March 2010 Incubator Board Report

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

The past month has gone well, with no issues requiring Board attention.
Actually, in terms of Incubator business (not per-project activity), it has
been a relatively light month.

Changes to the PMC in the past month:

  Added:   Glen Daniels, Karl Pauls, Greg Reddin
  Removed: Jason van Zyl, Will Glass-Husain, Antoine Levy Lambert,
           Berin Lautenbach, Phil Steitz, Roland Weber, Santiago Gala

Log4PHP is graduated to the Logging TLP.  A new JSR-303 Bean Validation
(BeanValidation) project is starting, as is the Spatial Information Systems
(SIS) project.

There had been a question about Droid IP clearance issue, which turned out
to be a non-issue, with completely documented provenance.  Discussion is on
general@i.a.o.

The Board raised a concern about WSRP4J.  The project does appear to be
stuck at the moment, having lost all momentum due to the patent claim issues
that Apache Legal has subsequently covered to the satisfaction of the
project.

Of some concern is this month's ETCH report, where they express that they're
having trouble with community building, and are reaching out for help.  If
anyone has some cycles to spare, please feel free to jump in and help!

As for Wiki Markup, I always make an effort to find and remove it all.  If
any is remaining, it is an oversight.

-------------------------------------------

= Aries =

Aries will deliver a set of pluggable Java components enabling an enterprise
OSGi application programming model.

Aries entered incubation on September 22, 2009.

There are currently no issues requiring IPMC or Board attention .

The following sub-components are actively being developed:

 * Application
 * Blueprint
 * JMX
 * JPA

Several new sample applications have been developed to demonstrate the Aries
functionality.

A new component has been created to feed experience into the OSGi standards
process.

There has been a lot of activity on the mailing list this year indicating a
vibrant community is being built.

One new committer, Rex Wang, has been added. Redhat have started to
participate in the project.

We have begun the process of doing a 0.1.0 release and aim to release
shortly.

Top 2 or 3 things to resolve before graduation:

 * Build community
 * Create a release
 * Address project scope concerns raised during acceptance vote


= Bluesky =

Did not report.  The students are just back from vacation, and there was
some discussion of moving them back to a quarterly schedule.  We'll ask for
an April report.


= Clerezza =

Clerezza (incubating since November 27th, 2009) is an OSGi-based modular
application and set of components (bundles) for building RESTFul Semantic
Web applications and services.

The are currently no issues requiring board attention.

Recent activity:

 * IFP smushing (merge duplicate nodes based on inverse functional
properties)
 * Replaced code with problematic license in triaxrs (url-encoding)
 * Fixed problems with TDB based launcher (regression after update of Jena
TDB cause by incomatible versions)
 * more complete HTTP support (OPTIONS *)
 * Integration with UIMA for metadata generation using external services
like OpenCalais and AlchemyAPI
 * Many bugfixes
 * Discussing about Clerezza related project(s) for GSoC

Next steps:
 * integration with Tika

Top 2/3 Issues before graduation:
 * Get our website online, currently it's just a placeholder
 * Prepare some easy-to-run demos to get people interested in Clerezza
 * Prepare for a first release


= ESME =

Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment (ESME) is a secure and highly
scalable microsharing and micromessaging platform that allows people to
discover and meet one another and get controlled access to other sources of
information, all in a business process context.

ESME entered the incubator in 2008-12-02.

The following items have been performed since the last reporting period

 * Ethan Jewett was accepted as an Apache committer.
 * Completion of our first release (1.0 RC1) was our main focus. This
included getting the code-base release-ready, learning how to cut releases
and communicating on release goals / process within the community.
 * Dealt with a legal issue involving a committer not wanting to remove
copyright information. Solved after long discussions on the apache-legal and
esme-dev mailing lists (thanks to all involved!)
 * Started working on defining the JIRA items for the next release
 * Collaboration with various Apache-external groups (Thingamy, SAP's
All-In-One)
 * Users from various enterprises are using ESME in test installations

The following items are planned for the next reporting period:

 * Work on new UI
 * Further releases
 * Integrate Stax deployment in daily Hudson builds

Top 2 or 3 things to resolve prior to graduation

 * Increase community involvement in the project
 * Multiple Apache releases


= Etch =

Etch was accepted into Incubator on 2 September 2008.

Etch is a cross-platform, language- and transport-independent framework for
building and consuming network services. The Etch toolset includes a network
service description language, a compiler, and binding libraries for a
variety of programming languages.

