Hi all,
So, I whipped up a first draft of a podling report … please feel free to
comment.
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Some additional background for the new Apache committers here:
Each project at Apache has a bunch of committers. These are allowed to change
the code in the repositories, file and work on issues, confluence and alike.
Then usually a subset of these committers forms the projects PMC (Project
Management Committee). These have so called “Binding Votes”. When it comes to
voting, the binding Votes are the ones that count officially. However, the
votes of committers and even uses (So-called “non-binding votes”) should be and
usually are taken into account, but they are not required to be. One member of
the PMC is elected to be Chair of the project. In contrast to other
organizations, this role is more to be seen as the elected chief secretary of
the project and not the King of the project. It is his duty to communicate with
the so-called Apache Board.
One of the projects Chairs duties is to file regular project reports:
Every Apache project has to regularly report to the board on how it’s been
working in the past. This is usually done in quarterly board reports which each
project has to file and that the PMCs Chair submits to the Apache Board. Not
providing this report for several times usually is an indicator that the
project is not working properly anymore. Sometimes the Board will then suggest
moving the project to the Apache Attic. In this case all code repos are
switched to read-only, confluence, jira etc. are turned off and all
mailing-lists are archived and also turned off. If the projects PMC agrees or
doesn’t respond this will usually happen.
In these reports, the projects can inform the Board about any success, problems
in the project and in general how it has been performing in the past. As the
ASF currently has more than 350 projects you can imagine that if the members of
the board had to follow all of these, they would probably not be doing anything
else. These reports are the condensed form of communication with the board.
This is also where big problems in a project can be addressed that could
require the Board to step in.
Our Podling report is slightly different as we are not yet an official
top-level project. We are part of the Apache Incubator project and hereby
report to the PMC of the Incubator project (Which then itself issues a report
to the Apache Board) That is also why we have a PPMC (Podling Project
Management Committee) and not a PMC. When it comes to voting only the Incubator
PMC has binding votes.
So much for a little Apache knowledge (I hope it’s ok to do it this way … if
not … just tell me and I’ll stop)
Chris
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Apache PLC4X (incubating)
PLC4X is a set of libraries for communicating with industrial programmable
logic controllers (PLCs) using a variety of protocols but with a shared API.
Most important issues to address while moving towards graduation:
* Building the community: The PPMC and committer group has a large
percentage of codecentric employees, we have been recruiting people from other
companies, but will have to continue these efforts for establishing a healthy
Apache community.
* Onboarding of new committers: With PLC4X several people on the team are
not very familiar with the Apache Way. We have started and will continue our
efforts on this onboarding.
* Podling name search: We have invested a lot of time on the name search
prior to starting to work on the project, but we still need the official OK
that we’re allowed to keep the Name of Apache PLC4X.
Any Issues the Incubator PMC or ASF Board might wish/need to be aware of:
* Still not all members of the initial PPMC and committers have finished
signing up for all mailing lists
* In order to get access to some of the specifications the ASF will
eventually have to become Members of some external foundations: OPC, EtherCat,
Modbus … these memberships usually have a free level, that allows us to use the
specifications but doesn’t result in any regular costs. We will have to discuss
these details with the ASF and the other foundations.
* One of the external foundations (Profinet) doesn’t have a free
membership. In general, the CEO of the European branch of the Profinet
Foundation has signaled that it should be possible for the ASF to become a
member and have an outside company pay the membership fees, but we have to
discuss the details (With them as well as the ASF).
How has the community developed since the last report?
* We have been accepted into the Apache Incubator just a week before
Christmas, we are still in the process of setting up
* Prior to joining the Apache Incubator however, we have managed to recruit
people from other Apache projects and are working on getting other people
familiar with the protocols and the industry involved. After the Christmas
break we are planning on contacting a big group of people that have claimed to
be wanting to be involved (A list of about 20 Companies, but we can’t tell how
many will be using and how many would also be willing to contribute)
* We have started the onboarding of new committers and will be continuing
to do this (extended emails with a lot of explanations on why we are doing
things the way we are)
How has the project developed since the last report?
* There was no last report.
How does the podling rate their own maturity?
* Even if we do have a lot of new participants in the project, we also have
a list of highly experienced Apache people on board.
* So far, the new participants have shown great willingness and success in
adopting the Apache Way.
* However, we still need to continue:
* the on-boarding
* increasing the diversity of the team
* Also, will we need to decide and establish all the processes involved in
releasing software at Apache
