I would like to call a vote for accepting "Apache Lucy" for incubation
in the Apache Incubator. The full proposal is available below. We ask
the Incubator PMC to sponsor it, with myself (hossman) as Champion, and
mattmann, upayavira, mikemccand, and hossman volunteering to be Mentors.
Please cast your vote:
[ ] +1, bring Lucy into Incubator
[ ] +0, I don't care either way,
[ ] -1, do not bring Lucy into Incubator, because...
This vote will be open for 72 hours and only votes from the Incubator
PMC are binding.
http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/LucyProposal
------------------------------------
PREFACE
Lucy is a sub-project which is being spun off from the Lucene TLP but is
not yet ready for graduation. We propose to address certain needs of the
project by transitioning to an Incubator Podling, and assimilating the
KinoSearch codebase.
ABSTRACT
Lucy will be a loose port of the Lucene search engine library, written in
C and targeted at dynamic language users.
PROPOSAL
Lucy has two aims. First, it will be a high-performance C search engine
library. Second, it will maximize its usability and power when accessed
via dynamic language bindings. To that end, it will present highly
idiomatic, carefully tailored APIs for each of its "host" binding
languages, including support for subclasses written entirely in the
"host" language.
BACKGROUND
Lucy, a "loose C" port of Java Lucene, began as an ambitious,
from-scratch Lucene sub-project, with David Balmain (author of Ferret, a
Ruby/C port of Lucene), Doug Cutting, and Marvin Humphrey (founder of
KinoSearch, a Perl/C port) as committers. During an initial burst of
activity, the overall architecture for Lucy was sketched out by Dave and
Marvin. Unfortunately, Dave became unavailable soon after, and without a
working codebase to release or any users, it proved difficult to replace
him. Still, Marvin carried on their work throughout a period of
seemingly low activity.
In the last year, that work has come to fruition: major technical
milestones have been achieved and Lucy's underpinnings have been
completed. Additionally, other developers from the KinoSearch community
have taken an interest in Lucy and have begun to ramp up their
contributions. The next steps for Lucy were articulated by the Lucene
PMC in a recent review: make releases, acquire users, grow community.
To implement the Lucene PMC's recommendations and get to a release as
quickly as possible, the Lucy community proposes to assimilate the
KinoSearch codebase, which has been retrofitted to use Lucy's core. Lucy
still lacks a number of important indexing and search classes; we wish to
flesh these out via IP clearance work rather than software development.
Because Lucene is working to move away from being an "umbrella project",
a long term goal of the Lucy project is to graduate to an ASF TLP. With
that in mind, it seems more appropriate for the KinoSearch software grant
to take place within the context of the Incubator, and that a Lucy
podling and PPMC be established which will ultimately take responsibility
for the codebase.
RATIONALE
There is great hunger for a search engine library in the mode of Lucene
which is accessible from various dynamic languages, and for one
accessible from pure C. Individuals naturally wish to code in their
language of choice. Organizations which do not have significant Java
expertise may not want to support Java strictly for the sake of running a
Lucene installation. Developers may want to take advantage of C's
interoperability and fine-grained control. Lucy will meet all these
demands.
Apache is a natural home for our project given the way it has always
operated: user-driven innovation, security as a requirement, lively and
amiable mailing list discussions, strength through diversity, and so on.
We feel comfortable here, and we believe that we will become exemplary
Apache citizens.
INITIAL GOALS
* Make a 1.0 stable release as quickly as possible.
* Concentrate on community expansion.
* Expose a public C API.
CURRENT STATUS
Meritocracy
Our initial committer list includes two individuals (Peter Karman and
Nathan Kurz) who started off as KinoSearch users, demonstrated merit
through constructive forum participation, adept negotiation, consensus
building, and submission of high-quality contributions, and were invited
to become committers. Peter now rolls most releases.
We look forward to continuing to operate as a meritocracy under the
established traditions and rules of the ASF.
Community
Lucy's most active participants of late have been drawn from the
KinoSearch and Lucene communities. Having been focused on features and
technical goals for a long time, we are considerably overdue for a stable
release, and anticipate rapid growth in its wake.
Core Developers
* Marvin Humphrey is the project founder of KinoSearch, and co-founded
the existing Lucy sub-project. He is presently employed by Eventful,
Inc.
* Peter Karman has contributed to several open source projects since
2001, including being a committer at http://swish-e.org/ (a search
engine), http://code.google.com/p/rose/ (an ORM) and
http://catalyst.perl.org/ (web framework). He is employed by American
Public Media.
* Nathan Kurz is excited by the intersection of search and
recommendations, and has been a KinoSearch committer since 2007. As
the owner of Scream Sorbet (http://screamsorbet.com), he divides his
time between code and fruit.
Alignment
One Apache value which is particularly cherished by the Lucy community is
codebase transparency. We have developed institutions which enable us to
measure and maximize usability (see
http://wiki.apache.org/lucy/BrainLog), and we feel strongly that the
bindings for Lucy must present APIs and documentation which are idiomatic
to the host language culture so that end users can consume our work as
easily as possible.
The controlled competition of meritocratic community development is also
very important to us. There has been substantial cross-pollination of
ideas between Lucene and Lucy, yielding considerable benefits for both
projects. The Lucy developers envision that our host-language
sub-communities will approach using and extending the library in distinct
ways; we hope to harness the creative tension between them to drive
innovation, building productive relationships akin to the one that Lucene
and Lucy have today.
A third priority of ours is to be bound by existing Apache institutions,
for the protection of all our stakeholders.
