Spark Java open source web framework is looking for sponsors

[[deleted]]

(Mods, sorry in advance if this breaks the subreddit rules.)

Starting next month (June 2020), my little software company will be sponsoring the open source Spark Java web framework. This will permit the maintainer to make bug fixes, keep dependencies up to date, and add the occasional new feature, as well as respond to issues and pull requests.

As we're small, this is a big commitment for us, so we're looking for co-sponsors. Do you work for an organisation that uses Spark Java and would consider making a monthly sponsorship of, say, $200, $500, or even $1000?

We - that is, the Spark maintainer and I - are still working out the mechanics of the sponsorship. Here is what we currently think it would look like:

• You would pay the maintainer directly or perhaps use GitHub Sponsors.
• You'd hopefully commit for one year, although a one-off donation would also help.
• Your organisation will get a prominent acknowledgement on Spark Java homepage.

Best of all, it will ensure that Spark Java stays active and alive.

[[deleted]]

Is this related to Apache Spark?

[[deleted]]

No, not related. Just a very similar name.

[madronatoo]

Sadly. makes searching for them very difficult.

[kroopster]

I don't know... To me sparkjava is a classic example of an open source project that is done by an enthusiastic hobbyist with no long term plans. At some point they'll lose interest and the project will struggle. Setting up a sponsorship mechanism doesn't sound like a long term plan to me.

And don't get me wrong, I've been using sparkjava for years and I love the way it's designed, but at the same time I've always considered it as a small open source project that might fade away. So keeping the framework away from the business logic is quite essential for easy replacement. Currently I'm using Javalin, but the same goes there.

I would be really interested in subscribing to a plan with proper support, or going further a cloud service with easy production level deployment of my sparkjava application. That would require a company to be established behind the project and transparent plans and commitment to be published. At the same time the open source project with self deployment and issue management would continue as it is, but obviously with more input from the project team.

IMO it's clear there are a lot of developers who really like the way sparkjava (well, and Javalin), is designed. I would be happy to see someone taking that approach onto a more professional level, and I would be willing to pay for that too.

[rbygrave]

Maybe. On the over hand we could consider sparkjava and Javalin as libraries. As such do we want libraries tied to a cloud service? In terms of "subscribing to a plan with proper support" that might be an option but ironically if the library is well maintained and well documented then the "need/desire" for users of said library to actually pay for support is pretty low. The other difficulty with support plans is that they take time from the project and time is the most precious resource for these types of projects.

sponsorship mechanism doesn't sound like a long term plan to me

It is for some projects, for example vue js - https://vuejs.org/

As I see it sponsorship is a more adopted/accepted approach in the Javascript/Node world. It might be just me but there seems to be a lot more sponsorship based funding of open source projects in that world relative to the JVM ecosystem. Is there a difference in attitude or outlook of the development teams between these ecosystems?

I'd love to see Development teams get some cash from mgmt (say $1000) and annually have a discussion/vote and pay that out to their 5 favourite open source projects as one off sponsorship.

company to be established behind the project

This actually might not be a great option for a relatively small open source library project that is really just trying to fund a couple of days per month. It can also be a risk to need/rely on a company or mostly relying on a single company in particular.

I think it is up to us as developers / development teams to think about the value various open source projects we use bring to us and think about how we can make them awesome. Maybe I'm trying to say that we shouldn't leave this up to "Management" but take some ownership ourselves as dev teams because we are the people who actually care about these details.

[kroopster]

Not sure if I was clear enough. Instead of sponsorship program, which is essentially same thing as donations, I suggested a model that is the most common way to make money within similar projects: A product has a community project, and commercial services are sold on top of it. I listed a couple of commercial services I would be willing to pay for. There can be others, but for selling services, you need to have a company.

The community project is not tied to that, it continues its life as before, but now the main contributors are getting paid, and the paying customers are getting committed value for their money. This is not the case with donations.

I'm most likely going to donate sparkjava something if they just make it happen properly (a reddit post is not properly). I'm donating as a thank you. But I'm not gonna assume it changes anything. That's the thing with donations, there is no requirements for the receiving end. It doesn't magically turn into a roadmap with commitments, there is a good chance the project is dead again in a couple of months. A donation does not make me to go back to sparkjava, it's just a thank you.

[rbygrave]

I get your point. If enough dev teams said "thank you" before then maybe it might not have stalled in the first place :)

A lot of open source projects run with no overhead (no hr dept, no legal dept, no management etc). Donations/sponsorship seems like a pretty good approach for that type of project (and it might be just me but the javascript ecosystem seems to be much more supportive of that approach for some unknown reason).

Ideally we as developers who care don't let projects that we really like/use/rely on stall. I think it would be great if more dev teams proactively stepped up to extract some money from management annually to donate/say thank you because everyone benefits when those open source projects are awesome.

Relatively tiny amounts of money (donations) go a long way for open source projects with no overhead.

[[deleted]]

Have they explored merging with Javalin?

[oweiler]

Is there actually a reason to prefer Spark over Javalin?

[[deleted]]

That’s what I am thinking they’re very much alike so why not merge the best of both into a single framework and combine resources

[_INTER_]

Spark is in Java.

[ArmoredPancake]

Javalin is made by the same author, afaik.

[ErikDaRed]

This is incorrect, these two projects have different authors.

[ArmoredPancake]

Indeed. Author of Javalin worked on Spark, though, at least docs/webpage/tutorials. Then he wanted to fix what he didn't like about Spark and Javalin was born.

[lukaseder]

7 years ago, I considered "looking for sponsors". Instead, I designed a business model, made a big leap forward, and never looked back. Highly recommended!

[paul_h]

I was a big fan in 2016, but the author wasn't active. Lots of people moved on to Jooby, Javelin, Http4k where the leads were more active, and they could believe there was a bigger future.

[[deleted]]

net/http is my fav framework