Apache, so success of the open
> client is vital to Apache.  The mission of this project is to encourage
> innovation around enterprise-strength client runtimes and tools and build
> a
> community which can select and nurture a select set which will be most
> beneficial to the web.
>
> 0.1 Criteria
>
> Meritocracy:
>
> Apache was chosen for an incubator primarily because of the guidance the
> community can provide.  The two subprojects put forth are among the first
> attempts to formalize this style of development.  Additional ideas, tools
> or entire runtimes may come forward and indeed would be welcomed to the
> project, either wholesale as new subprojects or incorporated into the
> existing code.
>
> Community:
>
> The contributed work was inspired by open source development but needs a
> strong and diverse community to validate its mission and carry it forward.
> A primary objective of the project is to build a vibrant community of
> users
> and active contributors.
>
> Core Developers:
>
> All of the initial committers are members of Zimbra and IBM development
> teams.  All developers have worked on open source projects before and have
> experience and understanding of open source principles.
>
> Alignment:
>
> Initial implementation consists of two sub projects.
>
> The AJAX Toolkit Framework will provide a strategic framework for
> Interactive Development Environments (IDEs) for the many different AJAX
> toolkit offerings in the market. It provides a rich set of tools for the
> AJAX / DHTML developer including: a JavaScript editor with edit-time
> syntax
> checking; Mozilla web browser; integrated DOM browser; integrated
> JavaScript debugger; and wizards and development aides tuned to specific
> libraries and toolkits.  The Framework is extensible to support other AJAX
> toolkits and has a wizard-based tool to facilitate the integration of new
> toolkits in the framework.
>
> The AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on  Mozilla XULRunner and
> JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set
> of
> Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds 4 other open source components:
> Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
> 4 open source components specified. They are incorporated to accommodate
> Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as-is by repackaging them as
> part of the AJAX Toolkit Framework.
>
> The Zimbra AJAX Development Toolkit, the first toolkit integrated into the
> framework, provides a rich client library, similar in style to traditional
> object-oriented widget libraries like Eclipse's SWT.  This toolkit hides
> implementation details and browser quirks and makes web development more
> accessible to the enterprise developer.  It provides
>
> * User interface development
> * Network communications (both synchronous and asynchronous)
> * SOAP programming
> * XML document creation and manipulation
> * UI event handling and management
>
> For further information, please see the Zimbra AjaxTK whitepaper:
> http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra%20AJAX%20TK%20Whitepaper.pdf
>
> 0.2  Warning signs
>
> Orphaned products:
>
> The initial code submission is based on colloborative work between IBM and
> Zimbra to provide a toolkit and a framework to embed the toolkit in IDE
> environment and provide additional enhancements. Both the companies
> believe
> that taking a joint approach and making it available through open source
> will make it widely accepted and create a community and unify Industry
> momentum to consolidate requirements and accelerate community growth and
> enhance the toolkit to ease development of AJAX applications.
>
> Inexperience with open source:
>
> Both the companies and several of the commiters are very experienced in
> Open Source environment. All efforts will be made to ensure that the work
> done and momentum will be in strict adherence to open source guidelines.
>
> Homogenous developers:
>
> The current list of committers includes developers who are geographically
> distributed.  They are experienced with working in a distributed
> environment, and with resolving technical differences.
>
> Reliance on salaried developers:
>
> All of the initial developers are paid by their employers to contribute to
> this project and the employers track records for ongoing investment in
> open
> source communities well known.
>
> No ties to other Apache products:
>
> The initial codebase will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.The
> dependencies on other external projects are defined in the alignment
> section.  While there are no direct build dependencies on other Apache
> projects, the development of AJAX clients will often be driven by Apache
> middleware and will have a positive impact on the open source movement as
> described in the "Rationale" section.
>
> A fascination with the Apache brand:
>
> The committers are intent on developing a strong open source community. We
> believe that the Apache Software Foundation's emphasis on community
> development makes it the most suitable choice.
>
> 1. Scope of the subprojects
>
>
> The subprojects will include development tools necessary to encourage
> browser-based, AJAX-style development for individual users as well as in
> the enterprise.  The tools will be driven by an extensible IDE Framework
> and may include utilities to assist in code development, analysis, and
> testing.  The tools will be adaptable to different AJAX runtimes, some of
> which will also be subprojects in the incubator.  The initial submission
> includes an IDE and one such runtime.
>
> These initial projects are intended merely as starting points and should
> not be taken as bounding the scope of the project as a whole. Some other
> potential projects may include:
>
> * WYSIWYG tools for building AJAX-style interfaces
> * Declarative grammars or abstractions for AJAX programming
> * A common data model to facilitate efficient server communication with
> Javascript or DOM access
>
> 2. Identify the initial source from which the subprojects are to be
> populated
>
> AJAX Toolkit Framework was developed at IBM as a set of plugins based on
> the Eclipse Framework and WebTools Project.  Zip files containing
> snapshots
> of CVS directories are provided with this proposal at
> http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-ibm.tgz and
> http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-contrib.tgz
>
> The Zimbra AjaxTK is available today in open source, and can be downloaded
> as part of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (choose the source code version)
> at
> http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.php.  A snapshot of the AJAX
> toolkit code is provided at http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/Ajax.tar.gz
>
> 2.1 External Dependencies of the project
>
> AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on Mozilla XULRunner and
> JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set
> of
> Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds four other open source components
> Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
> four open source components specified. They are incorporated to
> accommodate
> Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as is by repackaging them as
> part of AJAX Toolkit Framework. In the future any AJAX toolkit that is to
> be supported can be included as another plugin.
>
> 3. Identify the ASF resources to be created
>
> 3.1 mailing list(s)
>
>     * ajaxtk-ppmc
>     * ajaxtk-dev
>     * ajaxtk-commits
>     * ajaxtk-user
>
> 3.2 Subversion repository
>
>     * [WWW] https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/ajaxtk
>
> 3.3 Bugzilla
>
>     * AJAXTK (AJAXTK)
>
> 4. Identify the initial set of committers:
>
>     * Craig Becker
>     * Leugim Bustelo
>     * Andrew Clark
>     * Conrad Damon
>     * Ross Dargahi
>     * Becky Gibson
>     * Javier Pedemonte
>     * Adam Peller
>     * Roland Schemers
>     * Donald Sedota
>     * Parag Shah
>     * Greg Solovyev
>
> 5. Identify Apache sponsoring individual
>
> We request that the Apache Incubator PMC sponsor the AJAX Toolkit
> Framework
> as an
> incubating project, with the eventual goal of graduation as a TLP.  The
> initial contributors feel the scope of the project doesn't clearly
> overlap with any existing TLP, and is broad enough to justify eventual
> TLP status.
>
> Champion:    Sam Ruby
>
> Mentors:     ??
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@...
>
>

