Category for app server container?

[carehart]

I was looking for an application server like Tomcat and did not find it. Even if I wanted to propose adding one (Tomcat or another that I was more prepared to be maintainer for), this raised a few questions:

• is there any reason app servers would not be accepted? (I don't find mention of any in issues, so clearly the demand is low)
• what category would you have such a container listed as? Or might you create a new one, like "application servers"?
• are only containers for open source apps allowed? What if a commercial vendor offers a free dev edition of a container?

Thanks

[DoNnMyTh]

Hellop @carehart, I would suggest you give it a look https://github.com/civo/kubernetes-marketplace/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

[carehart]

I had. Do you feel I missed something? Do you feel my answer is there? Are you speaking as an authority here in the project, or just trying to help?

[DoNnMyTh]

Well i'm From civo community, who is trying to help.

[andyjeffries]

I've not had much experience with application servers, but is this something that is deployable and usable without integration (e.g. like a database) or is it something where you'd then need to inject your own code in it somehow and deploy the updated container (e.g. like Nginx or apache)?

Other than that, I would personally say maybe "Architecture". We tend not to make categories for a single app, we'd put it in an existing category for now, and then extract to a new category when there are enough of a certain type to justify it.

Regarding closed source apps, we have no restriction on them and indeed welcome them. The only real stipulation is that the software is usable and useful for our customers without needing to pay for a licence. I.e. not super-crippled functionality. So, a dev version that is genuinely useful for the customers at small scale (i.e. actually useful and usable, not just for learning) and also helps them become familiar with the full product for a benefit to the vendor, that's fine.

[andyjeffries]

@saiyam1814 is running our marketplace, so I'm sure he'll jump in to help with any further advice.

[saiyam1814]

Rightly said by Andy, Tomcat would go to Architecture, Open source apps tend to get added more as people and the community uses them but it's not restricted. If you have an app that would be beneficial for the community then you can add that, the free version would be better IMO

[carehart]

Thanks, everyone. That clarifies things.

To Andy's initial observation/pondering, about how an app server (like Tomcat) might compare to a web server or database server, at least as far as inclusion here is concerned, the answer is yep, they are very similar. All of them are things that don't do much until they are given data to process, and all of them can be setup to have that data within the container or work with it via a volume.

And they tend to integrate with each other (web servers often front app servers, which often talk to database servers, though of course some web apps don't need an app server). And it's in this very respect that it would seem that app serves would have a place here. (As for their being none so far, that could be chicken or an egg problem, as far as supply/demand go.)

As for the clarification on including commercial apps, again thanks. To be clear, I WAS specifically asking with regard to a free version of such a commercial app. Some such free versions of commercial apps may be entirely free (with some limitations, which may not be crippling), while others may be full-featured but indicated as not supported for commercial use.

Such would be the responsibility of the vendor to clarify, and a user to confirm, but a marketplace entry for such a product might reasonably be expected to offer at least a brief clarification on any such restriction. Again, my main question was whether there was any outright ban on them (in some open source circles, there would be).

Finally, as for whether any of this (even in briefer form) might be clarified on the contributions page, I imagine that you all would probably feel that such would not be needed unless many others ask, is that right? Or are you open to a PR that tries to add such a clarification (based on your words here)? I realize you (and others) may choose to refine any such wording, or choose not to accept it. Again I'm asking first: are you even open to considering it?

As always, just trying to help.

[andyjeffries]

Thanks for the explanation. Happy to include it if it would be useful to people. We don't currently have a way of specifying that a marketplace application requires certain resources to run, so that's a personal concern with Java processes, but aside from that, no problem.

Definitely no outright ban and our marketplace is open for people to contribute to, rather than worrying about open source apps only.

Definitely open to a PR on the contributions file or anything really.

[carehart]

OK, great. Thanks.