IBM Sweetens Cloudscape Pot with Developer Challenge - ' More Bite' (
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But although it seems counterintuitive, IBM's prize money actually will generate much more interest, experts predict, since IBM is actually asking for a more reasonable commitment. "CA is asking for a different kind of developer, a different commitment," said James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk, in London.
"Cloudscape is targeted at Java developers, who don't have a lot of relational database skills," Governor said. "They're certainly not the DBA [database administrator] class you'd expect in an environment like Ingres."
Putting a smaller dollar item on Cloudscape Java applications will attract more attention, given the nature of the Java community, he said.
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"In the Ingres community, [it's a question of], 'I have to go learn an entirely new thing that doesn't tie into what I do, but then, it is $1 million.' As opposed to [the Java community saying], 'This is something I'm very interested in and … it seems like a more bite-sized chunk. I'll go for that.'"
The reason that the open-source and Java communities are excited about Cloudscape is that they've long needed a fully embeddable, 100 percent Java, small-footprint storage solution that doesn't need handholding by DBAs—or what IBM is referring to as a "database in a jar."
"That's appealing to Java developers," Governor said. "I'm just dropping it in, and I have a database. That's a powerful little message."
According to Les King, program director of DB2 marketing, there have been more than 45,000 Cloudscape downloads from IBM's developerWorks site to date. The software, which comprised some half-million lines of database code valued at $85 million when it was donated to the Apache Software Foundation, is now in incubator stage while Apache vets its intellectual property status and makes sure there's a viable community for it.
Brian Fitzpatrick, vice president of public relations at Apache, said the open-source community is displaying a "great deal of interest" in Cloudscape, with contributors already contributing patches, "which is always a good thing," he said.
Apache has about nine developers working on Derby, along with three patch submitters. Its users mailing list has more than 150 subscribers, and its developers mailing list has almost 200, said Fitzpatrick, in Chicago.
The ApacheCon contest will take place on-site. The rules and details will be announced at the conference's opening plenary. Submissions will be accepted from Monday morning until Tuesday evening. The results of the contest will be announced at the closing plenary session Wednesday evening, when prizes will be awarded. Developers must be present at the closing plenary to win prizes.
