March 2007 Board Report
=======================
There are four areas of activities in Roller right now, here's a summary
of status and progress in each.
Graduation
Apache Roller has graduated so now we're trying to get a website up and
running at roller.apache.org. We've filed a JIRA request with the INFRA
team (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-1181). Once we get up
and running we'll make more formal announcements and perhaps a press
release via the PRC. We have a new release ready (3.1) that could
coincide with the announcement.
Roller 3.1 release
At RC5, Roller 3.1 is just about ready to roll. We could hold off and
time the release with the graduation announcements, or not. The What's
New in Roller 3.1 page is here:
http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/ROLLER/What%27s+new+in+Roller+3.1
Roller 4.0 release
In 4.0 we plan to make some infrastructural changes to Roller; switching
to a new non-Hibernate backend, requiring Java SE 5 and starting the
Struts2 migration. We were planning to wrap up work by late March, but a
host of new proposals just rolled in so March is probably out of the
picture. The latest 4.0 proposal is here:
http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/ROLLER/Proposal+Roller+4.0+Release
Hibernate replacement for 4.0
We'll soon have a couple of options for replacing Hibernate, our sole
remaining LGPL dependency. Craig Russell and Mitesh Mewani developed a
new JPA based backend for Roller using a datamapper abstraction that
allows support of JPA, JDO and other technologies. Dave Johnson
developed a new version of the JPA backend that calls JPA directly.
Elias Torres reports that IBM will soon donate an iBatis implementation
as well. We hope to find consensus on which one to use by doing a bake-off.
April 2007 Board Report
=======================
This month the Roller project is working on multiple upcoming releases
and post-graduation work. The community is active and getting along well
and we accepted a patch from a new contributor. Here are the details.
Upcoming Releases: Roller 4.0
The original plan for Roller 4.0 was to make "infrastructure" changes
including upgrades to Java SE 5, new non-Hibernate back-end, Struts 2,
Velocity 1.5 and XMLRPC 3.0. Now the plans are expanding to include some
more features to be implemented by Sun and IBM. At this point consensus
seems to point to a May release for 4.0.
While the rest of the 4.0 work taking place in the trunk, the new
back-end work is happing in a separate branch and kept in sync on at
least a weekly basis. We still have not made the final decision about
which persistence technology to use. The JPA implementation is passing
100% of unit test. It's still possible that IBM will contribute an
iBatis implementation in time for 4.0.
Upcoming Releases: Roller 3.1
We've been having some difficulties getting the Roller 3.1 release out.
We've been creating release candidates for a couple of months now, but
testing takes time and contributors have not been stepping up to test
each release. Another RC will go out this week and hopefully we'll start
the final vote.
Upcoming Releases: Roller 2.3.1 and Roller 3.0.1 patch releases
A number of XSS security vulnerabilities were reported in Roller 2.3 and
3.0. We worked with the reporter to detail and fix the problems and
prepared "patch" releases 2.3.1 and 3.0.1. We have release candidates
ready for those releases, but again, we're having problems finding time
to test them. We're considering announcing these release candidates more
widely (on blogs, etc.) to encourage more testing and feedback.
Post graduation work
We're still picking up the post-graduation pieces. Mailing lists, SVN,
wiki and the website have all been moved over to TLP. The next step is
to move the JIRA issue tracker over to Apache infrastructure.
Community
The community is getting along fine with lots of discussion on the topic
of new features. No new committers this month, but we do have a new
contributor. Thanks to new contributor Sedat Ciftci, who contributed a
significant new patch for account activation via email. It was accepted,
committed to trunk and will be included in the 4.0 release.
May 2007 Board Report
=====================
We made our graduation announcement and released Apache Roller 3.1, but
this month we're still working on multiple upcoming releases. The
community is active and getting along well. Here are the details.
Graduation announcement and Roller 3.1 release
We postponed our graduation announcement until the Roller 3.1 release
was ready and made a simultaneous 3.1 and graduation announcement just
in time for ApacheCon EU and JavaOne 2007. Here's the announcement:
Apache Roller project announces graduation and new Apache Roller 3.1 release
Also here: http://tinyurl.com/2ns42y
Upcoming Releases: Roller 4.0
The original plan for Roller 4.0 was to make "infrastructure" changes
including upgrades to Java SE 5, new non-Hibernate back-end, Struts2,
Velocity 1.5 and XMLRPC 3.0. Now the plans are expanding to include some
more features to be implemented by Sun and IBM, full Struts2 migration
(and possible a new installer).
Last month we reported that consensus seems to point to a May release
for 4.0, because we still have work to do on testing our new back-end
and because we've decided to do a complete Struts2 migration instead of
simply migrating a couple of key pages. Allen Gilliland has made
tremendous progress on the Struts2 works and has written an excellent
migration guide to help others pitch in.
http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/ROLLER/Struts2+Migration
Upcoming bug fix release: Roller 3.1.1
A number of serious but easy to fix bugs have been found in the Roller
3.1 release, so we've proposed a Roller 3.1.1 release with a first RC
before the end of May 2007.
http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/ROLLER/Proposal+Roller+3.1.1+Release
Upcoming XSS security fix releases: Roller 2.3.1 and 3.0.1
A number of XSS security vulnerabilities were reported in Roller 2.3 and
3.0. We worked with the reporter to detail and fix the problems and
prepared "patch" releases 2.3.1 and 3.0.1. We have release candidates
ready for those releases, but again, we're still having problems finding
time to test them.
