Hey Roger,Can you give some more detail about the project and recommended
tasks you are looking to have engineers perform to complete the project? That
way I can estimate the time values to see if I can join in and give a handThanks
Claude
On Monday, August 23, 2021, 02:36:05 PM EDT, Craig Russell
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Rich,
This is the best advice I have seen in a long time for projects facing reduced
activity.
It probably belongs in an FAQ to memorialize its wisdom.
Best,
Craig
> On Aug 23, 2021, at 6:29 AM, Rich Bowen <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 8/20/21 1:11 PM, Roger Whitcomb wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> My name is Roger Whitcomb and I’m the current PMC Chair for the Apache Pivot
>> project. The Pivot community has been dwindling for a number of years, to
>> where I am essentially the only one working / contributing to it for
>> probably 5 years now. Recently (well 6 months ago), the necessary 3rd
>> (active) PMC member resigned, and so we are left with just two of us who
>> have demonstrated any readiness to respond to votes, etc. So, I have been,
>> in my quarterly Board reports, raising awareness that we’re in trouble
>> because of the lack of sufficient oversight. The responses to my last
>> report were to the effect that I should either contact ComDev to see if
>> there were ideas / suggestions about rebooting or raising interest in the
>> project, OR talk to the Attic folks about moving there. Since I’m still
>> actively working on the project, trying to reboot things still seems good,
>> even though privately I have serious doubts that this could happen.
>> So, why am I contacting you? Well, precisely to get thoughts / ideas /
>> suggestions, if there are any, on how to at least raise interest to the
>> point of recruiting another PMC member for oversight of the project.
>> Secondly, has anyone here been in this position before? If so, what
>> happened? Any thoughts about alternatives? I have thought about retiring
>> the project to the Attic, but then forking to Github (or similar) to
>> continue the work I’m doing. However, that seems like a LOT of work
>> (probably including changing names, changing all the packages, etc, etc.)
>> and I’m not sure of the legal ramifications, since copyright (I assume)
>> would remain with the ASF still. Anyway, I will have a separate conversation
>> with Legal about this, I suppose.
>> Bottom line: anyone able to give some advice?
>
>
> (Apologies if you have already tried all of these things, but ...)
>
> The first thing I would recommend is to tell the users list about the
> concerns, and describe specific opportunities to contribute. In many (even
> most?) projects, the vast majority of users are content to consume, and never
> even think about contributing. If you communicate that the project is likely
> to be terminated if nobody steps up, you may see a handful of people who are
> willing to do so - particularly if they are at companies that rely on the
> project.
>
> Identifying specific tasks that need to be done (including a PMC role) is
> always more effective than a general call for help.
>
> This may also be the time to consider whether your requirements (written or
> not) for committer rights have been too high. Perhaps there are people out
> there who have contributed, over the years, but were not deemed worthy of
> committer rights. Over time, this leads to missing out on potential community
> members. Look back over the past few years and see who has sent in patches,
> or other non-code contributions, and approach them about their willingness to
> participate at a higher level.
>
> Do you know of any companies/orgs that are relying on the project? I would
> encourage you to reach out to someone at those companies and tell them that
> the project is facing retirement, if nobody steps up to contribute and lead.
> That can also be very effective in finding some managers willing to give some
> of their employee time to sustain the project rather than having to retool.
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> @rbowen
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>
> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>
Craig L Russell
[email protected]