[Martin Marinschek]

I'm very interested in this.

Even though I am not an Apache member (so no potential mentor ;) I'd
be very interested in what this project means for the Apache
MyFaces-javascript and AJAX integration.

regards,

Martin

On 12/20/05, Paul Fremantle <pzfreo@...> wrote:

> Adam
>
> I offer to help mentor this.
>
> Paul
>
>
> --
> Paul Fremantle
> VP/Technology, WSO2 and OASIS WS-RX TC Co-chair
>
> http://bloglines.com/blog/paulfremantle
> paul@...
>
> "Oxygenating the Web Service Platform", www.wso2.com
>
> On 12/20/05, Adam Peller <apeller@...> wrote:
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal
> >
> > 0.  Rationale
> >
> > While the term AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) has only recently
> > been coined, the underlying web standards and technologies (JavaScript
> > a.k.a. ECMAScript, DOM, XML, SOAP, and so on) have been around for years.
> > Although the term is used in a variety of ways, AJAX typically describes
> > techniques towards developing interactive applications on the web client
> > including asynchronous messaging, use of XML grammar in client-side
> > applications, incremental page updates, and improved user interface
> > controls. AJAX applications combine the rich UI experience of programmed
> > clients with the low-cost lifecycle management of web-based applications.
> >
> > AJAX has raised awareness of the high potential of web applications, it
> > has
> > encouraged companies to adopt rich web-based interfaces over traditional
> > "fat" clients, and it has spawned development activity to create toolkits
> > and abstractions to make AJAX-style development easier and more powerful.
> > This is an important trend for open source.  The client itself can be
> > composed entirely of open-source parts, such as Mozilla's Firefox or KDE's
> > Konqueror, and does not require any particular operating system, helping
> > to
> > make a more level playing field for all development.  More importantly,
> > AJAX is back-end agnostic as transactions are done over HTTP.  Keeping the
> > client open forces vendors to keep the communication channel open as well,
> > and this can only continue as long as the client technology keeps pace
> > with
> > proprietary alternatives.  The open, standards based communications
> > channel
> > is what drives many technologies inside Apache, so success of the open
> > client is vital to Apache.  The mission of this project is to encourage
> > innovation around enterprise-strength client runtimes and tools and build
> > a
> > community which can select and nurture a select set which will be most
> > beneficial to the web.
> >
> > 0.1 Criteria
> >
> > Meritocracy:
> >
> > Apache was chosen for an incubator primarily because of the guidance the
> > community can provide.  The two subprojects put forth are among the first
> > attempts to formalize this style of development.  Additional ideas, tools
> > or entire runtimes may come forward and indeed would be welcomed to the
> > project, either wholesale as new subprojects or incorporated into the
> > existing code.
> >
> > Community:
> >
> > The contributed work was inspired by open source development but needs a
> > strong and diverse community to validate its mission and carry it forward.
> > A primary objective of the project is to build a vibrant community of
> > users
> > and active contributors.
> >
> > Core Developers:
> >
> > All of the initial committers are members of Zimbra and IBM development
> > teams.  All developers have worked on open source projects before and have
> > experience and understanding of open source principles.
> >
> > Alignment:
> >
> > Initial implementation consists of two sub projects.
> >
> > The AJAX Toolkit Framework will provide a strategic framework for
> > Interactive Development Environments (IDEs) for the many different AJAX
> > toolkit offerings in the market. It provides a rich set of tools for the
> > AJAX / DHTML developer including: a JavaScript editor with edit-time
> > syntax
> > checking; Mozilla web browser; integrated DOM browser; integrated
> > JavaScript debugger; and wizards and development aides tuned to specific
> > libraries and toolkits.  The Framework is extensible to support other AJAX
> > toolkits and has a wizard-based tool to facilitate the integration of new
> > toolkits in the framework.
> >
> > The AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on  Mozilla XULRunner and
> > JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set
> > of
> > Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds 4 other open source components:
> > Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
> > 4 open source components specified. They are incorporated to accommodate
> > Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as-is by repackaging them as
> > part of the AJAX Toolkit Framework.
> >
> > The Zimbra AJAX Development Toolkit, the first toolkit integrated into the
> > framework, provides a rich client library, similar in style to traditional
> > object-oriented widget libraries like Eclipse's SWT.  This toolkit hides
> > implementation details and browser quirks and makes web development more
> > accessible to the enterprise developer.  It provides
> >
> > * User interface development
> > * Network communications (both synchronous and asynchronous)
> > * SOAP programming
> > * XML document creation and manipulation
> > * UI event handling and management
> >
> > For further information, please see the Zimbra AjaxTK whitepaper:
> > http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra%20AJAX%20TK%20Whitepaper.pdf
> >
> > 0.2  Warning signs
> >
> > Orphaned products:
> >
> > The initial code submission is based on colloborative work between IBM and
