Hello all!
I am Janne Jalkanen, the lead developer of the open source wiki
engine called JSPWiki, and I have a proposal for your enjoyment.
This proposal is available in the web at http://www.jspwiki.org/wiki/
ApacheJSPWikiProposal, should you wish to help us to make it better.
/Janne
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Abstract
Apache JSPWiki will be a modular and user-extensible wiki-engine,
based on the open source JSPWiki software.
Proposal
JSPWiki is a wiki engine available under the Lesser General Public
License. It has a very modular construction, and integrates
relatively nicely with a bunch of enterprise systems. It is also
inherently embeddable, and has been incorporated as a component in a
few different commercial and open source products.
The latest JSPWiki, 2.6, supports AJAX and full I18N, pluggable
backends, pluggable editors, an expressive markup, a plugin
framework, a filter framework, and built-in URL rewriting.
JSPWiki also has a nice unit test set of over 700 unit tests which
have been invaluable in keeping compatibility between releases.
Background
In the past few years, wikis have become a common collaborative tool.
They are light-weight, open, and easy to deploy. The English
Wikipedia, currently the largest public wiki site, contains nearly
two million pages.
Wikis were originally designed to be small group collaboration tools,
but they have proven to be scalable to a large number of users, as
evidenced by the Wikipedia example. However, their most common use is
still within companies and other entities which deploy them as
collaboration tools, augmenting and even replacing traditional CSCW
tools.
JSPWiki was originally created to address the same group
collaboration tool needs as so many other wiki engines. Its goals
were from the start to provide extensibility and user power, while
keeping the core functionality clear. Since it’s inception in 2001,
it has grown to be one of the more popular open source wikiengines,
at least in the Java arena. It currently ships with the Sun Portal
Server 7, and features as an integral part of the Intland Codebeamer
development environment.
Rationale
JSPWiki has grown nicely over the past few years, and currently
averages around 2000 downloads monthly. The users-list has at the
writing of this 207 members, and the developers mailing list has 34
members. There are currently six people with commit access to the CVS
codebase.
However, there is a chasm to how large an open source project can
grow under a ”benevolent dictator” –model. Many corporations are
relying on the JSPWiki code base, and joining Apache would lessen the
risks involved in using it, thus giving more entities an opportunity
to use this advanced project. Joining Apache would make us less
dependent on individual developers and would strengthen our community.
We also feel that the introduction of Apache processes would increase
the code quality, as well as bring more interested developers to this
project.
Apache is also lacking a wiki engine. It is currently using either
commercial software (Confluence) or Python-based wiki software
(MoinMoin) as its own projects. As wikis are becoming the workhorse
of many projects, we feel that it would bring a good addition to the
Apache community.
Initial Goals
The initial goals of the project is to release JSPWiki 2.8 under the
Apache license:
* Bring in the JSPWiki 2.6 stable code base into Apache and
apply Apache licensing and remove incompatible dependencies (see
ApacheRelicensing for more discussion.)
* Release JSPWiki 2.8 as a clone of JSPWiki 2.6 - with some bug
fixes and Apache licensing, however keeping compatibility with
JSPWiki 2.6. This means that we cannot e.g. change the package naming
from "com.ecyrd.jspwiki" or else all old plugins will fail. It is yet
unclear whether this will be acceptable to ASF.
After that, we will start working on JSPWiki 3.0:
* Clean up our metadata and backend support by adding JSR-170
repository support
* Adoption of a more flexible web framework (Stripes, an Apache-
licensed project)
* Multi-wiki support (so-called WikiFarms, or WikiWebs or
WikiSpaces)
* Move to "org.apache.jspwiki" -structure, breaking
compatibility with 2.x series
* Cleanup of the APIs and some refactoring which has been due
for a long time
Current Status
JSPWiki code base is relatively stable, and even though some parts
are certainly showing their age, the code is clearly laid out (we
originally used the Avalon coding conventions, but since then it has
been slightly modified), and is often thanked for its clarity. We use
the Facade and Adapter patterns extensively across JSPWiki.