This last reporting period saw little activity (0 commits, 0 releases).
We're finding it hard to regain our momentum after the dissolution of our
team. James and Scott are using etch in their current projects, and Youngjin
would like to pick up the c-binding. What we lack is the organizational
energy to get things moving.

Some folks have submitted a c-binding for us to examine. Youngjin is going
to be looking at it. I've been shaking down the etch 1.1 release candidate
in my current project, and as soon as I can get my head out I plan to fix
the final administrative issues of the 1.1 release and try to kick it out
the door.

Release 1.1 is ready but needs some administrative polish before it is
*done*.

Release 1.2 is next in the pipeline.

Our continuous integration build problem will only be solved by one of us
hosting it at our new gigs. James and Scott are looking into this.
[!GavinMcDonald adds: I'm looking into adding Etch to CI stuff at ASF]

Outstanding items:

More community.. we have been Cisco-centered with just a few nibbles outside
of Cisco. Things are definitely changing with members employed or so to be
employed in different places. Building a stronger community remains our key
task. We wish we knew how.


= Hama =

Hama has been incubating since 19 May, 2008. It is a distributed scientific
computational package based on Hadoop Map/Reduce and BSP.

Recent Activity:

 * We'd implemented, introduced the BSP (Bulk Synchronous Parallel) package
 * Added a new committer, Hyunsik Choi

The following is planned for next reporting period:

 * More documentations
 * Re-factoring for improving the design of existing code

Before this project can graduate we need to encourage more participation in
the project and grow the community.


= Kato =

Kato was accepted into the Incubator on 6 November 2008.

Kato is a project to develop the Specification, Reference Implementation,
and TCK for JSR 326: the JVM Post-mortem Diagnostics API

Recent Activity:

    * The project's first release M1-incubating was finally released.

The following is planned for next reporting period:

    * The completion of the JSR-326 specification.
    * Finalization of RI and JSR.

Before this project can graduate we need to encourage more participation in
the project and grow the community.

Signed off by mentor:


= Log4php =

Log4PHP is a logging framework similar to Log4J, but in PHP. The project
entered incubation in 2004, retired and restarted again on 2007-07-04. After
the first release, community feedback has increased.

The Log4PHP Community and the Logging PMC voted in favour of leaving the
Incubator and moving to the sponsoring Logging project. This has just been
confirmed with a vote by the IPMC, so Log4PHP has graduated!

There are still some resource moves etc that need to happen, but expect that
future Log4PHP reports will now come as part of the Logging report. Congrats
Log4PHP devs.

  * Bugfixes on 2.0.0 has been done
  * Several new ideas of improvements have been collected in the issue
tracker
  * Apache Log4PHP 2.0.0 (Incubating) has been released on 12.12.2009


= Lucene Connector Framework =

Lucene Connector Framework is an incremental crawler framework and set of
connectors designed to pull documents from various kinds of repositories
into search engine indexes or other targets.  The current bevy of connectors
includes Documentum (EMC), FileNet (IBM), LiveLink (OpenText), Patriarch
(Memex), Meridio (Autonomy), SharePoint (Microsoft), RSS feeds, and web
content.  Lucene Connector Framework also provides components for individual
document security within a target search engine, so that repository security
access conventions can be enforced in the search results.

Lucene Connector Framework has been in incubation since January, 2010.

A list of the three most important issues to address in the move towards
graduation
 1. End-user documentation needs to be converted into a usable form
 1. Strategy is needed for developing an Active Directory authority service,
for mapping Kerberos principals to AD SIDs
 1. Testing strategy under Apache needs development

Any issues that the Incubator PMC (IPMC) or ASF Board wish/need to be aware
of?
 1. We'd like to know whether there is any official Apache position on
inclusion of NTLM implementations in ASF projects, since we've gotten mixed
signals on this from other developers.  This represents a crucial piece of
functionality needed to support LiveLink, Meridio, SharePoint, RSS, and Web
connectors properly.

How has the community developed since the last report?
So far, most of the activity has been from the mentors and the committers,
but given the nascent state of the project this is not surprising, and we
expect interest to continue growing.

How has the project developed since the last report?

Lucene Connector Framework was voted into the Incubator in January 11, 2010.
The following has been done since then:

 * Mailing lists set up
 * Site created
 * SVN area set up
 * Code grant from MetaCarta accepted in early February, including Apache
2.0 headers on all pertinent files, and was committed to SVN at that time
 * An ant build system for the Java code was created and tested
 * Code was MetaCarta de-branded
 * Code was formatted in accordance with Apache standards
 * Issues related to upstream propagation of features into other Apache
projects were opened
 * Documentation for building and hand setup was committed

 At this point the project is buildable and usable.


