Hi Neal, > The "brand recognition" ...... I Agree
> If the project were moved elsewhere, I do not think it would survive. Probably you are right but I am not going to take any step (personally) for acceptance to the incubator. DIGY -----Original Message----- From: Granroth, Neal V. [mailto:neal.granr...@thermofisher.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:58 PM To: lucene-net-...@lucene.apache.org Subject: RE: Lucene.NET Community Status DIGY, I agree in that I am surprised that Lucene PMC has not been following the on-going activity of the project. There has been significant activity after George stepped away from the project and with his help I thought had taken the project beyond incubator status. While the ASF formal procedures might appear somewhat tedious, they do provide project users with confidence in the quality and durability of the project. The "brand recognition" Grant mentioned. You don't get this confidence from Open Source code projects managed elsewhere. That web site and documentation are a bit light is of no consequence; the Java source, documentation, and examples work well, and the ability to re-use tools like Luke are a great development advantage. Developers who are not comfortable with this type of cross-platform approach should probably seek further opportunities to advance their development skills. If the project were moved elsewhere, I do not think it would survive. - Neal -----Original Message----- From: Digy [mailto:digyd...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 2:01 PM To: lucene-net-u...@lucene.apache.org Subject: RE: Lucene.NET Community Status Hi Neal, You could write up a Board proposal to go straight to TLP status. I'd have a hard time recommending to the Board that they pass it but maybe they would b/c as I outlined in my original email, this project isn't up to ASF community standards and not only that you basically only have one current person who is an active committer/PMC member. As I also outlined in earlier emails, the current Lucene PMC is not the appropriate place for Lucene.NET b/c the members of the PMC are not interested in .NET. George is the only one and he has been gone for the past few months (if not more). That isn't to pick on George, it's to point out that a project has to be more than just one committer to be a part of the ASF, especially one that has been around this long. So, in order for this project to get more committers, people need to step up and contribute. Therein lies the conundrum. The current PMC is not equipped to judge those contributions since none of us use .NET. Hence, going back to incubation gets you a new set of committers and it gets you your own PMC where you can set the criteria for committership (within ASF guidelines) and where the PMC is made up of the stakeholders in the project. Being a part of a project is about more than just the name, it's about the community of people who use and contribute to that project. The .NET community is distinct from the Lucene Java community, despite it being a port, therefore they should be separate. See http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html As to those questions about forking somewhere else, that is certainly something that can be done under a different name. Lucene.NET is owned by the ASF. You can take the code and go call it something else, no problem. As to what the ASF brings, that's up to the community to decide. The number one thing I think is our "community over code" approach. Anyone can throw code up on Github/Google Code, etc. and call it open source. If you are lucky, you might attract a following. If the person who started that project is nice, they might even allow other committers. At the end of the day, however, I think the ASF's meritocracy is why I choose to put my open source efforts into the ASF. It is just one way, not _the_ way. Having started other projects here at the ASF (Mahout), I can tell you the ASF is one of the few orgs. out there that can attract large bases of users/contributors almost instantaneously. In other words, the ASF has brand recognition like few other places. Again, this is just my view. I'm not going to force it on you, but you are already here, so it seems like it's less friction to go back to the incubator and graduate to TLP than to fork and try to get people to go find you under a different name. My two cents, Grant= Besides PMC's not knowing the activity of the project(see the svn log for the last years. What was done and who has done to keep the project alive), They also don't want any .NET app. Is this reason enough? DIGY -----Original Message----- From: Granroth, Neal V. [mailto:neal.granr...@thermofisher.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 7:36 PM To: lucene-net-u...@lucene.apache.org Subject: RE: Lucene.NET Community Status Why another location? Keeping it as close as possible to the location of Java-Lucene makes the most sense. - Neal -----Original Message----- From: Digy [mailto:digyd...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 4:45 PM To: lucene-net-u...@lucene.apache.org Subject: RE: Lucene.NET Community Status We a still think of hosting the project in an another location. DIGY -----Original Message----- From: George Aroush [mailto:geo...@aroush.net] Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 10:56 PM To: lucene-net-u...@lucene.apache.org; lucene-net-...@incubator.apache.org Subject: RE: Lucene.NET Community Status Let me jump in here and offer some perspective about Lucene.Net (btw, it's not Lucene.NET :-) ). This is based on my past involvement with the project -- since 2003 when it was on SourceForge.net and called dotLucene. 