Flex timeline page added to the website, feedback welcome

[Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>]

Hi,

I've created http://incubator.apache.org/flex/timeline.html to
document Flex's incubation "adventure", feedback is welcome and/or
feel free to fix - I probably missed a few things.

The idea is to focus on things that are relevant to the incubation
process, and not too specific to Flex so that other podlings or
would-be podlings can learn from our experience without getting bogged
in Flex-specific details.

-Bertrand

Re: Flex timeline page added to the website, feedback welcome

[Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>]

On 3/29/12 7:03 AM, "Carol Frampton" <cf...@adobe.com> wrote:


> 
> 1.  Apache projects only release SOURCE.  Binary packages are for
> convenience and are not approved by Apache.
>     You are not suppose to have dependent jars, and for us, swcs, checked
> into svn, even if they have appropriate licenses.
I don't think Roy said that. He believe he said it can't be in the source
tree and that there can be a folder of binaries in a sibling tree.
> 
>     I think that means a source kit by itself is not enough to build Flex
> although 
> http://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice-sou
> rce-build
>     in the Dependencies section implies you can include them in the
> package even though Roy and others are quite adamant that they can not go
> in the source package.
My understanding is that the "release" is a zip or tarball that cannot
contain compiled source.  I'm sure it can contain a JPG which is technically
a binary.  The release must also contain a build script that will generate
something usable, in our case, the SWCs and JARs for the framework and
compilers.  That build script must pull down external dependencies which can
be additional source or binaries assuming they have the appropriate license.
The build script can be smart and check to see if you have the dependencies
from the folder of binaries in a sibling tree so you don't have to hit a
bunch of external servers, and the build script should warn you before you
pull down anything that doesn't have an Apache license.  My understanding of
that last requirement is that we owe it to the person working with the
release to warn them that stuff on their system may not be under Apache
license so the rules for working with that stuff might be different.

> 
>     Somewhere in the Apache docs I read, but can't find at the moment,
> builds can prompt to ask permission to download optional third-party
> dependencies.
>     Is the prompt always necessary or only in some cases?
So, based one the above, the prompt is necessary before we download
playerglobal.swc.

>     What about dependencies on other Apache projects?  Do we have to
> include the source in our project since we can't include the jar or do we
> download the jar
>     as part of the build?
We would download the JAR, IIUC.

-- 
Alex Harui
Flex SDK Team
Adobe Systems, Inc.
http://blogs.adobe.com/aharui

Re: Flex timeline page added to the website, feedback welcome

[Carol Frampton <cf...@adobe.com>]

On 3/28/12 5 :21PM, "Bertrand Delacretaz" <bd...@apache.org> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I've created http://incubator.apache.org/flex/timeline.html to
>document Flex's incubation "adventure", feedback is welcome and/or
>feel free to fix - I probably missed a few things.
>
>The idea is to focus on things that are relevant to the incubation
>process, and not too specific to Flex so that other podlings or
>would-be podlings can learn from our experience without getting bogged
>in Flex-specific details.


I am not sure if this is relevant but I've been following some of the
activity on incubator_general and legal because there are two things that
have me very confused and I gather from the activity other incubation
projects are confused about the same things as well.

1.  Apache projects only release SOURCE.  Binary packages are for
convenience and are not approved by Apache.
    You are not suppose to have dependent jars, and for us, swcs, checked
into svn, even if they have appropriate licenses.

    I think that means a source kit by itself is not enough to build Flex
although 
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice-sou
rce-build
    in the Dependencies section implies you can include them in the
package even though Roy and others are quite adamant that they can not go
in the source package.

    Somewhere in the Apache docs I read, but can't find at the moment,
builds can prompt to ask permission to download optional third-party
dependencies.
    Is the prompt always necessary or only in some cases?
    In our case the downloads aren't optional.  Flex won't build without
most of them.

    What about dependencies on other Apache projects?  Do we have to
include the source in our project since we can't include the jar or do we
download the jar
    as part of the build?

2.  I'm pretty confused about what goes into the LICENSE file and what
goes into the NOTICE file and it is clear from the volume on the lists it
is not just me.

    I know there is a lot of information out on the Apache site and the
mailing lists which I keep rereading as I learn more.
    For example I just read on a mailing list that the LICENSE for the
binary distro needs to include the source distro LICENSE and appended to
that should be
    all the licenses for all the third-party dependencies include in the
binary distro.  There is also some discussion about nested dependencies.
    I don't think any of this is in Apache documentation.

I know this stuff is 2nd nature to Roy and he is obviously frustrated we
don't get it but how to do it correctly isn't that obvious.  An example
project with some amount of dependencies would be a huge help.  I've been
looking at how other projects do it but if they aren't doing it correctly
that just propagates the problems.

If Apache Open Office can figure out how to do it with their multiple
pages of dependencies Flex should be able to do it too.

Carol