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Posted to general@incubator.apache.org by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com> on 2011/10/30 12:38:01 UTC
[DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
The current RAT situation leads me to suggest that we graduate Empire.
As a mentor, I'd characterize Empire-Db as a project that was long ago
ready, save for the same issue as RAT: a small group that grows very,
very, slowly.
They respond on their email, they apply Apache process, they make releases.
While our usual desire is to see a larger group and more growth, I
suggest that their tenacious existence for all this time suggests that
they could be depended upon to last, in the worst case, a good long
time as a TLP.
Thoughts?
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by Dave Fisher <da...@comcast.net>.
On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:39 AM, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote:
> On Oct 30, 2011, at 7:05 AM, Benson Margulies wrote:
>
>>> [...snip...]
>>
>> Even so, my basic view is that these folks are viable as a TLP, and if
>> someone really disagrees, I might feel strongly enough to ask the
>> board to shoot my head off for asking it to weigh in.
>
> +1 to that Benson. I agree with you and will join you in that
> death march, if needed :-)*
If you look I'm sure you'll find a few TLPs with moments in their history with 5 or fewer active committers. Take Apache POI which came out of Jakarta. Apache POI is certainly a widely used project with a 10 year history and a large user base. The user and dev list are fairly active. It would be hard to argue that we ever have more than 5 active committers at any time. We do manage to recruit new committers and have a long roster of formerly active committers.
Does Empire have the same 5 committers or has their roster changed?
Regards,
Dave
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
> * - so long as the proverbial Phoenix can rise :-)
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
> Senior Computer Scientist
> NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
> Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
> Email: chris.a.mattmann@nasa.gov
> WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
> University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by "Mattmann, Chris A (388J)" <ch...@jpl.nasa.gov>.
On Oct 30, 2011, at 7:05 AM, Benson Margulies wrote:
>> [...snip...]
>
> Even so, my basic view is that these folks are viable as a TLP, and if
> someone really disagrees, I might feel strongly enough to ask the
> board to shoot my head off for asking it to weigh in.
+1 to that Benson. I agree with you and will join you in that
death march, if needed :-)*
Cheers,
Chris
* - so long as the proverbial Phoenix can rise :-)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
Senior Computer Scientist
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246
Email: chris.a.mattmann@nasa.gov
WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>.
>
> Prospective podlings are well-advised to consider that if things don't work
> out, a project which might have been perfectly viable elsewhere for years to
> come will have to deal with both the disruption of a name change and the
> stigma of having a big red termination stamp applied by the Incubator PMC.
I have one additional thought here. If the foundation really doesn't
want a 5-person stable project, I think that the incubator should
state objective criteria: you get X years and you have to show Y
people.
In the case of Empire, I have a special sympathy for them because they
have been permitted to exist in the incubator for such a long time.
The negative impact of being sent out into the cold, cruel, world of
github and no foundation-al legal cover strikes me as getting larger
the longer you operate as a podling.
Even so, my basic view is that these folks are viable as a TLP, and if
someone really disagrees, I might feel strongly enough to ask the
board to shoot my head off for asking it to weigh in.
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by Marvin Humphrey <ma...@rectangular.com>.
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 12:55:01PM +0100, Jukka Zitting wrote:
> In any case it seems like a good idea to impose some sort of soft time limit
> on the continuation strategy.
Prospective podlings are well-advised to consider that if things don't work
out, a project which might have been perfectly viable elsewhere for years to
come will have to deal with both the disruption of a name change and the
stigma of having a big red termination stamp applied by the Incubator PMC.
> [1] http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Process_Description.html
I've always disliked how that document makes a big deal about termination
reflecting poorly on the project, e.g.:
If you receive a recommendation for termination then you have a problem.
A podling's contributors put in months or years worth of work donating their
time and creative output to the Foundation, and then on termination, instead
of celebrating what was achieved, we encumber the resumes of our volunteers by
permanently enshrining their project's "problems".
Is it any wonder that podlings linger when we make the alternative so
unpleasant?
Marvin Humphrey
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 2:50 AM, William A. Rowe Jr.
<wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote:
> On 10/30/2011 8:05 PM, David Crossley wrote:
>> Benson Margulies wrote:
>>> Daniel Shahaf wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Thinking out load: perhaps just promote the project into a TLP, while
>>>> having a few IPMC members volunteer to become PMC members of the new TLP
>>>> and provide oversight?
>>>
>>> Yup. No muss, no fuss, no new mechanisms.
>>
>> Good solution. Presume that the project's community and
>> the IPMC is sure that there is definite potential.
>
> Not if there are fewer than 3 contributors intimately familiar with
> the entire code base. You would be simply promoting incubator's issue
> to a board issue.
Indeed, that would be too small even for this.
