Apache VCL Community "Get involved Drive"

[Aaron Peeler <aa...@ncsu.edu>]

  Hi Folks,

As a committer of this project, I'd like to reach out and ask for 
assistance to help the Apache VCL project grow to become a Top Level 
Project(TLP). There are several places where one can assist. If your 
interested in contributing in some way and giving back to open-source, 
let us know either on the list or directly to me, Josh or Andy (the list 
would be better... :) ).

I'm sure many of you are not aware of the Apache Software Foundation 
process for projects, so here is a short summary.

Once a project has been accepted by ASF, it goes into what is called the 
Apache incubator. This is where we are now.
In the incubator, the project community learns how to work within the 
ASF framework. We learn how to apply ASF processes such as developing 
the code base within the community, producing documentation, learn how 
to properly release and package the code according to ASF standards, 
etc. In addition to these tasks, probably the most important part is 
learning how to foster a healthy positive community by exchanging ideas, 
discussing issues and bugs, and the overall direction of the project. 
Once the community has shown it can survive own it's own, it can then 
ask to become a TLP, at that point a vote takes place. If mentors vote 
positively then the project proceeds to Top Level status. A detailed 
guideline for graduation:

http://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html

So on the flip side of this - If a incubator project does not meet the 
requirements and does not show it has a positive community in a timely 
matter. The project would need to leave ASF and be hosted somewhere 
else, as projects are not allowed to stay in the incubator. While being 
hosted somewhere else is not necessarily a bad thing. It does provide a 
fair amount of work to migrate and simply delays the growth of the 
community and of course the development process.  Ideally, as a 
community, we would like to stay and continue to deliver this worthy 
project through ASF.

We're doing good, but have a way to go. We've had 2 releases now, also 
we've had good discussions on the dev and user mailing lists in 
assisting folks getting VCL instances up and running, addressing 
bug-fixes, and features folks would like to see.

But we need more to reach the goal of becoming a TLP. Our remaining 
steps are to have more contributions from the community and attract 
additional committers that can add value to the project.

There are several ways to help grow VCL and get involved:
* Become more active on the mailing list, share ideas help drive the 
direction of VCL.
* Contribute bug-fixes or get involved in the development process.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL/Becoming+a+Committer
* Help out with documentation, end-user and/or installation guides.
* Web site improvements. We need a cool website...

Again if your interested in any of the areas or another area not 
mentioned. Please get involved.

Sincerely,
Aaron Peeler
Apache VCL committer