[ANNOUNCE] Weekly community update #51

[Till Rohrmann <tr...@apache.org>]

Dear community,

this is the weekly community update thread #51. Please post any news and
updates you want to share with the community to this thread.

# Flink Forward China is happening

This week the Flink community meets in Beijing for the first Flink Forward
China which takes place from the 20th to the 21st of December. Find out
more about the given talks and training sessions on the website [0].

# Release voting for 1.5.6, 1.6.3 and 1.7.1

The community is currently voting on three bug fix releases Flink 1.5.6,
1.6.3 and 1.7.1 [1, 2, 3]. Please help the community by trying out the
release candidates.

# Flink SQL DDL design

The Flink SQL DDL design discussion is currently converging and the
community tries to define the scope of the MVP [4]. Join the discussion to
learn where the journey is headed to.

# Improving Flink's Kerberos integration

Rong started a discussion on how Flink's Kerberos integration could be
improved to better meet enterprise requirements [5]. If you want to share
your experiences and voice your opinion what should be supported by Flink
wrt Kerberos please join this discussion.

# Python and non-JVM language support in Flink

Xianda started a discussion on Flink's support of non-JVM languages in
particular Python [6]. The discussion revolves around three different
strategies: (1) Language portability via Apache Beam; (2) Implement own
Python API; (3) Implement own portability layer. Please chime in if you
want to make your opinion heard.

[0] https://china-2018.flink-forward.org/
[1]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/dfcb64406bc70d85b6d9aed34638e9099524c1c0de54c3a0e7590aa3@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
[2]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/4c2b101abc5b443cc16a83e918095d116250ee008ae0299d459943ca@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
[3]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/e7cc411d0654131d1cacd19448363ceece87f459be364e66f70982a1@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
[4]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/9e8eaa74b391ac21ca7268475e1179e7965ecd6389b8f5bbf9e7d6e2@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
[5]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/7ce36d5ecf0e5d0bfc106affc21dec11da514aac16b2f0971f53f60a@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E
[6]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/f6f8116b4b38b0b2d70ed45b990d6bb1bcb33611fde6fdf32ec0e840@%3Cdev.flink.apache.org%3E

Cheers,
Till