The importance of discussing and contributing code

libwww'ers

First, I think there is reason to celebrate that there are now more than
600 checked out libwwws from CVS [1]. This shows to me that there is a
significant interest in the code base and what it can be used for.

However, we have still to leverage the full potential of the term
"OpenSource" [2]. To me this means that there is an ongoing debate and
feedback about

	a) what the code base is good for and what it isn't good for
	b) how to add new features
	c) how to fix bugs and performance issues

As you probably know, I have been developing libwww for some years now with
one main purpose: show the potential of modularized design and how smart
protocol design and implementation like our HTTP/1.1 code can lead to
significant higher performance than what you get in other HTTP client
implementations.

However, this obviously doesn't cover all points above. Therefore, if you
are working on the code, or if you get stuck somewhere, send mail to the
list - provide fixes, suggest new applications, etc. If you don't, well
then the code base will not be improved.

There are currently five people actively contribution code to libwww

	Bob Racko, John Punin, Vladimir Kozlov, Jose Kahan, and myself.

We are busy people and can not carry the burden of maintaining the code
full time. Therefore, we need more help - are you going to be the next?
Check out the current todo list [3] to get some ideas.

Henrik

[1] http://www.w3.org/Library/cvs.html
[2] http://www.opensource.org/
[3] http://www.w3.org/Library/User/ToDo.html

--
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen,
World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/People/Frystyk

Received on Saturday, 14 November 1998 10:56:53 UTC