Post graduation work
Still need to move the JIRA issue tracker over to Apache infrastructure.
Community
The community is getting along fine with lots of discussion on the topic
of new features. Mailing list traffic seems to have picked up a bit
since the graduation/Roller 3.1 announcement. Dave Johnson spoke at
ApacheCon EU 2007 on Roller and blogs as a web development platform and
submitted several Roller related talks for ApacheCon US 2007 (November).
August 2007 Board Report
========================
Apache Roller has been making great progress over the past couple of
months in new development. In addition to announcing our graduation with
a brand new release of Roller 3.1 we have also done a tremendous amount
of development for the Roller 4.0 release. Much of the new work involved
use of other Apache projects, for example we migrated from Struts 1 to
Struts 2, we upgraded to Velocity 1.5 and we completely replaced
Hibernate with OpenJPA. We also upgraded from JDK 1.4.2 to Java SE 1.5.
Some post graduation work still TBD
Apache Roller graduated back in March and announced graduation and the
Apache Roller 3.1 release on April 23, 2007. However, we've still got
some work to do. We're still waiting for our JIRA instance to be setup
(see https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-813). We also need to
change our downloads page
(http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/ROLLER/Roller+Downloads) to
make use of Apache Mirrors. We need volunteers to help with these tasks.
Apache Roller 3.1 completed, 3.1.1 RC2 ready for testing
We shipped 3.1 on April 23, 2007. A number of significant problems
(including an XSS bug) were found and fixed. We are now testing a fix
release known as 3.1.1 RC2, made available August 12, 2007 (announcement
here: http://tinyurl.com/34dq3l).
Apache Roller 4.0 RC1 available for testing
Made available August 11, 2007 (announcement here:
http://tinyurl.com/22wq7y). Major new release that upgrades Roller to
Jave SE 5, Struts 2, Velocity 1.5 and OpenJPA. This is will be the first
release that does not require Hibernate or any other LGPL code to run.
Community health
There are two very active committers at this time who are very busy with
new development, which is good. But we've been having some problems
getting new releases tested and voted out the door and getting some of
our other tasks done (e.g. getting setup to use the mirrors properly) so
we still need to work on community development and growth.
New contributors are appearing on the mailing list, submitting patches
and detailed bug reports. Hopefully, some of these will show sustained
interest and we'll see some committer nominations.
Dave Johnson presented on Roller and blogs as a web development platform
at Apachecon EU in May and will present the same talk (but updated for
Roller 4.0) at Apachecon US in November (see also
http://us.apachecon.com/us2007/program/talk/2023).
November 2007 Board Report
==========================
Since our last report in August, the Roller project has been making
progress on two fronts: Roller 4.1 development and Roller 4.0 release
candidate testing. And there are two areas where progress is needed: the
Roller 3.1.1 release is stalled at RC6 and there is still some post
graduation work to be done.
Roller 4.1 development
Roller 4.1 development has been proceeding in the roller_4.1_dev branch.
The proposal to externalize user management has been implemented, as has
the proposal to add a Tag Data API so other apps can get Roller's tag
cloud data.
Apache Roller 4.0 RC9 available for testing
Roller 4.0 is a major new release that upgrades Roller to Jave SE 5,
Struts 2, Velocity 1.5 and OpenJPA. This is will be the first release
that does not require Hibernate or any other LGPL code to run. We
released the first RC on August 11, 2007 (announcement here:
http://tinyurl.com/22wq7y) and we've been testing RCs ever since. We're
now up to RC9 and are hopeful that RC9 or RC10 will be the final.
Apache Roller 3.1 completed, 3.1.1 RC6 ready for testing
We shipped 3.1 on April 23, 2007. A number of significant problems
(including an XSS bug) were found and fixed. We are now testing a fix
release known as 3.1.1 RC6, made available October 4, 2007 (announcement
here: http://tinyurl.com/ynmrtj).
Some post graduation work still TBD
Apache Roller graduated back in March and announced graduation and the
Apache Roller 3.1 release on April 23, 2007. However, we've still got
some work to do. We're still waiting for our JIRA instance to be setup
(see https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-813).
Thanks to Vadim Gritsenko we now have a statistics page for Roller
Community health
Community health is good. Developers and users are active on the mailing
lists, reporting bugs, submitting patches and seeking support. We've
been having some difficulties getting 4.0 out the door because
committers don't always have time to test each new RC, but on the other
hand we are going though the process, fixing bug and the end result will
be more solid release.
Other community related news...
The US Government recently launched a blog called GovGab
http://govgab.com. It's powered by five employees of the Office of
Citizen Services and Communications and Apache Roller 3.1. The GovGab
folks have been helping out with the (still ongoing) Roller 3.1.1
release by reporting bugs and suggesting fixes.
Popular travel guide publisher Lonely Planet launched its blog site
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/blogs last week and it's powered by Roller.
Gene Strokine has create a new site devoted to supporting nice looking
Roller themes, called http://rollerthemes.com. Currently, most themes
there are ports of themes available at http://freecsstemplates.org
Matt Raible presented a talk on Roller, Acegi Security and Single
Sign-on at the Colorado Software Summit
Dave Johnson will present on Roller and blogs as a web development
platform at ApacheCon US.