> > Zimbra to provide a toolkit and a framework to embed the toolkit in IDE
> > environment and provide additional enhancements. Both the companies
> > believe
> > that taking a joint approach and making it available through open source
> > will make it widely accepted and create a community and unify Industry
> > momentum to consolidate requirements and accelerate community growth and
> > enhance the toolkit to ease development of AJAX applications.
> >
> > Inexperience with open source:
> >
> > Both the companies and several of the commiters are very experienced in
> > Open Source environment. All efforts will be made to ensure that the work
> > done and momentum will be in strict adherence to open source guidelines.
> >
> > Homogenous developers:
> >
> > The current list of committers includes developers who are geographically
> > distributed.  They are experienced with working in a distributed
> > environment, and with resolving technical differences.
> >
> > Reliance on salaried developers:
> >
> > All of the initial developers are paid by their employers to contribute to
> > this project and the employers track records for ongoing investment in
> > open
> > source communities well known.
> >
> > No ties to other Apache products:
> >
> > The initial codebase will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.The
> > dependencies on other external projects are defined in the alignment
> > section.  While there are no direct build dependencies on other Apache
> > projects, the development of AJAX clients will often be driven by Apache
> > middleware and will have a positive impact on the open source movement as
> > described in the "Rationale" section.
> >
> > A fascination with the Apache brand:
> >
> > The committers are intent on developing a strong open source community. We
> > believe that the Apache Software Foundation's emphasis on community
> > development makes it the most suitable choice.
> >
> > 1. Scope of the subprojects
> >
> >
> > The subprojects will include development tools necessary to encourage
> > browser-based, AJAX-style development for individual users as well as in
> > the enterprise.  The tools will be driven by an extensible IDE Framework
> > and may include utilities to assist in code development, analysis, and
> > testing.  The tools will be adaptable to different AJAX runtimes, some of
> > which will also be subprojects in the incubator.  The initial submission
> > includes an IDE and one such runtime.
> >
> > These initial projects are intended merely as starting points and should
> > not be taken as bounding the scope of the project as a whole. Some other
> > potential projects may include:
> >
> > * WYSIWYG tools for building AJAX-style interfaces
> > * Declarative grammars or abstractions for AJAX programming
> > * A common data model to facilitate efficient server communication with
> > Javascript or DOM access
> >
> > 2. Identify the initial source from which the subprojects are to be
> > populated
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework was developed at IBM as a set of plugins based on
> > the Eclipse Framework and WebTools Project.  Zip files containing
> > snapshots
> > of CVS directories are provided with this proposal at
> > http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-ibm.tgz and
> > http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-contrib.tgz
> >
> > The Zimbra AjaxTK is available today in open source, and can be downloaded
> > as part of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (choose the source code version)
> > at
> > http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.php.  A snapshot of the AJAX
> > toolkit code is provided at http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/Ajax.tar.gz
> >
> > 2.1 External Dependencies of the project
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on Mozilla XULRunner and
> > JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a set
> > of
> > Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds four other open source components
> > Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to the
> > four open source components specified. They are incorporated to
> > accommodate
> > Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as is by repackaging them as
> > part of AJAX Toolkit Framework. In the future any AJAX toolkit that is to
> > be supported can be included as another plugin.
> >
> > 3. Identify the ASF resources to be created
> >
> > 3.1 mailing list(s)
> >
> >     * ajaxtk-ppmc
> >     * ajaxtk-dev
> >     * ajaxtk-commits
> >     * ajaxtk-user
> >
> > 3.2 Subversion repository
> >
> >     * [WWW] https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/ajaxtk
> >
> > 3.3 Bugzilla
> >
> >     * AJAXTK (AJAXTK)
> >
> > 4. Identify the initial set of committers:
> >
> >     * Craig Becker
> >     * Leugim Bustelo
> >     * Andrew Clark
> >     * Conrad Damon
> >     * Ross Dargahi
> >     * Becky Gibson
> >     * Javier Pedemonte
> >     * Adam Peller
> >     * Roland Schemers
> >     * Donald Sedota
> >     * Parag Shah
> >     * Greg Solovyev
> >
> > 5. Identify Apache sponsoring individual
> >
> > We request that the Apache Incubator PMC sponsor the AJAX Toolkit
> > Framework
> > as an
> > incubating project, with the eventual goal of graduation as a TLP.  The
> > initial contributors feel the scope of the project doesn't clearly
> > overlap with any existing TLP, and is broad enough to justify eventual
> > TLP status.
> >
> > Champion:    Sam Ruby
> >
> > Mentors:     ??
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@...
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@...
> >
> >
>
>