= OODT =

OODT is a grid middleware framework for science data processing, information
integration, and retrieval. OODT is used on a number of  successful projects
at [[http://jpl.nasa.gov/|NASA's  Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California
Institute of Technology]], and many other research institutions and
universities.

A list of the three most important issues to address in the move towards
graduation
 1. Port OODT  code and license headers into ASF license headers
 1. OODT contributions from at least 2 other organizations besides JPL
 1. At least one OODT incubating release, hopefully in the first few months

Any issues that the Incubator PMC (IPMC) or ASF Board wish/need to be aware
of?
No, not at this time.

How has the community developed since the last report?
So far, most of the activity has been from the mentors and the committers,
but we expect interest to continue growing. Chris Mattmann has been
mentioning OODT over in the Lucene community.

How has the project developed since the last report?

OODT was voted into the Incubator by the IPMCon January 22, 2010.

All mailing lists have been set up, all SVN accounts are up, and karma has
been granted to all OODT committers. So far, three OODT committers have
stepped up  and begun to discuss issues on the mailing lists, and tackle
some  issues. Sean Kelly and Chris Mattmann worked with Joe Schaefer and
Justin Erenkrantz to get the OODT initial code  drop from NASA into Apache
SVN. As of http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT-1 and
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT-2, the work is completed on the
initial code drop. Sean McCleese has been pouring through
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT-3, taking the action to update the
OODT source code with ASF 2.0 license headers. Chris Mattmann took care of
some of the initial work, checking  in a README, NOTICE, CHANGES and LICENSE
set of files into the OODT source.


= RAT =

No IPMC or Board issues requring attention.

RAT remains quiet but steady. A major PITA of the website not building
correctly was solved by Brian Fox. Some Jira issues were attended to and
patches committed. More and more projects are using RAT for their checks,
some adding as a Maven goal before doing a release, others via Buildbot or
other CI tools as part of their commit and check process.


= River =

River is aimed at the development and advancement of the Jini technology
core infrastructure. Jini technology is a service oriented architecture that
defines a programming model which both exploits and extends Java technology
to enable the construction of secure, distributed systems which are adaptive
to change. River has been incubating since December 2006.

Interest and participation has increased and we are hoping to pick up some
new committers as a result. A new release candidate has been submitted and
is available for review at:

http://people.apache.org/~peter_firmstone/

The source is also available from svn at:

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/river/jtsk/branches/2.1.2

We are currently in a voting period for Apache River Incubator Release
2.1.2.

Recent activities have focused on easing development and streamlining the
build process
and a significant number of bugfixes.

Issues before graduation:

 * Migrate packages to org.apache.river
 * Increasing participation, further growth of the developer community.


= SIS =

Apache SIS is a toolkit that spatial information system  builders or users
can use to build applications containing location context. This project will
look to store reference implementations of  spatial algorithms, utilities,
services, etc. as well as serve as a  sandbox to explore new ideas. Further,
the goal is to have Apache SIS  grow into a thriving Apache top-level
community, where a host of SIS/GIS  related software (OGC datastores,
REST-ful interfaces, data standards, etc.) can grow from and thrive under
the Apache umbrella.

A list of the three most important issues to address in the move towards
graduation
 1. Inclusion of more of a diverse community around SIS (maybe one more
organization besides AT&T Interactive and NASA JPL)
 1. At least one SIS incubating release, hopefully in six months
 1. Inclusion of point-radius, bounding box and polygon functionality into
the first few releases

Any issues that the Incubator PMC (IPMC) or ASF Board wish/need to be aware
of?
No, not at this time.

How has the community developed since the last report?
There was a lot of positive interest from the Incubator community during
the SIS proposal and voting process. We recently stood up our  mailing lists
and have begun to report JIRA issues, so we hope those are positive first
steps to building an  Apache-based community.  Chris Mattmann discussed SIS
over in the Lucene community as something to watch in terms of a common
place for spatial code for Solr and Lucene to reside.

How has the project developed since the last report?
SIS was voted into the Incubator by the IPMC on February 21, 2010.

All mailing lists have been set up, all SVN accounts are up, and karma has
been granted to all SIS committers. Sean McCleese and Patrick O'Leary
volunteered to be list moderators, and Chris Mattmann has reported two JIRA
issues, http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SIS-1 (import Local Lucene
code), and http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SIS-2, stand up the SIS
website. We will also begin work soon on porting the license headers for
Local Lucene into SIS ASL 2.0 headers, and to port the package names for
code (JIRA issues to be filed on this).



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