The current development practice has mostly been a Linux-like
"benevolent dictator" -model. There have been no major clashes on the
mailing lists, and the community tends to be helpful, even if
sometimes a little slow in helping others.
Meritocracy
JSPWiki has always tried to grant commit access to people who have
proven themselves as willing and capable of contributing to the code
base, UI design, documentation, etc. We will certainly continue this
practice, as it has proven to be very useful. We hope that the Apache
process will make it even more practical.
Community
JSPWiki has existed since 2001, and during its life, the community
has been growing steadily. Currently there is some 200-odd members on
the jspwiki-users mailing list, and 34 members on the jspwiki-dev-
users mailing list.
JSPWiki has also been a subject of some scientific papers, and is
used as a development platform.
Core Developers
The core developers consist of Janne Jalkanen (Finnish, the original
lead developer and still the person with the most commits), Andrew
Jaquith (USA, a security guru), Dirk Frederickx (Belgium, our user
experience specialist), Christoph Sauer (Germany, the maintainer of
the WikiWizard editor), and Juan Pablo Santos Rodríguez (Spain, the
i18n specialist).
We are a diverse group, though concentrated mostly in the Western
countries.
Alignment
We use Tomcat as our main development platform, and we are already
using a large number of Apache components from Log4j and regexps to
Commons Lang.
In the future, we are planning to turn our backend to use JSR-170,
which makes Apache Jackrabbit an obvious bit of the future, though
the migration from our current repository model is still unclear.
Our coding rules are also based on Apache Avalon coding rules.
Known Risks
Changing a large code base from one license to another always entails
risks. There may be users who might object to moving from GNU to
Apache on idealistic grounds, but most of the users will probably
take a pragmatic approach.
Another problem may be if we cannot locate suitable non-GPL options
for our components. This may mean long delays, as we may need to
develop alternatives ourselves.
Also, the move is likely – at least initially – to divert resources
from development to bureucracy. This is likely to strain a nerve or
two. This can hopefully be mitigated by the Mentors by providing
clear guidance.
To be fully blunt, I (Janne Jalkanen) also feel a bit queasy on
giving control of JSPWiki – my pet, which I have groomed for many
years – away to a foundation. However, this is something which is
better in long term for JSPWiki, and therefore it is worth the
sacrifices.
JSPWiki 2.8 is designed to be a low-risk, low-hanging-fruit type of a
release, assuming that ASF is fine with the package not being in the
"org.apache" hierarchy. If not, we have no choice but to wait until
3.0 since breaking the binary compatibility twice in a row would mean
problems for all developers.
Orphaned products
Since JSPWiki has been lead using a ”benevolent dictator” –model, the
largest knowledge of the code base rests on Janne Jalkanen. Janne has
no plans to leave JSPWiki development, but certainly there is a need
to get more people who have an intimate knowledge of the code base
(and the decisions thereof).
Inexperience with Open Source
JSPWiki was started as an open source project in June 2001, and has
remained an open source project since. Issue tracking and mailing
lists have been open to everyone from day one.
Homogenous Developers
The current list of committers includes people from five countries,
four timezones and two continents. Regular patches come in also from
other countries.
Reliance on Salaried Developers
There are currently no people on the committer list who get paid to
work on JSPWiki. However, we do get patches from a number of
companies with a vested interest in JSPWiki.
JSPWiki is in no way reliant on salaried coders.
Relationships with Other Apache Products
JSPWiki uses quite a few different Apache projects already, and, of
course, runs on top of Tomcat (though it has been developed to be
pure J2EE only and in no way relies on any specific functionality).
In the future, we expect to integrate somewhat with Jackrabbit.
A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand
JSPWiki could continue on its own, no worries. However, we do feel
that our customers and users would feel more comfortable if there was
a ”name” attached to it – because it lessens the risk of JSPWiki just
going away some day.
