ODE, ODE 2.0, the Attic and the Incubator

[Rich Bowen <rb...@apache.org>]

(Oops. I mailed this to users@ rather than user@. Sorry for the
crosspost, but I wanted to be sure as wide an audience as possible sees
this.)

Hi, ODE folks,

Please forgive this intrusion by an outsider. I am aware that I lack
both the history of your project, and the technical understanding of
your software. However, I represent the Board of Directors, and we
wanted to discuss something with you before you take your project to the
Attic.

In today's Board meeting, we discussed your desire to move to the Attic,
while at the same time taking a new project, with the same name, and the
same mission, albeit with different architecture, to the Incubator.

We agreed to postpone your Attic proposal another month, in the hopes of
ensuring that you're aware of all the options that are available to you.

There is considerable precedent, at Apache, for projects completely
reboot their code, while retaining the existing project name and
community. The Apache HTTP server did this very early on. Axis also did
this many years ago. The advantages of this approach are numerous:

* You retain your brand equity (ie, the value that you've already
established in your name)
* You tell the user community that you're still solving the same
problem, although you're solving it differently
* You save the hassle of going through the Incubator for code that will
be developed "in house"
* You save the hassle of having to Attic your project
* You eliminate a huge amount of user confusion. "That project is dead."
"No, it's not, look over here." "Wait, two projects with the same name?
Which one should I be using?" and so on.

While the Board is not going to dictate which route you should take
here, we strongly encourage you to use your existing structure -
website, mailing lists, revision control, etc - to bootstrap the new
proposal discussed at https://s.apache.org/rSlq  Leverage the existing
expertise in your existing community. Build the new thing, and deprecate
the old thing, while being completely transparent to your users that the
new thing is a completely new thing, and isn't trying to be a drop-in
replacement.

We believe that doing the community/project "reboot" in place, rather
than going via the Attic and Incubator, is to the benefit of everyone -
you, your user community, the attic, the incubator, Infrastructure, and
the Apache marketing team. And there are lots of people on the board,
the members list, and the Community Development team, who would be glad
to offer advice, assistance, and whatever support you need to make this
happen.

What do you think?

--Rich, for the Board of Directors.