1) Up until early this year, I have been porting and supporting Lucene.Net since ver 1.4 (back in 2004 on SourceForge.net) to the current release on trunk ver. 2.9.2. This is in NO WAY to say that others have not helped or contributed. I'm just saying that I know the history and have the experience (I wrote and worked on search engines from 1998 to 2002). 2) Doing an initial port of a new Java Lucene release to C# Lucene is very hard; it's the most complex part of the port even using automated tools such as JLCA and my own customize scripts which I use pre-and port JLCA (you can search the listing on how I do the port). What used to take me about 1 months with 90% of tests passing took me well over 4 months (for 2.9.x) with only 10% of tests passing. This was no easy effort and won't be easier now since Java Lucene is using new Java language features that JLCA is not aware of (MS is not maintaining JLCA). Put another way, porting is hard especially when you are dealing with > 5.6 GB source code consistent of > 610 source files. You will know this ONLY if you have tried it out and maintained it -- this is why no one has stepped up to do an initial port otherwise there would be a port by now not only of Java Lucene but other projects too. 3) To simplify ports of new release, maintaining as small as possible delta between release is very important. This was a main pain point when I ported from 2.4 to 2.9. The in-between ports were never done due to lack of time on my end. See point #2. 4) Diverging away from Java Lucene, both API base and algorithm is risky and will just make point #2 more evidence. Not only will you now need a deep knowledge of search engines to catch bugs, but also a deep knowledge of Lucene's internals. Also, you risk compatibility as well as books and existing resources on the web that cover Lucene -- hack, one can take any Java Lucene example and easily read it as a Lucene.Net code or use Luke to debug an index. Keep in mind, the current port model that we have for Lucene.Net keeps the API one-to-one in sync with Java Lucene; just upper case method names. Yes, it's not fully .NET'es, but if you are looking for a search engine that is compatible with the open source search engine standard, and it is available in C#, Lucene.Net is it. 5) Beside making the port simpler, and per point #3 above, doing a line-per-line port, and maintaining API naming as well as the algorithm and file format of Java Lucene in C# Lucene means a Lucene index created by Java Lucene is usable, concurrently, by C# Lucene. I have worked on one such project where a Java and C# code accessing the same index. I'm not too interested in making Lucene.Net .NET'es and end up adding more risk to the project. 6) If anyone wants a different flavor of Lucene.Net, the code is on Apache, just fork it and start a new project. Make it more .NET'es, use the latest that .NET has to offer, and all. However, until when you have first hand experience with the port, and a good knowledge of Lucene and search engines, and the cycles to work on it, I really don't want to exercise this idea it will die as I know few folks have tried. 7) I can't speak for the other committers or those who contributed, but for me, I do this totally during my own time. Each hour I spent on Lucene.Net is an hour away from my family or anything else. I don't get paid, and I hardly get much off my Luene.Net work on the side. As you may know, I was active with Lucene.Net till about early this year, (I had a family emergency). I want to step up again, but we need more participation than just an offer to help or request divergence from the goal of the project, per the points that I made above. I can go on, but the above are to clarify some of the issues and background of Lucene.Net. Please keep those in mind when thinking about this project and how you can contribute -- especially comments about making Lucene.Net more .NET'es -- can't start that till when you first achieve commit-per-commit port of Java Lucene to C# Lucene. If you agree with the above, and it makes sense to you, my suggestion is as follows: 1) Lucene.Net goes back into incubation and start all over again. 2) Start with cleaning up the webpage and make it more like other Apache project site. 3) Put together an official Lucene.Net 2.9.2 and get it released. 4) Start working on the next port. #2, #3 can happen right away, and all that it takes to do them is coming up to speed on how-to using existing Apache documentation. Who is up to this task? #4 is a bit more complicated. I don't want to go through the port pain that I had with 2.9.0 -- it was too much. JLCA that comes with VS 2005 is out of date; I would love to try out a newer version from www.artinsoft.com, but it is $$. I hope the above helps and I have not offended or discouraged anyone as it isn't my intention. I just want to clarify few things about Lucene.Net PS: One final point. Look at CLucene, NLucene and few other variation of Java Lucene ports that were done at Lucene internal level with the goal of maintaining language look feature and look-and-fell, such as C++, those projects are either way out of date in terms of release version support or offer only partial support (index read only). I don't want to use this to bad mouth another project, but to make a point that porting is hard if you diverge from the core. As is, Lucene.Net is not dead, it's slow and needs contributors who will step-up. Thanks, -- George
