Polaris Community Sprint Summary & Notes

[Adam Christian <ad...@gmail.com>]

Howdy folks!

Thank you to all who could participate in Polaris' first Community Sprint
yesterday. There were several fruitful discussions. I wanted to summarize
some of the major discussions on the Dev Mailing List. If you want more
information, all of the breakout session notes can be found in the agenda
document [1]. PLEASE NOTE: No decisions can be / were made in these venues
since all decisions must be made on the Dev Mailing List.

Topics:
The community had sessions on:
1. Generic Tables & the Common Table API
2. Federation & Authorization
4. Becoming a Business Catalog
5. Polaris SPIs & Interfaces

There were several other topics proposed which were not spoken about
including:
1. The Polaris Console
2. Backup
3. User Onboarding
4. IRC Scan Planning API Support
5. Roadmap & Vision
6. Polaris Community Swag

Topic-Specific Summaries:
Generic Tables & Common Table API:
In this session, the community spoke about the current state of generic
tables and how to support other non-Iceberg data including structured,
semi-structured, and unstructured data. The team came up with several ideas
on how to evolve the generic tables concept including:
1. Having a single API for both Iceberg & non-Iceberg tables
2. Supporting credential vending
3. Having a schema for all structured data

Federation & Authorization:
In this session, the community brainstormed several ideas around identity,
catalog federation, and authorization federation including:
1. The extent of Kerberos support needed
2. Synchronization between Iceberg Catalogs
3. Policy store federation
4. The proposals around federated users and external principles

Business Catalog:
In this session, the community discussed extending Polaris to include
"business catalog" metadata such as documentation and descriptions. The
session better defined the use cases and weighed the pros & cons of
different options to support these use cases.

SPIs & Interfaces:
In this session, the community addressed how to support service providers
who extend Polaris to provide a managed Polaris-backed service. The team
weighed several options on how to designate certain interfaces as
extensibility points and how to handle evolution of those interfaces.

Thanks once again for the participation! If you have any feedback, please
feel free to reach out to me or Danica Fine.

[1] -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XEcwlxfuDGS4oupUzlz-sYdqLFD-mcslD1gSYET8Xeo/edit?tab=t.g10i1trvm76

Go community,

Adam

Re: Polaris Community Sprint Summary & Notes

[Kevin Liu <ke...@apache.org>]

Thank you, Adam, for the detailed notes, and thanks to everyone for hosting
such a great community event! I really enjoyed all the conversations and
looking forward to more great discussions and collaborations.

Best,
Kevin Liu


On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 4:34 PM Yufei Gu <fl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for sharing the summary, Adam! Really appreciate you taking the time
> to both moderate the sprint and record/share the notes and recording
> afterward.
>
> The structure made it easy to follow, and having the agenda doc + recap is
> super helpful for folks who couldn’t attend live. Great job facilitating
> the discussions and keeping things moving.
> Yufei
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 9:23 AM Adam Christian <
> adam.christian.software@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Howdy folks!
> >
> > Thank you to all who could participate in Polaris' first Community Sprint
> > yesterday. There were several fruitful discussions. I wanted to summarize
> > some of the major discussions on the Dev Mailing List. If you want more
> > information, all of the breakout session notes can be found in the agenda
> > document [1]. PLEASE NOTE: No decisions can be / were made in these
> venues
> > since all decisions must be made on the Dev Mailing List.
> >
> > Topics:
> > The community had sessions on:
> > 1. Generic Tables & the Common Table API
> > 2. Federation & Authorization
> > 4. Becoming a Business Catalog
> > 5. Polaris SPIs & Interfaces
> >
> > There were several other topics proposed which were not spoken about
> > including:
> > 1. The Polaris Console
> > 2. Backup
> > 3. User Onboarding
> > 4. IRC Scan Planning API Support
> > 5. Roadmap & Vision
> > 6. Polaris Community Swag
> >
> > Topic-Specific Summaries:
> > Generic Tables & Common Table API:
> > In this session, the community spoke about the current state of generic
> > tables and how to support other non-Iceberg data including structured,
> > semi-structured, and unstructured data. The team came up with several
> ideas
> > on how to evolve the generic tables concept including:
> > 1. Having a single API for both Iceberg & non-Iceberg tables
> > 2. Supporting credential vending
> > 3. Having a schema for all structured data
> >
> > Federation & Authorization:
> > In this session, the community brainstormed several ideas around
> identity,
> > catalog federation, and authorization federation including:
> > 1. The extent of Kerberos support needed
> > 2. Synchronization between Iceberg Catalogs
> > 3. Policy store federation
> > 4. The proposals around federated users and external principles
> >
> > Business Catalog:
> > In this session, the community discussed extending Polaris to include
> > "business catalog" metadata such as documentation and descriptions. The
> > session better defined the use cases and weighed the pros & cons of
> > different options to support these use cases.
> >
> > SPIs & Interfaces:
> > In this session, the community addressed how to support service providers
> > who extend Polaris to provide a managed Polaris-backed service. The team
> > weighed several options on how to designate certain interfaces as
> > extensibility points and how to handle evolution of those interfaces.
> >
> > Thanks once again for the participation! If you have any feedback, please
> > feel free to reach out to me or Danica Fine.
> >
> > [1] -
> >
> >
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XEcwlxfuDGS4oupUzlz-sYdqLFD-mcslD1gSYET8Xeo/edit?tab=t.g10i1trvm76
> >
> > Go community,
> >
> > Adam
> >
>