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[Sylvain Wallez]

Adam Peller wrote:
> AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal
>  

I'm quite puzzled by this proposal. As I understand it, its mainly about
a set of Eclipse plugins for Ajax applications and the Zimbra library
that, among other features, provides a set of SWT-like widgets.

Also, this proposal pops up right after I mention on members@ that
several projects at Apache are using or plan to use Dojo [1] and that we
talked about inviting them. I sincerely hope this is just a coincidence.

So the questions are:
- is the ASF the place for Eclipse extensions? I don't deny the ability
to _existing_ project to host their tooling, but this isn't the case here.

- why incubate an Ajax library that none of the current ASF projects
uses nor plans to use, unless I missed something?

Sylvain

[1] http://www.dojotoolkit.org/

--
Sylvain Wallez                        Anyware Technologies
http://bluxte.net                     http://www.anyware-tech.com
Apache Software Foundation Member     Research & Technology Director


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[Sam Ruby-2]

Sylvain Wallez wrote:
> Adam Peller wrote:
>
>> AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal  
>
> I'm quite puzzled by this proposal. As I understand it, its mainly about
> a set of Eclipse plugins for Ajax applications and the Zimbra library
> that, among other features, provides a set of SWT-like widgets.

Yes.

> Also, this proposal pops up right after I mention on members@ that
> several projects at Apache are using or plan to use Dojo [1] and that we
> talked about inviting them. I sincerely hope this is just a coincidence.

Completely a coincidence.  I've been aware of the plan to submit this
proposal for several weeks, and hadn't seen your post until you
mentioned it.  I also had a conflict that precluded me from coming to
the ApacheCon.

As a general rule, the ASF doesn't go out "inviting", people within the
ASF either start a new project, or projects come to us.

