[DRAFT 2] Apache Flex December 2013 Report

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

OK, here is draft 2.  I added a section about donations.  Nick, I'm not
sure what you saw that was wrong with the URLs in trademarks, but I
copy/pasted them again to be sure.

I'll file this Wednesday late morning.

-Alex
-------------
Apache Flex is an application framework for easily building Flash-based
applications for mobile devices, the browser and desktop.

RELEASES
Apache Flex SDK 4.11.0 was released on 10/28/13.
Apache Flex Installer 2.7.0 was also released on 10/28/13.

ACTIVITY
Activity in Apache Flex continues to be in  two main areas:  improvements
To the existing Adobe Flash Platform-dependent code base, including the
releases listed above, and prototyping ways to create a version of Flex
that is independent from the Adobe Flash Platform.  There is another group
working on Maven-related tools for the existing code base.

In the past three months we've seen:
- Continued JIRA activity (more bugs raised than resolved however)
- More folks contributing and eventually becoming committers.

Other highlights:
-Over 60 bugs were fixed in 4.11.0.
-We adopted a set of guidelines/by-laws.  They are on our wiki at:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/Guidelines

Code Donation Update
-FlexUnit was donated but has yet to be formulated into a release.
-Swiz donation is still pending.  The donator has not filed the paperwork.
-BlazeDS donation paperwork was submitted but the code is not yet in the
repo
because it was discovered that some pieces were missing.  We hope to get
the
missing pieces before the next report, maybe even by end of year.

COMMUNITY
-Stephan Plath added as committer on 11/17/13.
-Cosma Colanicchia added as committer on 10/17/13.
-Tom Chiverton added as a committer on 9/30/13.
-Maurice Amsellem added as a committer on 9/28/13.
-Darrell Loverin added as a committer on 9/13/13.
-Maurice Amsellem promoted from committer to PMC on 11/9/13.
-Latest analytics include over 3000 hits per day on the website during the
work week (less on weekends).
-There were more than 3000 installs of 4.11.0 in
the month since its release.

AREAS OF CONCERN (FROM LAST REPORT)
-RELEASE EFFORT: In the last report we reported that "getting a release
out seems more difficult than it should be because  folks don't start
serious testing on the first RCs so important bugs are found just before
the VOTE ends and another RC has to be made."
For the 4.11 release, we adopted "carry-over" voting based on a
suggestion from a board member.  If there were minor changes to the
release artifacts, you could carry over your vote from the prior
release candidate.  That, and I think just having more
experience in cutting releases made the 4.11 release go much more smoothly.
-NUMBER OF ACTIVE COMMITTERS: In the last report we reported that "even
though 200 bugs were fixed in 4.10.0, the majority were done by one
committer."  Over the past 3 months, six new people made contributions and
were voted in as committers.

TRADEMARKS
-It was discovered that an external entity was using http://apacheflex.com
to redirect to their web site.  They were notified and have changed the
redirect to the Apache Flex website.  They have offered to have Apache
take over the domain http://apacheflex.com.  We need to figure out
how to do this.
-It looks like the new version of Flex is going to be called FlexJS.  We
need to find out if we need to trademark that name.  We will be contacting
trademarks@ shortly.


INFRASTRUCTURE
* I'm still hoping to find time to resolve INFRA-4380 (attachments in old
Flex bugs).