Re: Polaris Community Sprint Summary & Notes

[Yufei Gu <fl...@gmail.com>]

Thanks for sharing the summary, Adam! Really appreciate you taking the time
to both moderate the sprint and record/share the notes and recording
afterward.

The structure made it easy to follow, and having the agenda doc + recap is
super helpful for folks who couldn’t attend live. Great job facilitating
the discussions and keeping things moving.
Yufei


On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 9:23 AM Adam Christian <
adam.christian.software@gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy folks!
>
> Thank you to all who could participate in Polaris' first Community Sprint
> yesterday. There were several fruitful discussions. I wanted to summarize
> some of the major discussions on the Dev Mailing List. If you want more
> information, all of the breakout session notes can be found in the agenda
> document [1]. PLEASE NOTE: No decisions can be / were made in these venues
> since all decisions must be made on the Dev Mailing List.
>
> Topics:
> The community had sessions on:
> 1. Generic Tables & the Common Table API
> 2. Federation & Authorization
> 4. Becoming a Business Catalog
> 5. Polaris SPIs & Interfaces
>
> There were several other topics proposed which were not spoken about
> including:
> 1. The Polaris Console
> 2. Backup
> 3. User Onboarding
> 4. IRC Scan Planning API Support
> 5. Roadmap & Vision
> 6. Polaris Community Swag
>
> Topic-Specific Summaries:
> Generic Tables & Common Table API:
> In this session, the community spoke about the current state of generic
> tables and how to support other non-Iceberg data including structured,
> semi-structured, and unstructured data. The team came up with several ideas
> on how to evolve the generic tables concept including:
> 1. Having a single API for both Iceberg & non-Iceberg tables
> 2. Supporting credential vending
> 3. Having a schema for all structured data
>
> Federation & Authorization:
> In this session, the community brainstormed several ideas around identity,
> catalog federation, and authorization federation including:
> 1. The extent of Kerberos support needed
> 2. Synchronization between Iceberg Catalogs
> 3. Policy store federation
> 4. The proposals around federated users and external principles
>
> Business Catalog:
> In this session, the community discussed extending Polaris to include
> "business catalog" metadata such as documentation and descriptions. The
> session better defined the use cases and weighed the pros & cons of
> different options to support these use cases.
>
> SPIs & Interfaces:
> In this session, the community addressed how to support service providers
> who extend Polaris to provide a managed Polaris-backed service. The team
> weighed several options on how to designate certain interfaces as
> extensibility points and how to handle evolution of those interfaces.
>
> Thanks once again for the participation! If you have any feedback, please
> feel free to reach out to me or Danica Fine.
>
> [1] -
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XEcwlxfuDGS4oupUzlz-sYdqLFD-mcslD1gSYET8Xeo/edit?tab=t.g10i1trvm76
>
> Go community,
>
> Adam
>