What do you think about IceFaces Ace Components being a copy of previous PrimeFaces components?

As you can see from the offical blog post of PrimeFaces team

http://blog.primefaces.org/?p=1692

90% of IceFaces 3.0 components are copied from an old branch ( one year old) of PrimeFaces. The only difference seems to be the package names so there is no clear enhancement.

What does IceFaces community think about IceFaces product strategy?

Cheers
Cenk
(a PrimeFaces team member)

Based on your blogpost, it is quite disappointing.
It is one thing to really modify and enhance, as Brian says here: http://www.icefaces.org/JForum/posts/list/20499.page

However, it doesn't appear this was the case. Any chance they could pull a later codeset, at least? :-)

regards,

Mike Green

Yes exactly. We are not seeing any enhancement over PrimeFaces components. Brian says IceFaces made PrimeFaces components enterprise ready. I don't know what enterprise ready really means..

He compares PrimeFaces to JQuery and YUI which makes no sense as PrimeFaces is competitor. Jquery did not copy code from YUI and called it OurYUI. That is what Icefaces is doing.

The current code used in IceFaces is almost 1 year old and belongs to PrimeFaces 2.x . PrimeFaces has continued to innovate and added several new components.

So for a developer, choosing IceFaces over PrimeFaces would not make sense at all. This is clearly a big mistake in IceFaces product strategy.

IceFaces should go back to the drawing board, rethink their product and try to innovate. Not imitate.

Best Regards
Cenk

Hi all
My two cents. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Primefaces and the work that has been done. You guys have moved the JSF world forward with the integration of top-class JavaScript components. However, stating that “IceSoft copied PrimeFaces code LINE BY LINE to come up with its new set of components” I find is a little hypocritical. You can’t tell me that this Primefaces component hasn’t been copied “LINE BY LINE”.

http://www.primefaces.org/showcase-labs/ui/schedule.jsf

See the “original” here: http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/

Yeah sure you have ‘enhanced it’, but anyone one who has not seen it before would assume you guys developed it. I don’t see any public credits given to the original author on your demo site or in your user manual and I’m sure there are many other examples. The irony is that Primefaces would have never existed unless ‘your’ code had not been copied from some other open source project "LINE BY LINE”.

Cheers
Wayne

I think it's important to put some perspective on the situation and also to correct some gross inaccuracies in some of the claims coming out of a number of blog and forum posts (including this one).

ICEfaces is first and foremost a JSF framework, providing core features such as Automatic Ajax and Ajax Push. It can be leveraged by any JSF project, with or without using the ICEfaces ACE, ICE, or EE Components. While we develop much of the technology ourselves, and are in fact the originators of important innovations such as DOMdiff-based rendering and Ajax Push, we also take advantage of the interoperability features of JSF and leverage available third party technologies when appropriate. Part of the ICEfaces product strategy is to identify appropriate best of breed technologies and integrate them into the framework to provide a more valuable solution for our users.

When we do integrate third-party technologies we apply whatever code changes that are necessary to facilitate both the initial integration and long-term supportability of the technology. The resulting product must meet our quality standards and operate seamlessly across the wide range of platforms we are committed to support.

In the case of the ACE Components library we have leveraged popular third-party open source libraries such as jQuery, YUI, and PrimeFaces. This activity has been ongoing for the past 7+ months and has been included in all of our preview releases for ICEfaces 3.0, and is also presented on the icefaces.org (now icesoft.org) website in the ACE Component Library FAQ.

It has been stated here that the ACE components were "90%" copied from PrimeFaces, with no code changes other than package names and no clear enhancement of the components.

These representations are misleading and untrue. Out of a total of 41 ACE components included in ICEfaces 3:

13 have NO PrimeFaces ancestry or code whatsoever

ace:animation

ace:dateTimeEntry

ace:excludeFromExport

ace:sliderEntry

ace:tabSet

ace:tabPane

ace:tabProxy

ace:fileEntry

ace:checkboxButton

ace:commandButton

ace:linkButton

ace:panelExpansion

ace:tableConfigPanel

19 were PrimeFaces sourced and have received substantial enhancements and bug fixes

ace:ajax

ace:accordion

ace:accordionPane

ace:dataTable (completely re-implemented with advanced features and reliability)

ace:cellEditor

ace:column

ace:columnGroup

ace:expansionToggler

ace:row

ace:rowEditor

ace:rowExpansion

ace:dataExporter

ace:dialog

ace:menu

ace:menuBar

ace:notificationPanel

ace:panel

ace:progressBar

ace:tooltip

9 were PrimeFaces sourced and integrated with the ICEfaces ACE environment

ace:contextMenu

ace:menuButton

ace:menuItem

ace:submenu

ace:draggable

ace:droppable

ace:resizable

ace:maskedEntry

ace:printer

During the course of ICEfaces 3.0 development, there have been several hundred ACE-related code-commits to the SVN repository, and over 200 ACE component JIRAs resolved relating to bugs and feature enhancements (improvements). Many of these JIRAs were generated as a result of extensive automated and manual QA processes that were applied to the new components.

Many of the representations involving 0% code change claims between the libraries are selective in nature and equally untrue. In fact, all of the integrated PrimeFaces components (that were themselves wrapped JQuery / YUI JavaScript components) have been modified to integrate with the ICEfaces framework, fix minor bugs, and leverage the ICEfaces Advanced Component Environment (incl. component generation). These changes are evident in the additional component Java class files and xxxMeta.java files associated with the components. Interested parties need only inspect the actual components in the download bundles or our SVN repository to confirm the obvious differences.

Regards,
Ken

The component you mentioned is a Jquery plugin and technically there is a difference between using PrimeFaces code vs Jquery code.
You still need to write a greal deal of code to use a JQuery plugin to introduce it to JSF.

