Thanks Benchao for this summary, and for your great work as PMC Chair this year.
I agree with others regarding the community: we are seeing new faces contributing, with fresh energy and innovative ideas. We have constructive discussions, and the tone is always respectful; even when someone makes a mistake, the rest of the community is understanding and willing to help; I appreciate that. Apart from that, I have the impression that perhaps Calcite is being more widely used lately, becoming a bit more "well-known" within the IT community and industry. As usual, PR reviews is a tough topic, but I think that we are more or less able to navigate the problem every time there's a new RC coming and we focus on the pending PRs for the release (and more reviewers jump in to help with them). We all should try to be more consistent and keep a higher reviewing rate at all times (not only when a new release is coming), but I'm aware we are all volunteers here and this is easier said than done. Best, Ruben On Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 3:23 PM Cancai Cai <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, I started to actively participate in the Calcite community this > year. I don't know the situation of the Calcite community. I can share my > feelings about participating in the Calcite community this year. > > At present, the Calcite community is still very healthy. Whether it is the > review of PR or the answer to JIRA, you can get instant feedback, which > mainly depends on individual committers and PMCs. > > But I found that everyone in the Calcite community can get instant > feedback on emails, which is very good (but many users may not know this). > If there is any disadvantage, it is that most PRs are reviewed by Mihai. > Maybe we can find a way to reduce some of the pressure on Mihai. Although I > am not a committer or PMC, I have also started to try to review PR. This is > also a learning process for me. I like this discussion atmosphere very much. > > Regarding the future plans for Calcite, I can briefly describe some of the > things I am doing or want to do. Perhaps this process will be long. > 1️⃣ Improve the Calcite documentation. Currently, there is no > documentation for some Calcite adapters. I will try to improve this part. I > have tried the Calcite Arrow adapter. > 2️⃣ Verify the possibility of integrating Calcite and Datafusion. > 3️⃣ Write a CalciteQuery planner structure > > Finally, I would like to thank the Calcite community very much. I hope the > community will get better and better. > > On 2024/10/30 00:35:31 Francis Chuang wrote: > > Thank you, Benchao for being our chair this year, your excellent work > > with the quarterly reports and keeping the project on track with > releases. > > > > It's great to see a lot of new faces join and contribute to the project > > during the course of the year and bring new ideas to the project. > > > > I agree that we can also do better in terms of reviewing PRs, there are > > often discussion threads started by contributors who would like to have > > their PR(s) reviewed. I think this is something that the community > > should focus on in our next year. You do not need to be a PMC member or > > Committer to review PRs, any contributor can review a PR and give their > > comments or +1s. > > > > I would also like to see more contributors to Avatica (thanks Istvan for > > contributing a significant amount of commits to the project) and > > Avatica-Go. Although those 2 projects aren't as popular as Calcite, I > > think they are still useful projects for the community and beyond. > > > > Finally, I would like to repeat Benchao's call for PMC chair > > nominations. Anyone can nominate a PMC member to be chair by sending an > > email to [email protected]. Please note that nominations close > > on 5 November, so if you would like to make a nomination, please do so > now. > > > > Francis > > > > On 30/10/2024 7:49 am, Julian Hyde wrote: > > > I feel that Calcite — the project and the community — are in good > shape this year. There is a high velocity of contributions from a wide > variety of people. Thank you to Benchao for steering the ship for the last > twelve months. > > > > > > The rate at which contributors evolve into committers and then into > PMC members seems lower than previous years. Perhaps we are becoming better > at accepting ‘drive by’ contributions from people who do not contribute > more than once; but perhaps not. Let’s try to improve velocity next year. > > > > > > We seem to be doing better than in previous years at reviewing and > merging PRs. This is due to the efforts of a relatively small number of > committers, so a big thank you to those people. > > > > > > A large fraction contributions (and a larger fraction than previous > years) are related to SQL dialect translation — adding functions so that > Calcite looks like other dialects, and adding support to the JDBC adapter > for generating other dialects. Our testing of dialects is weak because we > do not have live connections to SQL engines (Postgres, Snowflake, Redshift, > BigQuery). (Not surprising, considering that we are an open source project, > and these connections are far too expensive for GitHub to provide them for > free in its CI environment.) We could use a radical rethink for how we > write and test dialects. > > > > > > Julian > > > > > > > > >> On Oct 29, 2024, at 4:51 AM, Stamatis Zampetakis <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> > > >> Thanks for the great summary Benchao and kudos for the excellent work > > >> that you did as chair! Every board report was carefully and timely > > >> prepared, the release cadence was kept steady, our community has > > >> grown, and you kept us on track for every important milestone. > > >> > > >> I have been involved in the project for a few years now and I am happy > > >> to see that we are continuously improving almost on every aspect of > > >> it. > > >> > > >> From the technical perspective the project is advancing really well > > >> and each release makes the project better, more stable, and mature. > > >> There are also lots of interesting and ambitious ideas that will > > >> become the major features of the subsequent releases. > > >> > > >> In terms of community, the project is rather welcoming to new > > >> contributors and most of the questions in the mailing list do receive > > >> responses. The reviewing part is holding us back a bit; if we were > > >> able to respond better in the arriving JIRA/PRs the community would > > >> grow much