>
>
>
>
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On 10/30/2011 8:05 PM, David Crossley wrote:
> Benson Margulies wrote:
>> Daniel Shahaf wrote:
>>>
>>> Thinking out load: perhaps just promote the project into a TLP, while
>>> having a few IPMC members volunteer to become PMC members of the new TLP
>>> and provide oversight?
>>
>> Yup. No muss, no fuss, no new mechanisms.
>
> Good solution. Presume that the project's community and
> the IPMC is sure that there is definite potential.
Not if there are fewer than 3 contributors intimately familiar with
the entire code base. You would be simply promoting incubator's issue
to a board issue.
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>.
Benson Margulies wrote:
> Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> >
> > Thinking out load: perhaps just promote the project into a TLP, while
> > having a few IPMC members volunteer to become PMC members of the new TLP
> > and provide oversight?
>
> Yup. No muss, no fuss, no new mechanisms.
Good solution. Presume that the project's community and
the IPMC is sure that there is definite potential.
-David.
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 3:58 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
> Benson Margulies wrote on Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 15:33:25 -0400:
>> Could the incubator, or a clone of the incubator, serve as a permanent
>> home for small projects? Essentially, this amounts to removing all the
>> 'incubator' disclaimer and branding requirements for these projects,
>> and retaining the volunteer supervision of the sort of people who are
>> willing to be mentors (e.g. Foundation members and others voted by the
>> iPMC). This would put additional eyes in the supervision process, and
>> still allow growth.
>>
>
> Thinking out load: perhaps just promote the project into a TLP, while
> having a few IPMC members volunteer to become PMC members of the new TLP
> and provide oversight?
>
Yup. No muss, no fuss, no new mechanisms.
>> In the world of github, no one needs to be an ASF project to get
>> source control hosting. The problem of 'brand vampires' is solved by
>> requiring these projects to be 'small but diverse.' The project *and
>> the users* get the advantage of operating in the Foundation's legal
>> umbrella, and those users are what, to me, makes this consistent with
>> the mission.
>
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
Benson Margulies wrote on Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 15:33:25 -0400:
> Could the incubator, or a clone of the incubator, serve as a permanent
> home for small projects? Essentially, this amounts to removing all the
> 'incubator' disclaimer and branding requirements for these projects,
> and retaining the volunteer supervision of the sort of people who are
> willing to be mentors (e.g. Foundation members and others voted by the
> iPMC). This would put additional eyes in the supervision process, and
> still allow growth.
>
Thinking out load: perhaps just promote the project into a TLP, while
having a few IPMC members volunteer to become PMC members of the new TLP
and provide oversight?
> In the world of github, no one needs to be an ASF project to get
> source control hosting. The problem of 'brand vampires' is solved by
> requiring these projects to be 'small but diverse.' The project *and
> the users* get the advantage of operating in the Foundation's legal
> umbrella, and those users are what, to me, makes this consistent with
> the mission.
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
> Two quick comments, haven't read the context:
>
> Marvin Humphrey wrote on Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:26:57 -0700:
>> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 12:55:01PM +0100, Jukka Zitting wrote:
>> > To me this suggests that our current three state transitions [1] from
>> > the podling phase -- termination, continuation and graduation -- may
>> > need some adjustment. That could mean introducing new exit strategies
>> > or relaxing the existing ones.
>>
>> How about adding another Incubation end state: "migration"?
I think that a different question deserves exploration, first.
We all know what conventional success looks like for a podling:
splashy growth, lots of people, even press. Of course, we also all
know that this is sometimes the result of extensive quiet investment
by companies. I'm now thinking that the podling that started this
discussion is, in fact, merely on the low end of conventional success.
We know what failure looks like. The silence of the grave. We also
know what to do with these.
The question is, what to do with, oh, 'brown dwarfs'. And I think it's
worth looking in particular at 'diverse brown dwarfs'. A project
consisting entirely of people employed in one place as a natural home
in that place, and that place can work out trademark issues with the
foundation.
On the one hand, a small group of people can chug along doing work
consistent with the Foundation's mission indefinitely, serving the
public good. On the other hand, a small group is at constant risk of
accident in which they drop below the active size needed to release
and add committers. Should they get pushed out? Or should we look for
a way to offer then the supervision needed to stick around?
The Foundation has decided that 'umbrellas' are unreliable sources of
supervision. Labs might be a model, but labs can't release, and can't
add contributors unless they earn their stripes elsewhere in the
Foundation.
Could the incubator, or a clone of the incubator, serve as a permanent
home for small projects? Essentially, this amounts to removing all the
'incubator' disclaimer and branding requirements for these projects,
and retaining the volunteer supervision of the sort of people who are
willing to be mentors (e.g. Foundation members and others voted by the
iPMC). This would put additional eyes in the supervision process, and
still allow growth.