PrimeFaces is JSF, Jquery is Javascript. Icefaces competes with PrimeFaces, offers services around IceFaces components. IceFaces has no such competition with Jquery.

The copied code is one year old and PrimeFaces has continued to evolve and become the best JSF component out there. This incident only proves that PrimeFaces is the innovation leader and on the right path.

BR
Cenk

Knuckle wrote:

Hi all
My two cents. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Primefaces and the work that has been done. You guys have moved the JSF world forward with the integration of top-class JavaScript components. However, stating that “IceSoft copied PrimeFaces code LINE BY LINE to come up with its new set of components” I find is a little hypocritical. You can’t tell me that this Primefaces component hasn’t been copied “LINE BY LINE”.

http://www.primefaces.org/showcase-labs/ui/schedule.jsf

See the “original” here: http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/

Yeah sure you have ‘enhanced it’, but anyone one who has not seen it before would assume you guys developed it. I don’t see any public credits given to the original author on your demo site or in your user manual and I’m sure there are many other examples. The irony is that Primefaces would have never existed unless ‘your’ code had not been copied from some other open source project "LINE BY LINE”.

Cheers
Wayne

PrimeFaces source code is open source and license model lets you copy it and use it in anyway you like. You can copy it , change package names and call it your own components and offer commercial services like you did.

In terms of your product strategy, basing your work on a competitor product makes no sense to me. The code you "enhanced" is 1 year old already. Will you be continue to copy our code in the future as well?
How can your clients trust you anymore to give support about a code that you have not totally written?

BR
-Cenk

ken.fyten wrote:

I think it's important to put some perspective on the situation and also to correct some gross inaccuracies in some of the claims coming out of a number of blog and forum posts (including this one).

ICEfaces is first and foremost a JSF framework, providing core features such as Automatic Ajax and Ajax Push. It can be leveraged by any JSF project, with or without using the ICEfaces ACE, ICE, or EE Components. While we develop much of the technology ourselves, and are in fact the originators of important innovations such as DOMdiff-based rendering and Ajax Push, we also take advantage of the interoperability features of JSF and leverage available third party technologies when appropriate. Part of the ICEfaces product strategy is to identify appropriate best of breed technologies and integrate them into the framework to provide a more valuable solution for our users.

When we do integrate third-party technologies we apply whatever code changes that are necessary to facilitate both the initial integration and long-term supportability of the technology. The resulting product must meet our quality standards and operate seamlessly across the wide range of platforms we are committed to support.

In the case of the ACE Components library we have leveraged popular third-party open source libraries such as jQuery, YUI, and PrimeFaces. This activity has been ongoing for the past 7+ months and has been included in all of our preview releases for ICEfaces 3.0, and is also presented on the icefaces.org (now icesoft.org) website in the ACE Component Library FAQ.

It has been stated here that the ACE components were "90%" copied from PrimeFaces, with no code changes other than package names and no clear enhancement of the components.

These representations are misleading and untrue. Out of a total of 41 ACE components included in ICEfaces 3:

13 have NO PrimeFaces ancestry or code whatsoever

ace:animation

ace:dateTimeEntry

ace:excludeFromExport

ace:sliderEntry

ace:tabSet

ace:tabPane

ace:tabProxy

ace:fileEntry

ace:checkboxButton

ace:commandButton

ace:linkButton

ace:panelExpansion

ace:tableConfigPanel

19 were PrimeFaces sourced and have received substantial enhancements and bug fixes

ace:ajax

ace:accordion

ace:accordionPane

ace:dataTable (completely re-implemented with advanced features and reliability)

ace:cellEditor

ace:column

ace:columnGroup

ace:expansionToggler

ace:row

ace:rowEditor

ace:rowExpansion

ace:dataExporter

ace:dialog

ace:menu

ace:menuBar

ace:notificationPanel

ace:panel

ace:progressBar

ace:tooltip

9 were PrimeFaces sourced and integrated with the ICEfaces ACE environment

ace:contextMenu

ace:menuButton

ace:menuItem

ace:submenu

ace:draggable

ace:droppable

ace:resizable

ace:maskedEntry

ace:printer

During the course of ICEfaces 3.0 development, there have been several hundred ACE-related code-commits to the SVN repository, and over 200 ACE component JIRAs resolved relating to bugs and feature enhancements (improvements). Many of these JIRAs were generated as a result of extensive automated and manual QA processes that were applied to the new components.

Many of the representations involving 0% code change claims between the libraries are selective in nature and equally untrue. In fact, all of the integrated PrimeFaces components (that were themselves wrapped JQuery / YUI JavaScript components) have been modified to integrate with the ICEfaces framework, fix minor bugs, and leverage the ICEfaces Advanced Component Environment (incl. component generation). These changes are evident in the additional component Java class files and xxxMeta.java files associated with the components. Interested parties need only inspect the actual components in the download bundles or our SVN repository to confirm the obvious differences.

Regards,
Ken

Posting PrimeFaces Lead Cagatay's response to Ken's entry

Ken so you say in total 28 components out of 41. We don’t see any significant enhancements or quality improvements as you mentioned other than changed package names. Believe me, we know the code we’ve written, it is the same.

While you are here, may I ask why you have done this at all instead of creating your own code, this is what people expect from a JSF component suite vendor. For example why haven’t you wrap the jquery widgets with your own code? What was the reason of copy-paste of PF code with package rename?

Now do you realize that? Your company is offering commercial offerings based on our work and gets hidden behind the protective walls of open source?

I’ll make sure that everyone who is evaluating IceFaces will know about what you have done!

Cagatay