Thank you for the quick reply, Ruben! Regarding the first point, I've noticed the rule you mentioned, but I think there might be a slight loophole. If a PR goes from being unhandled to closed over a span of 120 days, and each of our releases triggers updates to all PRs—assuming our release cycle is shorter than 120 days—then none of the older PRs would ever be closed. I'm just describing this observation; it's not necessarily something that requires adjusting the GitHub Action parameters. Perhaps the fundamental solution is to have sufficient community members participating.
On the second point, yes, I meant that we could add something like "See: jira_link" or any form containing the Jira link in the PR description. This would make it easier to navigate from GitHub to Jira. Personally, I tend to focus more on GitHub, so maybe I need to start paying more attention to Jira and use its links instead. This might not be a big issue. For the third point, I often encourage those around me to actively try contributing to Calcite. I've noticed that some start by submitting issues or reviewing PRs. I'd also suggest placing more emphasis on contributions like code review during the committer nomination process, allowing more community members to play their part and feel more involved. Additionally, perhaps Calcite could learn from other communities' methods for attracting new contributors. Some communities create labels like "good first issue" for simpler tasks, but I'm not sure if this approach fits well with a Jira-centric development model. Best， Zhen Chen At 2025-10-19 20:30:24, "Ruben Q L" <[email protected]> wrote: >Thanks for your feedback (and for your contributions) Zhen Chen! > >Regarding your remarks: >- We do have an automatic github action that will add the "stale" label to >PRs after 30 days of inactivity (and will then close them after 90 days of >inactivity). We could discuss adjusting these parameters, but I think so >far nobody has requested any change on that since we set it up a while ago >[1]. >- Per our contributing guidelines [2], PRs should use Jira number / title; >when doing this, we will automatically get a link from the Jira ticket to >the PR (plus the label "pull-request-available"). Thus, theoretically we >should always get a reference from Jira to PR, and from PR to Jira. Do you >mean that the PR description should always contain an explicit link to the >corresponding Jira ticket (to facilitate navigation in that sense)? >- That's a good point. IMO there are two topics: raise the number of >contributors; and then among the existing contributors, raise the >percentage of the ones involved in code reviews. > >Best, >Ruben > >[1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/xf8rvhdhxbxhzygswqd15ommts624zv7 >[2] https://calcite.apache.org/develop/#contributing > > >On Sun, Oct 19, 2025 at 10:53 AM 我 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thank you for the excellent summary, Ruben! Since joining the community, >> I’ve been consistently impressed by how friendly and supportive all its >> members are. What surprises me even more is that a project that has been >> around for a decade still maintains such remarkable vitality. I’m truly >> grateful for the help I’ve received from the community and have learned a >> great deal along the way. >> >> >> I’d also like to share a few personal suggestions. Please feel free to >> correct me if I misspeak, as my time in the community has been relatively >> short. >> >> >> First, I’ve noticed that there’s a considerable backlog of pull requests. >> Would it be possible to close some of the older PRs, especially those that >> haven’t seen activity or follow-up for an extended period? >> >> >> Second, could we encourage linking JIRA issues when submitting PRs? This >> might help with tracking and context. >> >> >> Third, it seems we still face a shortage of reviewers in the community. >> I’ve been trying to learn more about the parts of Calcite I’m less familiar >> with, but my current understanding remains limited, and I’m not yet >> confident enough to review every PR. This might be a tough challenge to >> solve directly, but perhaps we can think about ways to raise Calcite’s >> visibility and attract more contributors to get involved. >> >> >> >> >> Best, >> Zhen Chen >> ---- Replied Message ---- >> | From | Ruben Q L<[email protected]> | >> | Date | 10/19/2025 17:13 | >> | To | Apache Calcite dev list<[email protected]> | >> | Cc | | >> | Subject | [DISCUSS] State of the project 2025 | >> Hello Calcite community, >> >> Calcite reaches its 10th anniversary! >> Around ten 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 (1.39.0 and 1.40.0) so far in 2025 >> [2], with another one (1.41.0) currently under discussion, so it shall be >> released soon. This number is on track compared to previous years (2 in >> 2024, 4 in 2023, 3 in 2022). We have accomplished a great amount of work >> this year. It is worth highlighting new features like supporting the >> VARIANT and UUID data types, checked arithmetic, a new join enumeration >> algorithm based on dynamic programming (DPhyp), new optimization rules and >> dialects. >> >> Regarding the sub-project Avatica, we have had two releases of Avatica >> (1.26.0 and 1.27.0); and one release of Avatica Go (5.4.0) [3]. Although >> this may not seem much, it is actually a lot of activity compared to the >> previous year (only one Avatica release and no Avatica Go releases in >> 2024). Thus, even though it moves more slowly compared to Calcite, Avatica >> is still a living project. >> >> In terms of the community, we had three new Committers so far: Cancai >> Cai, Fanyuan Qiu and Zhen Chen. Moreover, our PMC team has expanded with >> three new PMC members: Istvan Toth, Xiong Duan and Alessandro Solimando. >> These numbers are higher than the previous year, where we only had one new >> Committer and two new PMC members. >> 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. Many contributors have made outstanding contributions to >> the project >> this year, for which we are extremely grateful, and we hope to eventually >> invite them as Committers once they have accumulated sufficient merits. >> >> We had a hybrid meetup (the first one since I remember) at the beginning of >> the year (20 February). 40+ people attended the event in person in Santa >> Clara, California; with 30+ people joining remotely. Four talks were >> presented, describing various topics involving Calcite. This was a very >> interesting and enriching event for the community, and I want to thank all >> the participants, and especially Stamatis for organizing it. >> >> Perhaps we were lacking presentations "to the outside world", in events >> like Apache's Community Over Code. There is clearly room for improvement >> here and we all as a community should try to do our best to "promote" >> Calcite and spread the word about our project. >> >> In terms of PR reviewing (one of our traditional problems), I have the >> impression that we are moving in the right direction and the issue is not >> so bad compared to previous years. We have new members of the community >> participating in the review process, taking responsibility and helping out >> with this particular task, where we traditionally struggle. I would like to >> thank especially Mihai, who has been consistently our top reviewer in the >> last quarters. >> >> 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 privilege to serve as Calcite's PMC Chair this year. >> This was my second time as PMC Chair, I tried to do my best 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 [4], 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 (until 2 November). The PMC will study all proposals, discuss, and >> start a vote soon afterwards. The change will be effective some time in >> December once the resolution is approved by the board. >> >> Best, >> Ruben >> >> [1] https://calcite.apache.org/news/2015/10/22/calcite-graduates/ >> [2] https://calcite.apache.org/news/ >> [3] https://calcite.apache.org/avatica/news/ >> [4] https://lists.apache.org/thread/gplfqs4snr1b6h62cngyvb65sz41z3fk >>
