Hi folks, We have to report this month.
I drafted the following report: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Description: The mission of Apache Polaris is the creation and maintenance of software related to a catalog for data lakes. It provides new levels of choice, flexibility and control over data, with full enterprise security and Apache Iceberg interoperability across a multitude of engines and infrastructure ## Project Status: Current project status: Healthy and active. This is Apache Polaris's first quarterly board report, following the initial monthly reports filed after the project graduated to a Top-Level Project on 2026-02-18. The transition out of incubation has been smooth: the project has established and sustained a monthly release cadence, the PMC is operating independently and in the Apache Way, development activity remains high, and several substantial feature proposals are under active discussion on the dev list. Compared with the previous report(s): the most notable change is the shift from monthly to quarterly reporting itself, marking the project's settling into a normal TLP rhythm. The release train established immediately post-graduation has continued without slippage (two feature releases plus a patch this period). The character of activity has also evolved (where the earlier reports centered on the graduation transition and post-graduation stabilization), this quarter the community has moved toward expanding the catalog's scope, with major design proposals (Data Sharing, OpenLineage, Polaris Directory) now under active discussion. Committer growth continued with one addition. Issues for the board: There are no issues requiring the board's attention at this time. ## Membership Data: Apache Polaris was founded 2026-02-18 (5 months ago) There are currently 32 committers and 19 PMC members in this project. The Committer-to-PMC ratio is roughly 8:5. Community changes, past quarter: - No new PMC members. Last addition was Sung Yun on 2026-04-27. - Nándor Kollár was added as committer on 2026-06-30 ## Project Activity: The project maintained its monthly release cadence throughout the quarter, continuing the train established right after graduation: - 1.6.0 released 2026-07-08 - 1.5.0 released 2026-05-18 - (1.4.1, a patch release, shipped 2026-05-01 at the start of the period) Development throughput on GitHub (apache/polaris) remained high over the reporting window (May–July 2026): - Pull requests: 761 opened, 651 merged - Issues: 90 opened, 91 closed - Currently open: 102 pull requests, 256 issues The high merge count relative to issues reflects a fast-moving, PR-driven workflow with a healthy review throughput. Recent release work has focused on hardening the project for production use, including running event listeners on a dedicated configurable executor, an updated MaintenanceService API, and stricter REST-layer validation of entity names. Broader ongoing themes include catalog federation, credential vending, and governance/policy integration. Several notable feature proposals and design discussions are active on the dev list this quarter, reflecting a shift from stabilization toward expanding the catalog's scope: - Data Sharing / Catalog Sharing: a design for securely sharing catalog namespaces and tables (metadata pointers) with external accounts and partner engines without copying data, including recipient credentials and revocation. - OpenLineage: a sustained proposal thread exploring how Polaris should emit and integrate lineage information, positioning the catalog as a lineage/ observability plane. This pairs with related discussions on REST endpoints exposing table metrics and events. - Polaris Directory: a proposal for a directory/volume-style abstraction to organize files and unstructured data within the catalog, extending Polaris beyond Iceberg tables toward broader data-asset management. Release voting, discussion, and decision-making continue to take place on the public dev@ list in accordance with the Apache Way. ## Community Health: Community health is good. Development is broadly distributed: 58 distinct authors opened pull requests against apache/polaris during the quarter, a strong contributor-diversity signal for a project only a few months past graduation. The project added one new committer this quarter (Nándor Kollár, 2026-06-30), reflecting continued growth of the contributor base on merit. The committer and PMC rolls remain diverse, spanning multiple cloud providers, engine and governance vendors, and independent contributors, which keeps the project vendor-neutral and resilient to any single contributor's departure. The volume and substance of design discussion on the dev list (spanning data sharing, lineage, and unstructured-data support) indicates an engaged community debating the project's direction openly. There were no new PMC members this quarter; the PMC will continue to watch for sustained contributors who are candidates for invitation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please let me know if you have any comments or changes. Since this is the first quarterly report, we don't need to detail every single change we did (it's impossible); we should provide overall insights into community and project activity. I will send the report by the end of the week. Thanks! Regards JB
