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List:       fop-user
Subject:    Re: the effectiveness of Open Source software (was: 0.95BETA Regression: ZapfDingbatsEncoding in fin
From:       Jeremias Maerki <dev () jeremias-maerki ! ch>
Date:       2008-04-18 6:50:05
Message-ID: 20080418075613.2EAB.DEV () jeremias-maerki ! ch
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Thanks. You were lucky because it's a topic that is important to me. ;-)
Other issues take much much longer to resolve (years sometimes!). BTW,
the effectiveness of OSS can even be improved if more people who are
successfully using it think about contributing something back in one
form or another. This is not directed at you in particular, Richard
(sorry to single you out), but at everyone on this list and on fop-dev.
Contributing is very easy and a number of people demonstrate that
already (Thanks!!!). There are various ways to do that:
- Post detailed information on problems that makes it quick and easy for
fop-devs to fix them (like Richard did in the present case).
- Answer questions on fop-users (Helps fop-devs concentrate on improving
the code)
- Write Wiki pages with examples, tips and lessons learned.
- Improve project documentation and FAQ entries.
- Review old Bugzilla entries (updates, cleanup)
- Take time (or give a developer time) to improve something in FOP's
codebase and write tests. [1]

[1] I know, FOP's source code can be scary at first. Some parts (like
the layout engine) really are due to the complexity of XSL-FO. But there
are so many other parts where it is not nearly as difficult to dive into.
Of course, the fop-devs are always happy to give pointers and advice.

                             - o -

In both FOP and Batik we face an increasingly difficult situation:
XSL-FO and SVG have lost their hype-factor. They are considered a
readily available commodity but still, there's so much left to do. For
the Apache XML Graphics project the discrepancy between the size of the
user base and the development teams has been growing over the years.

If you look at other projects inside the ASF, you can see that some are
practically exploding with activity (all the SOA-related projects, but
also Harmony and others). Not so in XML Graphics, unfortunately.

A few companies and organizations are investing in Batik and FOP through
individual developers (in-house and external) which is probably what
made the renewed life at least of FOP possible after the 0.20.5 release
and today allows us to publish very cool software packages. And from
what I hear they have really profited from their initiative.

Developers change projects, jobs, interests. People come and go. So we
have to make sure we get new blood from time to time. While open source
is free (with free almost commercial-grade support ;-) ) it doesn't
write itself. We need help! Everyone is invited to participate!

To all those who are bundling FOP with their (commercial) products: It's
great that you do that! That's why the ASF created the Apache License
V2.0 and does not use a copy-left license (GPL-family). But please keep
in mind that you can only influence the direction of the project if you
play an active part in it (whatever this part looks like).

Thanks for listening, everyone!


On 18.04.2008 03:08:08 kennardconsulting wrote:
> 
> Wow - what a turn around time! You guys are a complete testament to the
> effectiveness of Open Source software. I can't thank you enough for all your
> hard work. FOP is awesome, and makes a massive difference to my ability to
> sell XSL-FO based solutions to my clients (eg. I don't have to ask them to
> stump up enormous  per CPU license fees).
> 
> Yes, I can confirm this is now fixed in the 0.95 branch.
> 
> Thanks again!
> 
> Richard.
> 
> -- 
> View this message in context: \
> http://www.nabble.com/0.95BETA-Regression%3A-ZapfDingbatsEncoding-in-final-PDF-output--tp16738796p16758722.html
>  Sent from the FOP - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.



Jeremias Maerki


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