On 2022-10-19 13:59, Rich Bowen wrote:
On Fri, 2022-09-30 at 12:24 -0500, Daniel Gruno wrote:
Hi folks,
As evident from other discussions elsewhere, there seems to be very
little (if anything) to be gained from keeping Pony Mail as a
podling in
the incubator. The way forward is either graduating as a TLP, or
retiring and keeping the development elsewhere.
I would love for Pony Mail to graduate, so I am putting forward this
thread to gauge interest in doing so. Essentially, we would need at
least 3 +1s from the PPMC and other folks interested in joining or
supporting the community.
Here is my +1.
If we get enough momentum, I'll draft the resolution for graduating.
+1
I agree that the project has *nothing* more to learn from the
incubator. I am somewhat concerned at the still small size of the
contributor community, and all of my high hopes that people who
benefit from lists.apache.org would flock to contribute, have been
dashed.
But there's no further benefit to being in the Incubator at this
point.
With my board hat on, I know that I am going to be asking, soon, where
the new contributors are hiding.
As a PPMC member, +1, but, at the same time, I acknowledge that I am
an absentee member of the project, and I don't, realistically, expect
that to change in the coming year, despite my oft-repeated goal of
sitting down to learn the code more, and see where I can contribute.
I think everyone on the project and in the community recognizes that
there is a relatively small handful of people actively working on the
code, and a somewhat larger group of people that are merely "in the
periphery"...and I think that is okay. As long as there are people that
can deal with queries, vulnerabilities, etc, I don't think the board is
going to be concerned about whether we have five or five thousand people
engaged, provided we meet the minimum amount of people required for
project oversight.
Ideally I'd *love* for us to have many more people working on this, but
I also know the *reality* is that hardly anyone is actively working on
mailing list software, even outside of ASF. Other similar software
projects like MailMan are effectively 2-3 person jobs as well, in terms
of their core teams. And as long as there is oversight and capacity to
address pressing issues, that should be allowed.
To quote Voltaire (who in turn quoted someone else, as things go),
"perfect is the enemy of good". If we strive for perfection as the
benchmark for graduation, we risk giving up on something that is good
(and could, given time, become really great). At this stage, I think
remaining in the incubator will not help us advance our goals, and
becoming a TLP might provide a good boost to visibility, which may in
turn result in more contributors (provided we put some effort into being
an inclusive, welcoming project).
As to Sebb's remark about lack of response, for myself I can only say
"ApacheCon". I am *still* doing ApacheCon wrapup, and the last 2
months have been all ApacheCon, all the time.
+1 x 1000 to that specific remark, I was going to make it myself - for a
lot of us, the past 2-3 weeks of "volunteer time" have been all about
ApacheCon, and for some of us, it has been our work time as well :).
With regards,
Daniel.
