Fineract Community - This topic should be discussed. We started the FineractCN project with the idea of creating a "Cloud Native" version of Fineract1.x. Those who contributed to it initially are no longer active on the project.
I am not talking about fineract1.x. (1.8.4) The FineractCN code was initially contributed in August 2017 and the intention then was to get out a formal Apache release asap. Since 2017 there have been several attempts to make that happen, the most recent with a volunteer creating a release branch of January 2023. But, despite many efforts and requests to the list, there have been no formal releases. We need to review this and (I believe) make some changes. When I say "Active Status", I mean a code project that is meaningful to the Apache Fineract Community, that is highlighted on our front page, that is part of our reports to the Board, that is documented on our wiki, that is being worked on and contributed to by the Community. Please also note that the "cloud native" thing has changed since the code was contributed. A key motivation of FineractCN was to build a more scalable cloud native version that borrowed ideas but no code from Fineract1.x Now, however, many improvements have been made on Fineract1.x to make it more "cloud native". FineractCN is more of a composable microservices architecture anyway. Fineract1.x is borrowing ideas from FineractCN. On the other hand, we've heard that some people are running on FineractCN, highly forked from our code base, so in some sense, it is a useful project. To date, those contributions are not coming back. It may be that we provided a nice starting point for them, and we should be "mostly" ok with that: i.e. I wish that we could generate more contributions. Occasionally we see sparks of life, but again, no release after nearly five years. Here are the options that I see: A) ARCHIVE/ end of life. Close down the JIRA, inform the Board of Apache, archive the wiki, move the project code to the "archive". This would happen over a 30-60 day period. Explain our rationale. Make the decision now, which has to be formally voted upon. This is more of an "End of LIfe" idea for a "version" that never was. B) DEPRECATE for now, and change the messaging. New message is that Fineract1.x is also cloud native or cloud ready, FineractCN can be described as being an experiment or lab or side project, and we remove it from our landing page. https://fineract.apache.org Further, if no release by October 1, 2023, then we archive those repos. But, we agree now. C) KEEP going, give more time, but make it clear that there is no release as of yet and that it is not our active part of the Fineract project. Rather than equal billing with Fineract1.x, we offer it as a side project of the community with different goals. As an addendum to this, we could also establish a Fineract-CN listserv, although I suspect that would simply sit with no activity. WHICH OF THOSE OPTIONS ABOVE MAKE SENSE TO YOU? Timing: As we are planning on updating the landing page, we need to be clear about these messages and try to direct questions to the right place. That should be happening within a couple of weeks, so it is important that we not delay this. Please COMMENT and DISCUSS above. Finally, I believe, and many others have commented, on list and elsewhere that the existence of this "other project" within the Fineract community (with a lot of repos) creates a problem for those coming to the project. We have attempted to address this by having a clear FAQ and introductory set of information on the landing page, but we still have some confusion. See also: https://attic.apache.org