In any case, the ASF is not exclusionary: if there was interest Dojo
could be added to this proposal, or could pursue a separate proposal.

> So the questions are:
> - is the ASF the place for Eclipse extensions? I don't deny the ability
> to _existing_ project to host their tooling, but this isn't the case here.

As I mentioned, I was involved with these discussions.  The ASF doesn't
tend to make these types of decisions based on the technical aspects of
a project.  What impressed me about the people who were proposing this
is that they were sincerely interested in the Apache License and
collaboration model.

While the Eclipse development model is certain a valid one, it is
different in a number of significant ways from the ASF.  Suffice it to
say that I am partial to the way the ASF does business.

> - why incubate an Ajax library that none of the current ASF projects
> uses nor plans to use, unless I missed something?

It is a valid question, but it is also valid to point out that the ASF
has projects as diverse as TCL and SpamAssassin.

What is more important is considerations that the code be licensed with
the Apache Software License (not dual licensed, like Dojo), that the
committer bases be diverse, and operate in an open and collaborative model.

> Sylvain
>
> [1] http://www.dojotoolkit.org/

- Sam Ruby

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[Adam Peller-5]

Hi Martin.

Although I confess to know little about MyFaces, I'd imagine your AJAX
components could work well within our tooling environment and that custom
extensions to support them are possible.  Out of the box (or with minimal
effort, at least) you should get some integrated JS support in JSPs, have
access to a debugger, snippets, and some other generic web tooling.  What
other sorts of tooling on the client do you think might help the MyFaces
project?

Also, perhaps some cross-polination with other toolkits, such as Zimbra and
Rico, could prove helpful, whether code is used directly or if just some of
the patterns prove useful?

Regards,
Adam




                                                                           
             Martin Marinschek                                            
             <martin.marinsche                                            
             k@...>                                               To
                                       general@...        
             12/20/2005 09:54                                           cc
             AM                                                            
                                                                   Subject
                                       Re: AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal
             Please respond to                                            
                  general                                                  
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




I'm very interested in this.

Even though I am not an Apache member (so no potential mentor ;) I'd
be very interested in what this project means for the Apache
MyFaces-javascript and AJAX integration.

regards,

Martin

On 12/20/05, Paul Fremantle <pzfreo@...> wrote:

> Adam
>
> I offer to help mentor this.
>
> Paul
>
>
> --
> Paul Fremantle
> VP/Technology, WSO2 and OASIS WS-RX TC Co-chair
>
> http://bloglines.com/blog/paulfremantle
> paul@...
>
> "Oxygenating the Web Service Platform", www.wso2.com
>
> On 12/20/05, Adam Peller <apeller@...> wrote:
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal
> >
> > 0.  Rationale
> >
> > While the term AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) has only recently
> > been coined, the underlying web standards and technologies (JavaScript
> > a.k.a. ECMAScript, DOM, XML, SOAP, and so on) have been around for