faster. > > >> > > >> Best, > > >> Stamatis > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> On Tue, Oct 22, 2024 at 12:20 PM Benchao Li <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >>> > > >>> Oops, another mistake was discovered. I overlooked Ruben Quesada > Lopez > > >>> in the paragraph of "In terms of the community", the part about new > > >>> Apache members. He is also one of the new Apache members in 2024. > > >>> > > >>> Sorry about that, Ruben, and many thanks for informing me and giving > > >>> me the opportunity to correct it myself. > > >>> > > >>> Benchao Li <[email protected]> 于2024年10月22日周二 16:10写道： > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>>> The end of date for nominating Chair candidates should be > 2024-11-05. > > >>>> Sorry for the typo, I was copying it from last year's email. > > >>>> > > >>>> Benchao Li <[email protected]> 于2024年10月22日周二 10:04写道： > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Hello community, > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Nine years ago (22 October 2015) Calcite graduated as a top-level > > >>>>> Apache project [1]. At that point, the community decided to have an > > >>>>> annual "state of the project" discussion, and we arrived at that > time > > >>>>> of the year. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> We have released two versions of Calcite (1.37.0 and 1.38.0) so > far in > > >>>>> 2024 [2]. The number is relatively lower than previous years (4 in > > >>>>> 2023, 3 in 2022). With over 300 commits, it is evident that we have > > >>>>> accomplished a significant amount of work. It is worth highlighting > > >>>>> features such as the introduction of the Arrow Adapter, the > addition > > >>>>> of support for lambda expressions in SQL, new grammars such as the > AS > > >>>>> MEASURE clause, ASOF join, and the EXCLUDE clause in window > > >>>>> aggregations, as well as the ability to call table functions > without > > >>>>> the TABLE() wrapper. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Regarding the sub-project Avatica, we have one release (1.25.0) so > > >>>>> far, and perhaps one more [3] coming before the end of the year. > There > > >>>>> has been no release for Avatica Go in 2024, and it has been almost > a > > >>>>> year since the last release. However, there are several new commits > > >>>>> that may warrant a release in the near future. The development > > >>>>> activity of both Avatica and Avatica Go remains relatively low, but > > >>>>> the project is healthy as there are various regular maintainers > (such > > >>>>> as Francis Chuang). > > >>>>> > > >>>>> In terms of the community, we have only one new Committer thus far, > > >>>>> Norman Jordan, which is much fewer than previous years (14 in > 2023, 4 > > >>>>> in 2022). Many contributors have made outstanding contributions to > the > > >>>>> project, for which we are extremely grateful, and we hope to > > >>>>> eventually invite them as Committers once they have accumulated > > >>>>> sufficient merits. Our PMC team has expanded with two new PMC > members, > > >>>>> Sergey Nuyanzin and Mihai Budiu. Calcite grows and evolves because > of > > >>>>> (and thanks to) its community, and I would like to express my > > >>>>> gratitude to everyone for being a part of this family and working > > >>>>> together in a respectful and motivating environment. In addition to > > >>>>> the membership of Calcite, there are also three new Apache > members[4] > > >>>>> from the Calcite community this year, namely Francis Chuang, Sergey > > >>>>> Nuyanzin, and Benchao Li, indicating that our community is strong > and > > >>>>> stable. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> It was delightful to see our community members presenting talks > about > > >>>>> Calcite at conferences such as SIGMOD and ApacheCon Asia. Since > > >>>>> Calcite has numerous users and contributors from Asia, I attempted > to > > >>>>> organize a dedicated track for Calcite earlier this year, but was > > >>>>> unable to gather enough talks. Nevertheless, it is pleasing to note > > >>>>> that we still have three talks related to Calcite. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Regarding the PR review problem that has been frequently mentioned > in > > >>>>> past years, it persists, but it is encouraging to see that new > > >>>>> reviewers are constantly joining the team. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> To conclude, I will repeat the questions from previous years: > > >>>>> 1) What else are we doing well in the project? > > >>>>> 2) What areas do we need to do better? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Please take some time to share your thoughts! Note that this > > >>>>> discussion is for everyone, not only for committers / PMC members; > > >>>>> even if you have never sent an email to the dev list before, now > it is > > >>>>> a good time to do so. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Finally, it has been a great privilege to serve as Calcite's PMC > Chair > > >>>>> this year, I've leart a lot during the journey and I am very > grateful > > >>>>> for the opportunity that I was given. Following our yearly rotation > > >>>>> tradition, I will step down as Chair by the end of the year, and a > new > > >>>>> one will have to be chosen. As we discussed some time ago [5], if > you > > >>>>> have any suggestion and you would like to put someone forward as a > > >>>>> potential next Chair, please send an email to > > >>>>> [email protected]. The nomination period for the new > chair > > >>>>> will remain open for the next two weeks (till 2023-11-05). The PMC > > >>>>> will study all proposals, discuss, and start a vote soon after > > >>>>> 2023-11-05. The change will be effective some time in December once > > >>>>> the resolution is approved by the board. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> [1] https://calcite.apache.org/news/2015/10/22/calcite-graduates/ > > >>>>> [2] https://calcite.apache.org/news/ > > >>>>> [3] > https://lists.apache.org/thread/l5qk9z5qr57qxtd2d2yyfzm5x0yp40lp > > >>>>> [4] > https://news.apache.org/foundation/entry/apache-software-foundation-welcomes-59-new-members > > >>>>> [5] > https://lists.apache.org/thread/gplfqs4snr1b6h62cngyvb65sz41z3fk > > >>>>> > > >>>>> -- > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Best, > > >>>>> Benchao Li > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> -- > > >>>> > > >>>> Best, > > >>>> Benchao Li > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> -- > > >>> > > >>> Best, > > >>> Benchao Li > > > > > > > >
