Hi folks, Thanks for all your messages and feedback ! The community seems to be willing to govern itself.
A good way to demonstrate this is a vote. If the vote is not strictly required, it's recommended. It is unlikely that IPMC members will vote to approve graduation unless the mentors and community positively express their readiness for graduation. @Russ what do you think about starting a vote ? It is wise to notify the incubator general list that the community vote is starting. Please do not CC the vote to the general list as that creates confusion. Instead you can either: - FWD the [VOTE] e-mail to the general list, or - Send a different copy to the general list indicating that a graduation community [VOTE] is in progress. Regards JB On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 2:16 AM Yong Zheng <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, > > I also think Polaris is in a great position for graduation. From the first > day when Polaris got released and what community had created in this short > amount of time, it is for sure remarkable. We do have a very active > community and people are willing to spend extra time on fixing things and > do the right thing instead of just band-aid fix. Great job team. > > Thanks, > Yong Zheng > > On 2026/01/17 20:16:40 Russell Spitzer wrote: > > Hi y’all, > > > > It’s exciting to see how far the Apache Polaris (Incubating) project has > > come in just over a year, and I think it’s time that we start considering > > whether the podling is ready to graduate to a full-fledged Apache > project. > > > > We’ve seen production releases, new persistence backends, OPA support, > and > > so much more. Most importantly, this work has been done with public > design > > and discussion, following the Apache model for community development. > > Github Issues and PR review happen in an open and vendor-neutral manner. > > There are many active committers and PPMC members from different > > organizations working together and releasing quality software. I’ve seen > > solid work done to protect the Apache Brand and ensure licensing is > > appropriate, as well as some great handling of public events. Even as a > > young project, Polaris has already hosted many successful meetups and has > > been the subject of talks at a variety of conferences. We also have a > > lively dev-list and lots of one-on-one discussions happening on the Slack > > channel. In many cases, I think that the Apache Polaris Community is > > functioning exactly how a top-level Apache project should > > < > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria > >. > > > > > > For those interested in the statistics > > > > > > - > > > > Apache Polaris has had 6 Releases (0.9, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0, 1.2.0, > > 1.3.0) > > - > > > > Our github is at 1.8k stars with 357 Forks > > - > > > > We have closed 2819 PRs > > - > > > > There are have been ~100 Contributors to the project > > - > > > > The PPMC has 13 Members (6 elected during incubation period) and there > > are 8 other committers (5 elected during incubation period) > > - > > > > Representatives from Dremio, Snowflake, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, And > > more! > > > > > > > > That said, I do still have some concerns about other areas of community > > development. While I think we are having lots of great conversations > about > > the future of the project, we still seem to have difficult moments where > > communication appears to be breaking down, and people are becoming a bit > > more heated. We also seem to be lacking a bit of mutual trust and > respect. > > I want to make sure that the Polaris community is a welcoming one, where > > engineers all respect each other’s contributions and, most importantly, > act > > in good faith. We’ve seen some instances where PRs may be perceived as > > merged prematurely, or that there are double standards for what > constitutes > > a “blocker” on a PR. I want to know if others in the community feel this > > way, and more importantly, if there are any constructive ideas on how to > > help us get along and make the community as welcoming as possible. Please > > do not take this lightly; I know it can be easy to just write off other > > engineers as a “problem,” but that kind of attitude won’t help this > project > > move forward. I would encourage everyone to think about how they > personally > > can contribute to a better environment. If I’m alone in this sentiment, > > feel free to ignore me, but I think it’s always a good exercise to think > > about how I interact with others to make them feel as welcome as > possible. > > > > I don’t mean to be all gloomy on this matter, though; I think some things > > have been moving in the right direction. A great example is some of the > > discussions we’ve seen lately on the mailing list. Although we had some > > disagreements on a PR, there is now a pretty constructive dialogue > > happening where I do feel like all of the community members are trying to > > find common ground and listen to each other’s viewpoints without personal > > judgment. This shows me that we are still having constructive engagements > > even when there was prior disagreement. I wasn’t able to attend the > recent > > sprint planning meeting, but from what I have heard, that’s another > > instance where it feels like folks came away from that meeting with a bit > > more camaraderie than they had going in. > > > > All in all, I want what’s best for the community. I hope that by bringing > > up graduation, and bringing some of my concerns into the public light, > > we’ll be able to make progress and graduate the project. I want to know > > everyone else’s feelings on the general maturity of the project, whether > > they think it’s appropriate to graduate, and whether they have any other > > suggestions for paths forward to make Polaris even better in the future. > > > > Thanks for your time, > > > > Russell Spitzer > > > > Resources: > > > > https://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html > > > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria > > > > > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qBIxClspQA--uQB0MS3LQO-uEDjdXtbqMPSRNbgeKdk/edit?usp=sharing > > >