In the world of github, no one needs to be an ASF project to get
source control hosting. The problem of 'brand vampires' is solved by
requiring these projects to be 'small but diverse.' The project *and
the users* get the advantage of operating in the Foundation's legal
umbrella, and those users are what, to me, makes this consistent with
the mission.
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Re: Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
Two quick comments, haven't read the context:
Marvin Humphrey wrote on Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:26:57 -0700:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 12:55:01PM +0100, Jukka Zitting wrote:
> > To me this suggests that our current three state transitions [1] from
> > the podling phase -- termination, continuation and graduation -- may
> > need some adjustment. That could mean introducing new exit strategies
> > or relaxing the existing ones.
>
> How about adding another Incubation end state: "migration"?
>
> * The project migrates to a new home at Github or wherever, leaving behind
> the Foundation's infrastructure, administrative oversight, and legal
> umbrella. A name change would be required (unfortunately) to avoid
> trademark complications. However, the project would pledge to continue
> operating according to the Apache Way in its new home: meritocracy, PMCs,
> hats, votes, quarterly reports entered into a record, etc.
If the community has consensus to move, won't it make sense to pursue
a solution that keeps the trademark with the community?
> Lastly, drawing up some guidelines for how projects not at Apache can operate
> according to an approximation of the Apache Way might be a worthy task for its
> own sake, providing the ASF a channel to spread its values without incurring
> more administrative overhead.
>
Yep, sounds like stuff for $otherlist though.
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Incubation end states (was Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?)
Posted by Marvin Humphrey <ma...@rectangular.com>.
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 12:55:01PM +0100, Jukka Zitting wrote:
> To me this suggests that our current three state transitions [1] from
> the podling phase -- termination, continuation and graduation -- may
> need some adjustment. That could mean introducing new exit strategies
> or relaxing the existing ones.
How about adding another Incubation end state: "migration"?
* The project migrates to a new home at Github or wherever, leaving behind
the Foundation's infrastructure, administrative oversight, and legal
umbrella. A name change would be required (unfortunately) to avoid
trademark complications. However, the project would pledge to continue
operating according to the Apache Way in its new home: meritocracy, PMCs,
hats, votes, quarterly reports entered into a record, etc.
* Ideally, the ASF would continue to receive CLAs for migrated podlings.
That way, license headers would not need to change, and the potential
return of a project to the Incubator should its community expand would be
streamlined. IANAL and I don't know if this is either feasible
or advisable, but I do know that it's hard to deal with CLAs as an indie
project.
* Migration would require an affirmative vote of both the PPMC and the IPMC on
a proposal akin to the one drawn up prior to entry into the Incubator.
If you're thinking that there is little in this proposal that a "terminated"
podling with sufficiently motivated contributors couldn't do on its own,
you're right. But the difference here is while "termination" punishes a
project for its supposed failures in not meeting the lofty standards required
of an Apache TLP, "migration" rewards the project for what it achieves while
in the Incubator and enables it to thrive on its own in the wild.
In addition to better serving our podlings, I suspect that providing a
positive end state other than graduation would help to control the Incubator's
seemingly ever-expanding podling population. It would also mitigate pressure
to relax the standards for an ASF TLP, though what with the Attic and all
there may be other legitimate rationales for relaxing those standards.
Lastly, drawing up some guidelines for how projects not at Apache can operate
according to an approximation of the Apache Way might be a worthy task for its
own sake, providing the ASF a channel to spread its values without incurring
more administrative overhead.
Marvin Humphrey
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by Jukka Zitting <ju...@gmail.com>.
Hi,
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Benson Margulies
<bi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thoughts?
AFAICT this problem is pretty common in many long-term podlings. They
have the seeds for becoming large, sustainable TLPs, but for one
reason or another haven't been able to grow their communities to meet
our diversity requirements. Currently such projects are caught in a
bind, unable to graduate but also unwilling to leave the ASF for
another home.
To me this suggests that our current three state transitions [1] from
the podling phase -- termination, continuation and graduation -- may
need some adjustment. That could mean introducing new exit strategies
or relaxing the existing ones. In any case it seems like a good idea
to impose some sort of soft time limit on the continuation strategy.
[1] http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Process_Description.html
BR,
Jukka Zitting
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Re: [DISCUSS] Graduating empire?
Posted by Robert Burrell Donkin <ro...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Benson Margulies
<bi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The current RAT situation leads me to suggest that we graduate Empire.
>
> As a mentor, I'd characterize Empire-Db as a project that was long ago
> ready, save for the same issue as RAT: a small group that grows very,
> very, slowly.
(Rat has a complex history and is a outlier in many ways...)
Robert
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