collabnot
I’m a fan of java.net. I’m a occasional and regular participant in a number of projects on it. I like the principles behind the service, and always recommend it to people looking for java project hosting.
However, it certainly has its warts. For anyone who has engaged in a back and forth with the poor community managers at Sun, every problem boils to one simple issue. Collabnet are a bunch of spastic moneygrubbing incompetent shirtlifting perlwanks.
Matt Raible for example bemoaned the lack of customization for the navigation, because only the criminally insane and genitally challenged would use the despicable bugzilla or revolting forums that collabnet offers. It’s perfectly sensible to want to customise said links to your own saner issue tracker (yes, even JIRA is a step forward here) or your forums (Jive, another astoundingly greedy bunch of bendoverandpayushaha types, who at least have something worth charging for.)
Another example. Let’s say you’d like a cvs tarball of your repository, so you can run fisheye on it, for the purposes of gawping at pretty graphs that mean nothing. A perfectly legitimate way of pretending to do something useful. Even the turdhaus of sourceforge offers such a service. Collabnet though will only hand over such a thing if you send them enough money to feed an American family of couchpotatos.
It’s surprising, really, that a company such as Sun, with its proud tradition of eating their own dogfood and sticking to java technology, chooses to go with such an ungodly stench of perl and open source jizz splattered all over such a public site. I can understand it if collab at least offered these services in return for publicity, but Sun pays horrific amounts of money to that bunch of spineless slashdot Iwanttofondleericraymond’smoustachewhilebeingfistedbypaulgraham types.
Needless to say, the thing performs terribly too, and in the fine tradition of ever Sun site that has ever existed, thoroughly ignores any amount of rampant clicking on ‘remember me’ type buttons. At least in that case, java.net is merely following a tradition at Sun that has been around for the last 9 years or so, rather than heaping new insults on the hapless users who just want to be able to log in periodically out of sheer boredom.
Of course, there’s no subversion support (too expensive, I bet), and the integration between the various components is as much as one can expect from a bunch of hobbyist tools cobbled together by oily teenagers.
Of course, the real punishment is dished out to those naive or arrogant enough to think that they might want their project documentation available on java.net itself. The time and effort that collabnet has spent to ensure that anyone with such filthy habits is ‘cured’ of them is impressive to say the least. It’s easier to tattoo your bottom with small print documentation and visit ever user interested than actually make anything available on there. At least in the tattoo you do get to make some of the decisions involved in layout and design.
Still, as evil and worthy of mutilation, death, and torture as collabnet might be, Sun does its fair share towards ensuring the user experience is anything but enjoyable. Authorizing projects takes, if you’re lucky, a week or six. Finding a sympathetic community manager to a particular problem is a crapshoot; if you luck out and find one who cares, chances are they’re about to leave Sun, be promoted/demoted to something less/more important, or go on a two month vacation with no email access without notifying anyone.
Remind me to never buy any product that’s a repackaging of existing open sores crap. The people who are always, always trying to pull a fast one and con someone out of some money, and are only ever motivated by being paid to piss around incompetently. I wish collabnet nothing but ill, and hope that everyone involved with them gets what they truly deserve one day. Brian Behlendaft, may you disappear up your own lardass one day.
July 30th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
first post!
July 30th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
man..that was the most lame entry ever…totally pointless…getting old??
July 30th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Now, here is something I don’t understand… CollabNet, the people who run tigris.org, write all of java.net’s software. As you can see on tigris, there’s obviously subversion support (they host subversion, for god’s sake). Their issue tracker (”Scarab”, certainly not Bugzilla), is available in a free version there, too. It’s integrated in their product that runs java.net. It’s all written in Java, most of it seems to be based on Apache Turbine as one of the key developers seems to be Jon Stevens, who actually invented the thing.
Now if you critizise software in your own special, most funny way, be my guest. But this seems to be BS. Where did you get all that Perl-crap from?
July 30th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
If you’re looking for lardasses, you know where to find us, bile-boy.
July 30th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
To jm: Just because CollabNet *can* offer up its services with Subversion and Scarab does not mean that every customer can go through the upgrade process, or wants to. Depending on how they’ve tied CollabNet into other services (e.g., java.net Wikis), it may be painful or expensive to bring on board a newer version of the CollabNet technology where Subversion and Scarab are options. It may also be that new projects can choose Subversion or Scarab, but existing projects are stuck where they are — I haven’t started a java.net project in a year or two.
To Hani: you seem to have in mind a better mousetrap. If so, build it, and see if the world beats a path to your door…and take note if they are carrying pitchforks and torches…
July 31st, 2005 at 10:32 am
No, that was a great post. But you forgot to mention the scheduling software Sun has for JavaOne; friggin’ thing has been going on for 10 years and it is still some of the most braindead crap ever made. One year, they mooned the crowd about how they figured out how to make it so you could add an item to your schedule and not force a screen paint. Like taking pride in the growth of a fingernail.
July 31st, 2005 at 12:59 pm
[Trackback] Yesterday I stumbled about The BileBlog ’s collabnot entry
because it was listed at JRoller’s main page
when I logged out and the title sounded familiar to me, as CollabNet also happens to host OpenOffice.org . The BileBlogger surely
spa…
August 1st, 2005 at 4:19 am
woteva
August 1st, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Subversion? I thought you hated it?
GAL! Freak.
August 1st, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Perl wankstains must DIE!
August 1st, 2005 at 4:41 pm
One can use wiki for documentation, though I’d prefer an easy way to upload javadocs.
Hani, you did not whine too much about UI, I guess because it is not really that bad. CSS, fluid page design and correct font/tabs resizing is actually better than average.
August 1st, 2005 at 10:45 pm
Hani: Good to hear you’re doing well. DanD pointed me toward your 15 minutes of bile. Well done. And to think, way back at CG, all you were was a serial killer - now look what you’ve done for yourself! Again, well done. (but watch your back)
August 2nd, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Hi there, I’m in hell with John Paul II. We’re having great fun with the chicks who sinned too much. The temperature is the same as it used to be back home. Hani, come and join us! It’s the perfect place for open sores.
August 3rd, 2005 at 8:44 am
Hey Fate - Why has TSS become so damn boring? Is it the TechTarget takeover?
August 5th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
I believe it is known as the Joseph O. “King Midas” touch.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:57 am
As a corporate drone shackled to collabnet no matter how often or effectively they prove their utter incompetence, and having already had my career trashed by certain corporate antibodies for whom collabnet’s incompetence is a mealticket, I can only thank you, from the bottom of my heart for speaking the truth. These people are so far beyond incompetent it’s a feat that they can walk outside in the rain and not drown - their entire business model is preying on corporate incompetence to mask their own - i.e. whoever hires them will look bad if they admit they got screwed. Collabnet survives entirely on the unwillingness of their corporate sponsors to admit they got conned big-time.