Do-Ocracy

Subtitle: Why I'm not personally responsible for the completeness of the web

I recently pointed a group of people to the Web Services Stack Comparison page on the Apache wiki. This is a page that has been edited by a bunch of people from different Web Services projects, but not me personally. Its almost certainly not completely up-to-date - because the projects change rapidly - but its a still a useful resource, and being a wiki has the benefit that people from different projects can update it with their own details. This might be the most accurate available comparison - just because its self-edited.

However, the page has no entry for Apache CXF. I'm certain CXF would look good on this listing - its a nice project.

But the page isn't complete: it also has no entries for Spring Web Services, ZSI, SOAP4R, PHP5, or a host of other Web Services stacks. It doesn't have entries for the WSO2 stacks either: WSF/C, WSF/PHP, WSF/Ruby, etc.

Why am I telling you this? Because someone took offense at my referencing this incomplete page. So guess what? I suggested they or someone from CXF updated it. Yes - its a wiki! That's how they work. If you look at the edit history for this page you will see that people from Apache, Sun, Oracle and elsewhere have all added their own details.

The wiki culture is very similar to the Open Source culture. If you want something done, just do it. Its called a "do-ocracy" - the power is with the people who actually write the code, do the work and make the changes. Its probably the biggest shock to people in traditional hierarchical organizations. Because once you succeed as a developer you get promoted to be an architect. And then you forget how to actually do things.

Unfortunately my suggestion - that the person in question add CXF - fell on deaf ears, so I've sent a note to the CXF mailing list suggesting they add a column - and offering to help.

As a final note, I would like to make it clear that the internet, in conjunction with almost every other form of information, is incomplete. Yep. It isn't finished. It cannot be relied on to let you know every possible piece of information. And while I do my best to keep it up to date, I'm not going to accept responsibility for the whole web!