The problem of Qt Jambi

I like desktop UI development. Especially I like architecture of Swing, but not so long ago I felt the power of Qt, thanx to Qt Jambi. Now I know that while Qt have some architecture problems it has superior Graphics, more usable widgets, and saves a lot of time on borders and pixels manipulations thanx to it's advanced widgets.

But Nokia decided to stop supporting Qt Jambi, and gave it away to "community". While there are some smart guys on Qt Jambi mailing lists - it is not community yet. And of course I thought about ways to help Jambi survive.

The problem is, I am Java developer, and Jambi was created for Java developers. Most of people on Jambi mailing list are Java developers. It is not very popular among C++ developers because they will not be able to use the result of their work. While Jambi generator is written in C++, and to be able to update Jambi according to Qt changes you should know C++.

Ok, let's assume I am learning C++, to help Qt Jambi to write Java apps using Qt. Well, not Qt itself but bindings of Qt to Java. Do you see the problem? Why should I use Jambi if I already know C++ and I can use Qt itself, without bindings and additional abstraction levels. Then, why should I help Jambi if I will not use it?...

As for me Jambi-like project will not survive without support of some company, and stopping Jambi support Trolltech/Nokia almost killed the project. Now it most likely some parts of Jambi will be salvaged, for example it's extremely cool generator. Maybe in some time I will learn C++ a bit better and will dive a bit inside of Generator sources, and maybe even write something similar in Java if I'll have nothing better to do...

Problems of small opensource projects

Being Java developer and fan of OpenSource I am writing lots of stuff. Mostly for myself, tools that I am missing or to get some experience with something. But of course there are projects that I think others will like and use if they will know more about it. Few examples:

• Once I wrote small tool for Swing apps to choose LookAndFeel in runtime. It was JLAFChooser and I hoped it will become popular very soon. But days passed and downloads count was small. I thought that mostly it's downloaded by different search engines, nobody cares about it. And I just forgot about it, didn't planned to make it better. Download rate is about 1.001 per day. No bugs, no feature requests, no thanx or private mails. Nothing. Maybe this project had it's future, but now it's as good as dead. And even java.net registration did nothing to improve the situation.
• Then came p4nb. I did it for myself anyway, I am still using it at work because it's the best available Perforce plugin for NetBeans IDE. It's just enough for me. And nobody cares. Looks like nobody using NetBeans and Perforce at once. I can implement vast amount of features, including changes browsing, changelist management and many other. But I have more interesting projects for myself, and nobody else asks for it. Why should I do it?

You will ask what's the point of that moaning? But the point is, once one guy mailed me with words like "hey, I added few features to your p4nb plugin, maybe you need it?". That day I understood that I am not the only user of that plugin, there are at least another man using it. It was the new beginning for p4nb, it got completely rewritten with new and better feature set and better usability. And then it was forgotten again, because all users were glad with what they had, no bugs and no change requests fired.
Today I got a mail from one guy who is using JLAFChooser, he asked about launching it from Java WebStart. Of course I answered him, but why so late? I have no interest in that peace of software now, and I will not get back to it's development. It's dead for me, because no one really needed it when it was interesting for me.

1. How many projects died like this? What kind of project they were, maybe we lost something really interesting?
2. What should I do to prevent it in future? Post to slashdot? Buy Google Ads? Tell me what I did wrong to fix it in future.

Thanx for your attention, and I hope this post will not be just ignored in the same sad manner.