Ok, I am fine for trying to target graduation for the reasons Alex has
outlined.
My main hesitation was that Felix is in a pretty stable state right now,
so I thought it would be worthwhile to get a snapshot released to help
grow the community for those who find SVN to be a barrier for
experimentation. As part of this, I was basically in feature-freeze mode
for the framework, since I didn't want to start hacking some new
features that would make it unstable before trying to do a public release.
So, we can just forget about a release now altogether and just keep
progressing on new features. Another possibility, I guess, is to make a
svn branch of the current stable state of the framework that could be
the basis of a 0.8.0 release after graduation.
Of course, it seems that much of this depends on the time frame and
actual possibility of graduation too. We have to defer to our mentors to
know whether or not we are in a state where we should actually push for
graduation. Also, we need guidance to know what we need to do to prepare
for it as well.
-> richard
Alex Karasulu wrote:
Richard S. Hall wrote:
Upayavira wrote:
It just means that whatever you release has more standing. It is an
official Apache release. More people thus are likely to try it, so
you'll get better feedback. I guess that's the point in it.
Yeah, I guess I understood that a little.
What I was wondering, is how this changes our focus? Right now we am
focusing on creating a release. If we decide to think about preparing
for graduation, do we stop focusing on that and start focusing on
something else? If so, what is that something else?
The incubator release process is more involved.
=================================
Well targeting an incubator exit does not necessarily change your
primary focus of getting a release out. Graduating first may make it
a bit easier to get that release out since our PMC (once formed) would
vote on the matter rather than the incubator PMC. Being closer to the
code and understanding the functionality I think this community can
make a better quicker evaluation than the incubator PMC.
Graduation will delay an initial release but not by much.
========================================
Graduation may however delay a release a bit since we would have to
wait until the next board meeting to present our proposal as a
resolution for the board to ratify. Again as Upayavira stated, the
value of your release after graduation would be greater than if you
did release from the incubator. If there is some doubt we can always
just take a vote on what to do here. Also you can still focus on
tying up loose ends for a release even if we do shoot for an incubator
exit.
Either way in the grand scheme of things I don't think there will be a
net difference to Felix in the long term. Personally I don't think
it's worth the effort now to release if the release is not an official
Apache endorsed product. I'd keep working on taking care of loose
ends while trying to graduate this project. Those who want to build
with Felix can still do that using sources from the repository and can
await graduation then shortly there after an official release which
will be imminent.
Other projects cannot *easily* use an unofficial incubator release.
==============================================
Also I'm a bit biased here because we at Directory would like to use
this release (official release hopefully) to release a Felix based
OSGi version of ApacheDS in the coming few months. Otherwise we have
to start long threads on the incubator list discussing the legal
aspects of whether or not we can release ApacehDS with dependencies on
an incubator release of Felix. No project has yet released a product
based on an incubator release of another dependent project so it's
uncharted territory which would require a good amount of discussion.
Also the outcome is undefined since this is a relatively new situation
for the incubator to establish policies around. The incubator release
will take time and so will this conversation. Graduating Felix first
then releasing it would be a much clearer path for those who wish to
build upon this initial Felix release. This shows just how important
an Apache endorsed release is verses an incubator release.
Alex
