> On 1 May 2018, at 09:27, James Harland <[email protected]> wrote: > > Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of communications on-list, > particularly from the MIRACL side.
Thanks. A statement from you (i.e. management) is useful in throwing light on why we are where we are. But what matters much more to Apache is the developers, whose work at Apache should not be dictated by their employment except insofar as there is inevitable commonality of interest. In the earlier days of Milagro, I felt a few times that Miracl folks, while some of them are good prospective Apache folks, sometimes seemed to be on too tight a rein to their management. The impression was that they didn’t feel empowered to act on their own initiative. Even today, the silence from Miracl developers on the Roadmap discussion is troubling: the only person really engaging there is of course from NTL. Bear in mind that what Apache seeks is a community that should be robust enough to survive even if a founding company (in this case Miracl) were to fold or pull out. Although the current roadmap attempt is obviously less ambitious, that’s where we need to aim for graduation! > As you may have be able to tell, we have been unclear on our > open-source strategy at MIRACL, and as a knock on effect of that, > somewhat inconsistent in our behaviour towards ASF processes. Indeed, I have heard on the grapevine of recent developments. > We are currently undertaking a project to solidify our strategy as it > relates to open-source, including with the ASF. Once that project and > decision making process is completed, we can commit to either being > “all in” with the Apache Milagro project, or perhaps happily agreeing > to the proposed retirement. Either way, it will result in us being > more intentional, consistent and reliable as it relates to our > commitment to Milagro going forward. OK, that’s useful input. Please bear in mind though, your commitment to being “all in” is a commitment to building a community that will act autonomously. You can retain influence by directing what your employees work on, but you absolutely give up corporate *control* of the project. I understand Miracl management has changed, but in the past I think I’ve had contradictory signals about that: they understood the principle but struggled with the practice! > All that being said, we will need a bit more time to complete our > strategy review. I expect we will be able to conclude by the end of > July if not before. At which which point we’ll get back to the list > and, should our decision be to move forward with the Milagro project, > engage with the rest of the community to help define and implement the > rescue roadmap that Nick has started. Standard Incubator reporting is every three months. We reported at the beginning of April, so the next regular report is due at the beginning of July. So that would be a useful timescale to bear in mind. For my part, I will look to present an update to the Incubator PMC in the next few days. I’m thinking through how to present that. — Nick Kew