years.
> > Although the term is used in a variety of ways, AJAX typically
describes
> > techniques towards developing interactive applications on the web
client
> > including asynchronous messaging, use of XML grammar in client-side
> > applications, incremental page updates, and improved user interface
> > controls. AJAX applications combine the rich UI experience of
programmed
> > clients with the low-cost lifecycle management of web-based
applications.
> >
> > AJAX has raised awareness of the high potential of web applications, it
> > has
> > encouraged companies to adopt rich web-based interfaces over
traditional
> > "fat" clients, and it has spawned development activity to create
toolkits
> > and abstractions to make AJAX-style development easier and more
powerful.
> > This is an important trend for open source.  The client itself can be
> > composed entirely of open-source parts, such as Mozilla's Firefox or
KDE's
> > Konqueror, and does not require any particular operating system,
helping
> > to
> > make a more level playing field for all development.  More importantly,
> > AJAX is back-end agnostic as transactions are done over HTTP.  Keeping
the
> > client open forces vendors to keep the communication channel open as
well,
> > and this can only continue as long as the client technology keeps pace
> > with
> > proprietary alternatives.  The open, standards based communications
> > channel
> > is what drives many technologies inside Apache, so success of the open
> > client is vital to Apache.  The mission of this project is to encourage
> > innovation around enterprise-strength client runtimes and tools and
build
> > a
> > community which can select and nurture a select set which will be most
> > beneficial to the web.
> >
> > 0.1 Criteria
> >
> > Meritocracy:
> >
> > Apache was chosen for an incubator primarily because of the guidance
the
> > community can provide.  The two subprojects put forth are among the
first
> > attempts to formalize this style of development.  Additional ideas,
tools
> > or entire runtimes may come forward and indeed would be welcomed to the
> > project, either wholesale as new subprojects or incorporated into the
> > existing code.
> >
> > Community:
> >
> > The contributed work was inspired by open source development but needs
a
> > strong and diverse community to validate its mission and carry it
forward.
> > A primary objective of the project is to build a vibrant community of
> > users
> > and active contributors.
> >
> > Core Developers:
> >
> > All of the initial committers are members of Zimbra and IBM development
> > teams.  All developers have worked on open source projects before and
have
> > experience and understanding of open source principles.
> >
> > Alignment:
> >
> > Initial implementation consists of two sub projects.
> >
> > The AJAX Toolkit Framework will provide a strategic framework for
> > Interactive Development Environments (IDEs) for the many different AJAX
> > toolkit offerings in the market. It provides a rich set of tools for
the
> > AJAX / DHTML developer including: a JavaScript editor with edit-time
> > syntax
> > checking; Mozilla web browser; integrated DOM browser; integrated
> > JavaScript debugger; and wizards and development aides tuned to
specific
> > libraries and toolkits.  The Framework is extensible to support other
AJAX
> > toolkits and has a wizard-based tool to facilitate the integration of
new
> > toolkits in the framework.
> >
> > The AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on  Mozilla XULRunner and
> > JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a
set
> > of
> > Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds 4 other open source components:
> > Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to
the
> > 4 open source components specified. They are incorporated to
accommodate
> > Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as-is by repackaging them
as
> > part of the AJAX Toolkit Framework.
> >
> > The Zimbra AJAX Development Toolkit, the first toolkit integrated into
the
> > framework, provides a rich client library, similar in style to
traditional
> > object-oriented widget libraries like Eclipse's SWT.  This toolkit
hides
> > implementation details and browser quirks and makes web development
more

> > accessible to the enterprise developer.  It provides
> >
> > * User interface development
> > * Network communications (both synchronous and asynchronous)
> > * SOAP programming
> > * XML document creation and manipulation
> > * UI event handling and management
> >
> > For further information, please see the Zimbra AjaxTK whitepaper:
> > http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra%20AJAX%20TK%20Whitepaper.pdf
> >
> > 0.2  Warning signs
> >
> > Orphaned products:
> >
> > The initial code submission is based on colloborative work between IBM

and
> > Zimbra to provide a toolkit and a framework to embed the toolkit in IDE
> > environment and provide additional enhancements. Both the companies
> > believe
> > that taking a joint approach and making it available through open
source
> > will make it widely accepted and create a community and unify Industry
> > momentum to consolidate requirements and accelerate community growth
and
> > enhance the toolkit to ease development of AJAX applications.
> >
> > Inexperience with open source:
> >
> > Both the companies and several of the commiters are very experienced in
> > Open Source environment. All efforts will be made to ensure that the
work
> > done and momentum will be in strict adherence to open source
guidelines.
> >
> > Homogenous developers:
> >
> > The current list of committers includes developers who are
geographically
> > distributed.  They are experienced with working in a distributed
> > environment, and with resolving technical differences.
> >
> > Reliance on salaried developers:
> >
> > All of the initial developers are paid by their employers to contribute
to

> > this project and the employers track records for ongoing investment in
> > open
> > source communities well known.
> >
> > No ties to other Apache products:
> >
> > The initial codebase will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.The
> > dependencies on other external projects are defined in the alignment
> > section.  While there are no direct build dependencies on other Apache
> > projects, the development of AJAX clients will often be driven by

Apache
> > middleware and will have a positive impact on the open source movement
as
> > described in the "Rationale" section.
> >
> > A fascination with the Apache brand:
> >
> > The committers are intent on developing a strong open source community.
We
> > believe that the Apache Software Foundation's emphasis on community
> > development makes it the most suitable choice.
> >
> > 1. Scope of the subprojects
> >
> >
> > The subprojects will include development tools necessary to encourage
> > browser-based, AJAX-style development for individual users as well as
in
> > the enterprise.  The tools will be driven by an extensible IDE
Framework
> > and may include utilities to assist in code development, analysis, and
> > testing.  The tools will be adaptable to different AJAX runtimes, some
of
> > which will also be subprojects in the incubator.  The initial
submission
> > includes an IDE and one such runtime.
> >
> > These initial projects are intended merely as starting points and
should
> > not be taken as bounding the scope of the project as a whole. Some
other

