Milagro / MIRACL

[James Harland <ja...@miracl.com>]

All,

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of communications on-list,
particularly from the MIRACL side.

As you may have be able to tell, we have been unclear on our
open-source strategy at MIRACL, and as a knock on effect of that,
somewhat inconsistent in our behaviour towards ASF processes.

We are currently undertaking a project to solidify our strategy as it
relates to open-source, including with the ASF.  Once that project and
decision making process is completed, we can commit to either being
“all in” with the Apache Milagro project, or perhaps happily agreeing
to the proposed retirement.  Either way, it will result in us being
more intentional, consistent and reliable as it relates to our
commitment to Milagro going forward.

All that being said, we will need a bit more time to complete our
strategy review.  I expect we will be able to conclude by the end of
July if not before. At which which point we’ll get back to the list
and, should our decision be to move forward with the Milagro project,
engage with the rest of the community to help define and implement the
rescue roadmap that Nick has started.

Many thanks and feel free to let me know if you have any questions.  Best,

James


_____________________
James Harland
COO/CFO
e:   james.harland@miracl.com
w:  miracl.com

Re: Milagro / MIRACL

[Giorgio Zoppi <gi...@gmail.com>]

Hello,
from the user (since i am ramping up) point of view, it is a diffucult to
follow different repositories.
It will be nice to have a single repository for each project. I am aware of
algos since i have worked to the Hardware Security Modules for two years
in Gisiecke and Devrient (www.gi-de.com), it will be nice to have
straightforward line to follow for at least trying your software and
contribute to the server side.
The demo project that i have in mind is a react native client and a libuv
server. It is a toy for sharping my networking skills, but for example it
could be used to attract developers at the next Apache Europe, that in my
mind is next Octuber.
From the business point of view as graduated in project management, it
would be useful to have an authentication toolkit, so sell Milagro as an
authentication mean to plug in different apache projects (i.e. kafka,
common-crypto, spark) etc. If it is needed by your client (james), as well
biometric Multifactor authentication (i hope to do not appear as visionary
here), That's my point of view.

Best Regards,
Giorgio.



2018-05-01 10:27 GMT+02:00 James Harland <ja...@miracl.com>:

> All,
>
> Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of communications on-list,
> particularly from the MIRACL side.
>
> As you may have be able to tell, we have been unclear on our
> open-source strategy at MIRACL, and as a knock on effect of that,
> somewhat inconsistent in our behaviour towards ASF processes.
>
> We are currently undertaking a project to solidify our strategy as it
> relates to open-source, including with the ASF.  Once that project and
> decision making process is completed, we can commit to either being
> “all in” with the Apache Milagro project, or perhaps happily agreeing
> to the proposed retirement.  Either way, it will result in us being
> more intentional, consistent and reliable as it relates to our
> commitment to Milagro going forward.
>
> All that being said, we will need a bit more time to complete our
> strategy review.  I expect we will be able to conclude by the end of
> July if not before. At which which point we’ll get back to the list
> and, should our decision be to move forward with the Milagro project,
> engage with the rest of the community to help define and implement the
> rescue roadmap that Nick has started.
>
> Many thanks and feel free to let me know if you have any questions.  Best,
>
> James
>
>
> _____________________
> James Harland
> COO/CFO
> e:   james.harland@miracl.com
> w:  miracl.com
>

Re: Milagro / MIRACL

[Nick Kew <ni...@apache.org>]

> On 1 May 2018, at 09:27, James Harland <ja...@miracl.com> wrote:
> 
> Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of communications on-list,
> particularly from the MIRACL side.

Thanks.

A statement from you (i.e. management) is useful in throwing light on why
we are where we are.  But what matters much more to Apache is the
developers, whose work at Apache should not be dictated by their
employment except insofar as there is inevitable commonality of interest.

In the earlier days of Milagro, I felt a few times that Miracl folks, while
some of them are good prospective Apache folks, sometimes seemed
to be on too tight a rein to their management.  The impression was that
they didn’t feel empowered to act on their own initiative.  Even today,
the silence from Miracl developers on the Roadmap discussion is troubling:
the only person really engaging there is of course from NTL.

Bear in mind that what Apache seeks is a community that should be
robust enough to survive even if a founding company (in this case Miracl)
were to fold or pull out.  Although the current roadmap attempt is
obviously less ambitious, that’s where we need to aim for graduation!

> As you may have be able to tell, we have been unclear on our
> open-source strategy at MIRACL, and as a knock on effect of that,
> somewhat inconsistent in our behaviour towards ASF processes.

Indeed, I have heard on the grapevine of recent developments.

> We are currently undertaking a project to solidify our strategy as it
> relates to open-source, including with the ASF.  Once that project and
> decision making process is completed, we can commit to either being
> “all in” with the Apache Milagro project, or perhaps happily agreeing
> to the proposed retirement.  Either way, it will result in us being
> more intentional, consistent and reliable as it relates to our
> commitment to Milagro going forward.

OK, that’s useful input.  Please bear in mind though, your commitment
to being “all in” is a commitment to building a community that will act
autonomously.  You can retain influence by directing what your employees
work on, but you absolutely give up corporate *control* of the project.
I understand Miracl management has changed, but in the past I think
I’ve had contradictory signals about that: they understood the principle
but struggled with the practice!

> All that being said, we will need a bit more time to complete our
> strategy review.  I expect we will be able to conclude by the end of
> July if not before. At which which point we’ll get back to the list
> and, should our decision be to move forward with the Milagro project,
> engage with the rest of the community to help define and implement the
> rescue roadmap that Nick has started.

Standard Incubator reporting is every three months.  We reported at the
beginning of April, so the next regular report is due at the beginning
of July.  So that would be a useful timescale to bear in mind.

For my part, I will look to present an update to the Incubator PMC in
the next few days.  I’m thinking through how to present that.

— 
Nick Kew