Thanks very much Christopher - I will add it to the list of BarCamp agenda ideas.
Thanks Sharan On 2017-04-23 22:48 (+0200), Christopher <ctubb...@apache.org> wrote: > Unfortunately, I won't be flying in early enough to attend the BarCamp in > Miami, but I wanted to suggest a possible topic, if anybody attending > wishes to pick it up for discussion there: > > Topic: > Establishing and strengthening relationships with downstream packaging > > The premise: > Official ASF releases are source artifacts. Some users build from source or > use "convenience binaries" published by ASF projects, but many (maybe > most?) users experience Apache projects through a vendor or through their > operating system software repositories (RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, > Homebrew, MacPorts, PyPI, RubyGems, etc.). Downstream typically falls into > one of three categories: the DIY user, a commercial vendor supporting many > users, or a community packager supporting many users. "Convenience > binaries" produced within the ASF fall into the third category (one of many > in that category). Though they may have different requirements, each of > these categories have a similar relationship to our upstream software > developer communities, and they are all important for project growth (the > importance each plays in a particular community can vary significantly). I > refer to all three of these as "downstream packagers" or simply "packagers". > > Some ideas for discussion: > 1. How can we approach packagers to make our software available to their > users? > 2. How can we support packaging to ensure a positive experience for both > packagers and end-users? > 3. How can we grow our upstream community by encouraging contributions from > packagers? > 4. How can we build our software with build- and runtime-flexibility, to > support the different target environment requirements of many packagers > (rather than just a few)? > 5. How can we work with packagers to deal with "dependency hell"? > 6. How can we simplify/modernize build systems to make it easier for > non-committers to build from source? > 7. Which responsibilities are that of the upstream project, and which > should be deferred to downstream? > 8. How do new packaging/distribution technologies, such as Docker, Mesos, > and Yarn, change the traditional relationship with packagers? > > Conclusion: > Some ASF projects (such as httpd, subversion, ant, and perhaps now maven) > seem have had a lot of success via these downstream community packaging > routes (as have other non-ASF open source projects, like Firefox, MySQL, > PHP, Ruby, etc.). Other ASF projects, however, may still be unclear how to > relate to downstream and what that relationship can bring to the project's > upstream community. So, I think this could be a potentially valuable topic > to discuss. > > Extra: > As both a Fedora packager and an Apache contributor, as well as an > occasional HomeBrew, and frequent DIY user, I find this topic fascinating. > Whether or not it gets discussed at the BarCamp, feel free to reach out to > me during ApacheCon. I'd love to discuss these (or any other) topics over > drinks or lunch or between talks. > > P.S. For those unfamiliar, Apache even it's own "downstream" packager > project known as BigTop, that I encourage checking out (and possibly > contributing to). > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