> > potential projects may include:
> >
> > * WYSIWYG tools for building AJAX-style interfaces
> > * Declarative grammars or abstractions for AJAX programming
> > * A common data model to facilitate efficient server communication with
> > Javascript or DOM access
> >
> > 2. Identify the initial source from which the subprojects are to be
> > populated
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework was developed at IBM as a set of plugins based

on
> > the Eclipse Framework and WebTools Project.  Zip files containing
> > snapshots
> > of CVS directories are provided with this proposal at
> > http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-ibm.tgz and
> > http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/ajaxtk-framework-contrib.tgz
> >
> > The Zimbra AjaxTK is available today in open source, and can be
downloaded
> > as part of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (choose the source code
version)
> > at
> > http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.php.  A snapshot of the AJAX
> > toolkit code is provided at
http://www.apache.org/~rubys/ajax/Ajax.tar.gz
> >
> > 2.1 External Dependencies of the project
> >
> > AJAX Toolkit Framework has dependencies on Mozilla XULRunner and
> > JavaConnect, and Eclipse WTP. AJAX Toolkit Framework is written as a
set
> > of
> > Plugin extensions to Eclipse. It embeds four other open source
components
> > Rhino, JSLint, Rico and Zimbra.  No code modifications will be made to
the
> > four open source components specified. They are incorporated to
> > accommodate
> > Eclipse plugin architecture and distributed as is by repackaging them
as
> > part of AJAX Toolkit Framework. In the future any AJAX toolkit that is
to

> > be supported can be included as another plugin.
> >
> > 3. Identify the ASF resources to be created
> >
> > 3.1 mailing list(s)
> >
> >     * ajaxtk-ppmc
> >     * ajaxtk-dev
> >     * ajaxtk-commits
> >     * ajaxtk-user
> >
> > 3.2 Subversion repository
> >
> >     * [WWW] https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/ajaxtk
> >
> > 3.3 Bugzilla
> >
> >     * AJAXTK (AJAXTK)
> >
> > 4. Identify the initial set of committers:
> >
> >     * Craig Becker
> >     * Leugim Bustelo
> >     * Andrew Clark
> >     * Conrad Damon
> >     * Ross Dargahi
> >     * Becky Gibson
> >     * Javier Pedemonte
> >     * Adam Peller
> >     * Roland Schemers
> >     * Donald Sedota
> >     * Parag Shah
> >     * Greg Solovyev
> >
> > 5. Identify Apache sponsoring individual
> >
> > We request that the Apache Incubator PMC sponsor the AJAX Toolkit
> > Framework
> > as an
> > incubating project, with the eventual goal of graduation as a TLP.  The
> > initial contributors feel the scope of the project doesn't clearly
> > overlap with any existing TLP, and is broad enough to justify eventual
> > TLP status.
> >
> > Champion:    Sam Ruby
> >
> > Mentors:     ??
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@...
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@...
> >
> >
>
>

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[Adam Peller-5]

Sylvain -

Sylvain Wallez wrote:
>So the questions are:
>- is the ASF the place for Eclipse extensions? I don't deny the ability
>to _existing_ project to host their tooling, but this isn't the case here.

The framework is composed of tools that happen to use Eclipse for a
runtime, much like Java-based projects use a JVM.  As Sam stated, hopefully
it's the function that's of interest more than the platform, though I can
understand that this is not a typical proposal. The framework is only one
component of the project; runtime libraries and other AJAX-based utilities
(not tied to Eclipse) can find a home here also.

>- why incubate an Ajax library that none of the current ASF projects
>uses nor plans to use, unless I missed something?

What we hope to achieve is to form a community around AJAX. The tools we
put forth, we believe, will be helpful contributions towards that
community, but others are welcome. AJAX is likely to indirectly drive
Apache-based servers, and direct integration between AJAX and existing
Apache projects is certainly possible -- MyFaces is one such example.
Already we are building on top of integrated support for Tomcat to support
J2EE-based projects, and providing extensible tooling is key to the
architecture, so we should look for more integration points.

As for Dojo, we're very impressed with the project also.  The tooling
framework we offer is extensible and even comes with tooling to create the
tooling -- something I didn't get into in the proposal, but it's basically
a wizard-driven UI to make it easier to get at least basic support for
toolkits.  Custom features would require real coding.