To be frank, we are more interested in the Apache processes and the
stability Apache would bring to the project than the actual name. We
also hope that Apache will adopt us as their wiki solution ;-)
Documentation
The chief JSPWiki resource is the http://www.jspwiki.org/ web site.
It is further amended by the JSPWiki documentation site (http://
doc.jspwiki.org/2.4) as well as the JSPWiki-users and JSPWiki-dev
mailing list archives at http://ecyrd.com/pipermail/jspwiki-users/
and http://ecyrd.com/pipermail/jspwiki-dev/.
Initial Source
There is an initial source base of approximately 70,000 lines of
code. (According to an estimate by the Ohloh code search engine, this
amounts to roughly 17 person years).
Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan
* jspwiki.org domain from Janne Jalkanen
* JSPWiki source code from all contributors (CLAs need to be done)
External Dependencies
JSPWiki is relying already extensively on a number of Apache-licensed
libraries. However, we are also using some LGPL-based libraries,
which will either need to be replaced or rewritten. The current list
of dependencies and the migration plan is available here:
http://www.jspwiki.org/wiki/ApacheRelicensing
Cryptography
JSPWiki uses only cryptography methods (hash codes) available in the
J2SE itself. There is one exception to this rule, however: we use a
slightly modified version of the Apache Tomcat's HexUtils for
converting byte arrays into hexadecimal digits.
(org.apache.catalina.util.HexUtils).
Required Resources
Mailing lists
JSPWiki currently operates on two mailing lists - jspwiki-
[EMAIL PROTECTED], and [EMAIL PROTECTED] It would be good to
continue these both also under Apache Incubation, with the addition
of the mandatory jspwiki-private. A jspwiki-commits -list might also
be useful.
* jspwiki-users (contains the existing members of the jspwiki-
users)
* jspwiki-dev (the members of the existing jspwiki-dev)
* jspwiki-commits (new list for announcing commits to the svn
repository)
* jspwiki-private (for the PPMC, with moderated subscriptions)
Subversion Directory
JSPWiki code base should be named ”jspwiki”, as in
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/jspwiki
Issue Tracking
Current JSPWiki bug tracking is done at http://bugs.jspwiki.org/,
using Bugzilla 3.0. It would be good to be able to move the current
bug list to the Apache Bugzilla. The project name should be "JSPWiki".
If the bug list cannot be moved, then we can continue to use the
JSPWiki bug tracker.
Other Resources
* www.jspwiki.org website
* doc.jspwiki.org
* blog.jspwiki.org
* sandbox.jspwiki.org (wiped at noon GMT with a custom script).
* bugs.jspwiki.org
Some or all of these can be moved to Apache. However, deeper
discussions need to be made on which ones Apache is willing to host.
Initial Committers
* Janne Jalkanen ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Andrew Jaquith ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Dirk Frederickx ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Christoph Sauer ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Juan Pablo Santos Rodríquez ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Murray Altheim ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
None of the initial committers have yet submitted a CLA.
Affiliations
Janne Jalkanen works as a Project Manager in Nokia, but his work has
nothing to do with JSPWiki.
Andrew Jaquith is a senior analyst at Yankee Group, an ICT research
and consulting firm. He covers security for Yankee. Nokia, curiously,
is one of Yankee's customers, but apparently not the part that Janne
works for. :)
Christoph Sauer is a researcher at the Heilbronn University, Germany.
He is a Project Manager at the Heilbronn Universities i3G Institute,
which offers business services for small and medium sized companies.
Juan Pablo Santos works as a Software Engineer in Secuenzia, an IT
consulting firm in Madrid.
Sponsors
Champion
Champion: Dave Johnson
Nominated Mentors
People who have announced their willingness to be Mentors are
* Dave Johnson
* Sam Ruby
* Henning Schmiedehausen
Sponsoring Entity
Sponsoring entity should be the Incubator.
PPMC
The PPMC shall consist of initial committers and the Mentors.
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