Hi all, In a previous thread I already mentioned we need to work on a graduation plan. Although the discussions surrounding the incubator and the state of the projects still isn't finished, I do think it is a good idea to start writing such plan.
Our next report is due in April, I'd like to have something written down before the deadline. Below I have written a first draft for what I think are important aspects for a graduation plan. Feel free to comment on it, send new/missing ideas etc! ====== Graduation Plan Celix is in incubation since November 2010. During the first one and a half year talks where given at several conferences (EclipseCon, ApacheCon, OSGi User Group meetings, etc). Even though there seems to be an interest in the project, two important questions keep coming up: - What is the state of the project? - Why no support for C++? Trying to answer/solve these two questions might make it able to attract more community members. So this plan will focus mostly on these two items. = State of the project == Releases Celix enterend incubation in its early stage. There was only a proof of concept, but no complete implementation. This is an important reason for people to hold back and not yet use/improve Celix, on the other hand, being hesitant also keeps Celix from growing towards a more stable/robust solution. To be able to use Celix the implementation has to reach, at least, a more stable state. Over the past year lots of effort has been put into this. Within the next half year a release has to be made of the core component of Celix. Hopefully this will attract more users/testers (and potentially committers). == Committers Since the start of Celix there is only one committer. There have been no changes towards more. To be able to have a diverse community more committers are needed. Having a release makes it easier for people to use and improve Celix. This is one step towards more committers. Over the last month there has been an interest from Thales Netherlands to use Celix in its middleware. In a research project they are working on an implementation of the Device Access specification. This implementation will be donated to Celix, and the main developer has expressed the intention to maintain the code base. Via this path a new committer will be added to Celix within the next month [1]. [1]: http://markmail.org/thread/hfwuspl3swoisenq = C++ Support == Technical Scope Currently Celix is limited to C only. This was a deliberate choice since Celix tries to target embedded/constrained platforms. But during talks people also seem to be interested in C++ support. Extending the technical scope of the project might attract more users and committers. Over the next half year we will work out a plan how C++ support can be added without impacting the current supported platforms. A start with the discussions has been made on the mailinglist, see [2] for more information. [2]: http://markmail.org/thread/a3qltqhsocmrnerd == Cooperate with existing C++ OSGi like implementations In [2] a list of similar projects is mentioned. Reaching out to these project and trying to find a common ground on requirements/API etc could benefit Celix (and those projects as well). To see if there is a common ground we need to contact those projects and plan a meeting. -- Met vriendelijke groet, Alexander Broekhuis