-Adam


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[Sylvain Wallez]

Sam Ruby wrote:

> Sylvain Wallez wrote:
>> Adam Peller wrote:
>>
>>> AJAX Toolkit Framework Proposal  
>>
>> I'm quite puzzled by this proposal. As I understand it, its mainly
>> about a set of Eclipse plugins for Ajax applications and the Zimbra
>> library that, among other features, provides a set of SWT-like widgets.
>
> Yes.
>
>> Also, this proposal pops up right after I mention on members@ that
>> several projects at Apache are using or plan to use Dojo [1] and that
>> we talked about inviting them. I sincerely hope this is just a
>> coincidence.
>
> Completely a coincidence.  I've been aware of the plan to submit this
> proposal for several weeks, and hadn't seen your post until you
> mentioned it.  I also had a conflict that precluded me from coming to
> the ApacheCon.
>
> As a general rule, the ASF doesn't go out "inviting", people within
> the ASF either start a new project, or projects come to us.

You're playing with words. Sure, there's no formal invitation process.
Now ASF members can approach projects they find interesting and "suggest
them to submit a proposal to the ASF", for the greatest benefit of both
the coming and existing ASF projects.

Thinking more about it, the fact that the ASF isn't supposed to invite
projects seems to go against the ASF meritocratic rules. You should not
ask for being a committer: you are voted in when other committers
consider you deserve it. And you can reject the offer. Same for
membership. Why couldn't it also apply to projects that already follow
the Apache way and are of interest to the Foundation's projects?

On the other hand, proposals like this one, originating from commercial
entities, really look to me as "pushing the ASF door open", even if the
incubator is supposed to ensure community diversity and healthiness
before graduating as a real project.

> In any case, the ASF is not exclusionary: if there was interest Dojo
> could be added to this proposal, or could pursue a separate proposal.

Right. Now I don't consider starting a proposal war to be the best thing
to do. Especially considering that one of the Dojo devs told me "Those
[the ASF benefits] are all good things, however the political and
organizational overhead of the ASF appears huge". Bingo.

>> So the questions are:
>> - is the ASF the place for Eclipse extensions? I don't deny the
>> ability to _existing_ project to host their tooling, but this isn't
>> the case here.
>
> As I mentioned, I was involved with these discussions.  The ASF
> doesn't tend to make these types of decisions based on the technical
> aspects of a project.  What impressed me about the people who were
> proposing this is that they were sincerely interested in the Apache
> License and collaboration model.
>
> While the Eclipse development model is certain a valid one, it is
> different in a number of significant ways from the ASF.  Suffice it to
> say that I am partial to the way the ASF does business.

Ok. Now some of the planned features seems to directly overlap with
what's already in webtools (e.g. the JavaScript editor), and this
project would be the first one at the ASF in the general IDE tooling
category, which is what Eclipse is all about.

Sure, the development models are different and Apache cares about
community and not technical details, but this seems weird anyway and I'm
wondering if that won't turn into an OSS organizations war which would
certainly be detrimental to all of us.

In other words: why isn't this IBM-originated generic Eclipse tooling
donated to the Webtools project, that also originated from IBM?

>> - why incubate an Ajax library that none of the current ASF projects
>> uses nor plans to use, unless I missed something?
>
> It is a valid question, but it is also valid to point out that the ASF
> has projects as diverse as TCL and SpamAssassin.

The situation is very different here: several projects are integrating
Ajax features and incidentally found that they were considering the same
framework for that purpoe. Whereas none of the ASF projects was already
envisioning close integration with a spam filter when SpamAssassin came
to Apache.

That could even end up with the funny (ahem) situation where Apache has
an Ajax framework that isn't used by its Ajax-enabled server-side
frameworks. Doesn't it sound weird?

> What is more important is considerations that the code be licensed
> with the Apache Software License (not dual licensed, like Dojo), that
> the committer bases be diverse, and operate in an open and
> collaborative model.

C'mon! The incubation process is meant to solve licence and IP problems.
Zimbra is MPL & ZPL(?), and the IBM contribution is "Licensed Materials
- Property of IBM"!!

The Dojo peeps dual-licensed their stuff to allow the widest
distribution possible [1], and have a development model very close to
the Apache way, with active user and developer lists, and committers
nominated on a meritocratic basis. I can't see the same in this
proposal. The Zimbra stuff, as technically impressive as it can be, is
the creation of a single company whose commercial offering is based on
it. Nothing that prevents it to incubate of course, but community
diversity isn't an easy thing to achieve in such conditions.

Sylvain

[1]
http://blog.dojotoolkit.org/2005/12/04/dojo-now-dual-licensed-afl-and-bsd

--
Sylvain Wallez                        Anyware Technologies
http://bluxte.net                     http://www.anyware-tech.com
Apache Software Foundation Member     Research & Technology Director


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