HBase quarterly report Oct-Dec 2018

[Misty Linville <mi...@apache.org>]

All,

HBase submits a report to the ASF board once a quarter, to inform the board
about project health. I'm sending the report to the user@ and dev@ mailing
lists because you are the project, and for transparency. If you have any
questions about the report or the running of the project, you can pose them
to me or any other PMC member or committer, or send an email to
private@hbase.apache.org, which every PMC member subscribes to.

Thanks,
Misty

--
## Description:

Apache HBase is an open-source, distributed, versioned, non-relational
database. Apache HBase gives you low latency random access to billions of
rows with millions of columns atop non-specialized hardware.

hbase-thirdparty is a set of internal artifacts used by the project to
mitigate the impact of our dependency choices on the wider ecosystem.

## Issues:

Board-only information removed from public report.

## Activity:

There have been lots of interesting discussions on the dev@ mailing list.
Highlights:
- Discussion is ongoing about plans to move to Gitbox and ways the project
can accommodate users who prefer to contribute using Github. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/3496568d6cc002f74f5c3bcce46ed44b7ee9e90d7d53af2c65b6f785@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- An interesting discussion occurred about the frequency of releases in the
2.1.x line (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/222aacbf74d9788287ef5606fe66a06c1a3aa31a299a469d124a5ee0@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E).
The discussion included a sub-discussion about what it will take to
separate the hbck took from the main project, and another sub-discussion
about time-based releases and release cadence in general. It's worth a read.
- A proposal to retire the 1.3 line resulted in Francis Liu stepping in to
be the release manage for the line, because his team relies on that branch.
Francis is aiming for a quarterly release cadence. In the same discussion,
Andrew Purtell and Sean Busbey discuss how they have been managing 1.2 and
1.4 lines, and plans for the 1.5 line. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/dd655a21cb5eb23a983648d71f5d08ca567b110ab9128a70f06eddcc@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- Another discussion of 1.x release cadences was started by Andrew Purtell,
including specific plans for the 1.5 branch. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/e18266c8aa1e1406f3e652a3a1ee52d498aaad506537621cc754499b@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- Another interesting discussion resulted in improved understanding and
documentation of the process for editing and rebuilding pages on the HBase
website that don't result from building the documentation. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/18010d0897752db7f9d91f4f75694831a7ed9db28739ce4a91e546e4@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- Speaking of 1.5, the first snapshot is available for testing. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/bbf7b47920da532535bb8ce493df3265fd91211b227f681b2cc3c3a2@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)

Josh Elser started a discussion on the PMC list about the definition of and
parameters for an HBaseCon event, who can run one, and other guidelines,
informed by his work organizing HBaseCon US 2018. He's working on some
project-facing documentation, which promises to be helpful for future
organizers of HBase-related events worldwide.

The HBase project is working toward the goal of more frequent minor
releases and fewer unprompted maintenance releases. In total this quarter,
HBase had 8 releases over this quarter, across 5 release lines.

Another goal, spanning several quarters, is to solicit more non-binding
votes on release candidates, as non-binding votes are one signal of broader
community engagement. Here are a few examples:
- HBase 1.3.3 RC0 had 40% non-binding votes (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/9e3a472e142faa9a48ed5ab0e1e1baaaeb9ddfe7a9fdcfa547c2cd20@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- HBase 1.4.8 RC0 had 50% non-binding votes (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/2f8ad79f6da4d2ac223a61b82aeb29a2322479257f271da90f0687e0@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)
- HBase 2.1.1 RC0 also had 50% non-binding votes (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/f9ccc377dbeac4b3a7a0cddcef0cd7369675f5b1cc570b6c19a52864@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)

As a reminder, anyone on the dev@ list can test and provide feedback on a
release candidate, and cast a non-binding vote.

Lars Hofhansl is in the process of organizing a bay-area HBase developer
meet-up at Salesforce. If you're interested, participate in the thread. (
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/e814054e8d8ad1c5ebb30b9c50d97b5b8b5edada121f184fdf045e3d@%3Cdev.hbase.apache.org%3E
)

Two new committers were added this quarter, and two committers joined the
PMC. More details below. Thanks to the new committers and PMC members for
agreeing to take on more responsibilities in the project.

## Health report:

Despite a slow holiday quarter, the HBase project shows a high level of
engagement, as seen through release cadence, deep and meaningful discussion
on mailing lists, discussion and documentation of processes, and
non-binding votes in the project.

## PMC changes:

 - Currently 44 PMC members.
 - Zach York was added to the PMC on November 15, 2018.
 - Allan Yang was added to the PMC on Mon Nov 26 2018.

## Committer base changes:

 - Currently 78 committers.
 - Balazs Meszaros was added as a committer on October 11, 2018.
 - Jingyun Tian was added as a committer on Mon Nov 12 2018.

## Releases:

 - 1.2.8 was released on Fri Oct 19 2018.
 - 1.2.9 was released on Mon Nov 26 2018.
 - 1.4.8 was released on Sun Oct 07 2018.
 - 2.0.3 was released on Sat Dec 01 2018.
 - 2.1.1 was released on Tue Oct 30 2018.
 - 1.3.3 was released on Thu Dec 20 2018.
 - 1.4.9 was released on Thu Dec 13 2018.
 - 2.0.4 was released on Wed Jan 02 2019.

## Mailing list activity:

 - dev@hbase.apache.org:
    - 1060 subscribers (down -6 in the last 3 months):
    - 997 emails sent to list (1075 in previous quarter)

 - user@hbase.apache.org:
    - 2254 subscribers (down -11 in the last 3 months):
    - 119 emails sent to list (260 in previous quarter)

## JIRA activity:

 - 405 JIRA tickets created in the last 3 months  (down from 413 last
quarter)
 - 322 JIRA tickets closed/resolved in the last 3 months  (down from 428
last quarter)