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Posted to general@incubator.apache.org by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org> on 2010/07/27 12:11:29 UTC

A few questions about a potential entry into the incubator

I'm currently working with the community behind a large and established 
codebase that wants to enter the ASF Incubator. It is likely to be a 
while before we have the legal stuff sorted out but all indications are 
that it will be sorted.

I do, however, have a few questions from the team that I'm unable to 
answer with complete confidence so here goes:

Their user mailing list has 3000 subscribers and is currently hosted by 
Yahoo!. They report that there are problems with getting the information 
out of that list. Has anyone here got experience of migrating a yahoo 
list, preferably with archives to ASF hardware? What options do we have 
if it proves to be problematic?

The project consists of a "core" and then a number of optional modules 
that extend the core. At present most of these modules are maintained by 
the same community members but are hosted in different projects, in some 
cases on different infrastructure, in all cases with different release 
cycles. The modules do not useful without the core, that is they cannot 
be used with a different implementation of the core.

Are there any problems bringing these modules into the podling, managing 
them under the same community but each having separate release cycles.

Finally, they have a large number of users and thus changing their java 
package names to org.apache.* will create considerable problems for 
them. They are happy with the package names but want to do it in a 
managed way with plenty of warning for their users.

Can incubator releases be in package names other than org.apache?

Ross



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rgardler@apache.org
@rgardler

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Re: A few questions about a potential entry into the incubator

Posted by Marcel Offermans <ma...@luminis.nl>.
On 27 Jul 2010, at 12:11 , Ross Gardler wrote:

> Are there any problems bringing these modules into the podling, managing them under the same community but each having separate release cycles.

Apache Felix is one example of a project that consists of many modules, each with their own release cycle, so I can't imagine that's a problem.

Greetings, Marcel


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Re: A few questions about a potential entry into the incubator

Posted by Upayavira <uv...@odoko.co.uk>.
On Tue, 2010-07-27 at 11:11 +0100, Ross Gardler wrote: 
> I'm currently working with the community behind a large and established 
> codebase that wants to enter the ASF Incubator. It is likely to be a 
> while before we have the legal stuff sorted out but all indications are 
> that it will be sorted.
> 
> I do, however, have a few questions from the team that I'm unable to 
> answer with complete confidence so here goes:
> 
> Their user mailing list has 3000 subscribers and is currently hosted by 
> Yahoo!. They report that there are problems with getting the information 
> out of that list. Has anyone here got experience of migrating a yahoo 
> list, preferably with archives to ASF hardware? What options do we have 
> if it proves to be problematic?

I would advise just leaving that list as is, with its old archives. Put
pointers to these old archives on the new incubator site.

You will not be able to autosubscribe users to the new list. They will
have to re-subscribe. Autosubscribing would involve migrating
information about people between organisations, which fires up loads of
data-protection and consent issues.

Likewise attempting to migrate the archives could get you caught up in
all sorts of copyright/consent issues too.

> The project consists of a "core" and then a number of optional modules 
> that extend the core. At present most of these modules are maintained by 
> the same community members but are hosted in different projects, in some 
> cases on different infrastructure, in all cases with different release 
> cycles. The modules do not useful without the core, that is they cannot 
> be used with a different implementation of the core.
> 
> Are there any problems bringing these modules into the podling, managing 
> them under the same community but each having separate release cycles.

There is no reason why a podling must release only one resource. The
only requirement is that each and every release meet the release
requirements, and be vetted by the incubator PMC. Too many separate
releases could make this process onerous, and would likely put a
significant load on the projects mentors, as the incubator PMC will
likely expect them to carry a reasonable amount of that load.

> Finally, they have a large number of users and thus changing their java 
> package names to org.apache.* will create considerable problems for 
> them. They are happy with the package names but want to do it in a 
> managed way with plenty of warning for their users.
> 
> Can incubator releases be in package names other than org.apache?

Typically projects plan to migrate to org.apache at their next major
version. Before that, they keep their old package names for obvious
compatibility reasons.

Hope that helps.

Upayavira



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Re: A few questions about a potential entry into the incubator

Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.
Thanks for the responses. I'm moving forwards with this now.

Ross


On 27/07/2010 11:11, Ross Gardler wrote:
> I'm currently working with the community behind a large and established
> codebase that wants to enter the ASF Incubator. It is likely to be a
> while before we have the legal stuff sorted out but all indications are
> that it will be sorted.
>
> I do, however, have a few questions from the team that I'm unable to
> answer with complete confidence so here goes:
>
> Their user mailing list has 3000 subscribers and is currently hosted by
> Yahoo!. They report that there are problems with getting the information
> out of that list. Has anyone here got experience of migrating a yahoo
> list, preferably with archives to ASF hardware? What options do we have
> if it proves to be problematic?
>
> The project consists of a "core" and then a number of optional modules
> that extend the core. At present most of these modules are maintained by
> the same community members but are hosted in different projects, in some
> cases on different infrastructure, in all cases with different release
> cycles. The modules do not useful without the core, that is they cannot
> be used with a different implementation of the core.
>
> Are there any problems bringing these modules into the podling, managing
> them under the same community but each having separate release cycles.
>
> Finally, they have a large number of users and thus changing their java
> package names to org.apache.* will create considerable problems for
> them. They are happy with the package names but want to do it in a
> managed way with plenty of warning for their users.
>
> Can incubator releases be in package names other than org.apache?
>
> Ross
>
>
>


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Re: A few questions about a potential entry into the incubator

Posted by Jochen Wiedmann <jo...@gmail.com>.
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org> wrote:

> Finally, they have a large number of users and thus changing their java
> package names to org.apache.* will create considerable problems for them.
> They are happy with the package names but want to do it in a managed way
> with plenty of warning for their users.
>
> Can incubator releases be in package names other than org.apache?

Not only incubator releases have different package names: Take, for
example, the Geronimo specs jar files. [1] In other words, there is no
legal requirement to have package names under org.apache and this is a
SHOULD rule.

My personal opinion is that maintenance releases should be compatible,
thus not change package names. Jar file names (with a -incubator or
-incubating) are another matter: They can easily be renamed, if
someone feels like it. OTOH, if the package names can be choosen (as
opposed to the Geronimo specs files), then the project should change
it.

A good example might be the ActiveMQ project, which entered the
Incubator in 2005. The project continued its 3.2.x line with several
maintenance releases in 2006. At the same time it began to develop its
next major release, the 4.0.x line with the org.apache package name.

In that example, the maintenance releases have been created from the
old, non-Apache infrastructure. But, assuming that there are no legal
blockers for moving the source code of a maintenance version, at least
a snapshot, to svn.apache.org (which the project must do anyways in
the medium term), I'd be clearly in favour for releasing from within
the Incubator.

Jochen


[1] http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/geronimo/specs/

-- 
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