KNOWN RISKS
Orphaned products
All core developers have been associated with the project for several
years across multiple jobs. However, at this time, the project would
probably not survive the departure of Marvin Humphrey, so there is a risk
of being orphaned. Marvin has no plans to leave, but we have been
actively working to disperse his knowledge of the code base and
administrative responsibilities in order to make him dispensable. Having
staggered badly after Dave Balmain's departure, we are keenly aware of
this vulnerability and highly motivated to eliminate it.
Inexperience with Open Source
The core developers all have significant experience with open source
development, and include one present Apache committer. We recognize that
we lack PMC experience and seek to address that deficiency by using the
Incubator environment to educate ourselves and prepare for responsible
self-governance.
Homogenous Developers
Our community is geographically dispersed, with members in San Diego,
Oakland, and Minneapolis. We all work for different organizations.
Reliance on Salaried Developers
Marvin Humphrey has a great job at Eventful working primarily on this
project and supporting applications that use it. Nevertheless, he is
extremely dedicated to Lucy and is determined to see it through to the
point where it becomes self-sustaining, regardless of work circumstances.
Relationships with Other Apache Products
Lucy's relationship with Lucene of cordial "coopetition" has produced
benefits for Lucene users in terms of indexing speed, near-real-time
search support, and more. We expect this dynamic to continue delivering
improvements for all parties involved.
An Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand
Our desire to maintain Lucy's affiliation with Apache has less to do with
the brand and more to do with our conviction that developing the project
The Apache Way under Apache institutions is in Lucy's best interests.
However, we have to acknowledge that during its time as a Lucene
subproject, Lucy has not always fulfilled certain key requirements for an
Apache project. In particular, it has failed to "release early, release
often", and it has made minimal progress in expanding its community.
We attribute some of our difficulties to the what may have been excess
ambition in the original Lucy plan, given the scope of the project and
the size of the initial committer list:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#incubator
The basic requirements for incubation are:
* a working codebase -- over the years and after several failures,
the foundation came to understand that without an initial working
codebase, it is generally hard to bootstrap a community.
By rebooting the project with a working codebase, we expect to avoid the
trap that ensnared Lucy's first incarnation: we will release early,
release often, accumulate users, nurture contributors, and grow our
community.
DOCUMENTATION
* Current Lucy website: http://lucene.apache.org/lucy/
* Current Lucy Subversion repository:
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lucene/lucy/
* Current Lucy mailing lists:
http://lucene.apache.org/lucy/mailing_lists.html
* KinoSearch Subversion repository:
http://www.rectangular.com/svn/kinosearch/
* KinoSearch Perl API documentation:
http://www.rectangular.com/kinosearch/docs/devel/
* KinoSearch Discussion list:
http://www.rectangular.com/mailman/listinfo/kinosearch/
INITIAL SOURCE
The initial source will be a snapshot from the KinoSearch subversion
repository.
SOURCE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SUBMISSION PLAN
KinoSearch is currently under a GPL/Artistic license. There are five
individuals who have made multiple significant contributions to the
codebase and whose participation is either essential or would be very
helpful: Marvin Humphrey, Peter Karman, Nathan Kurz, Chris Nandor, and
Father Chrysostomos. All have been contacted and are amenable to
re-licensing their work and contributing it to Apache. We will contact
as many other contributors as possible; if there are any that we cannot
obtain permission from, we will refactor to expunge their work.
EXTERNAL DEPENDENCIES
The Perl bindings for KinoSearch currently depend on a few CPAN modules
which do not have Apache-compatible licenses. It will be possible to
eliminate all such dependencies if necessary.
REQUIRED RESOURCES
Mailing lists
* lucy-dev
* lucy-private (with moderated subscriptions)
* lucy-commits
* lucy-users
Lucy already has lucy-dev, lucy-users, and lucy-commits mailing lists
under lucene.apache.org. Perhaps these could be deactivated and the
memberships migrated to the appropriate lists under incubator.apache.org,
leaving the lucene.apache.org archives as read-only.
Subversion Directory
Lucy already has a Subversion directory at
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lucene/lucy. In keeping with naming
conventions, it could be moved to
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/lucy.
Issue Tracking
Lucy already has a JIRA tracker: Lucy (LUCY)
Other Resources
Lucy already has a MoinMoin wiki at wiki.apache.org/lucy. It would be
convenient to keep it, especially since its current location is also
where it would end up upon TLP graduation, but we will defer to the
wishes of the Incubator PMC if standard Incubator wiki placement is
recommended.
INITIAL COMMITTERS
NAME EMAIL AFFILIATION CLA
Marvin Humphrey marvin AT apache DOT org Eventful yes
Peter Karman peter AT peknet DOT com American Public Media yes
Nathan Kurz nate AT verse DOT com Scream Sorbet yes
Simon Willnauer simonw AT apache DOT org yes
SPONSORS
Champion
* Chris Hostetter (hossman AT apache DOT org)
Nominated Mentors
* Chris Mattmann (mattmann AT apache DOT org)
* Upayavira (upayavira AT apache DOT org)
* Mike McCandless (mikemccand AT apache DOT org) (pending IPMC membership)
* Chris Hostetter (hossman AT apache DOT org) (pending IPMC membership)
Sponsoring Entity
Lucy is currently sponsored by Lucene as a sub-project. This proposal
advocates changing Lucy's relationship with Apache from developing all
new code as a Lucene sub-project, to instead assimilating existing code
(KinoSearch) under the sponsorship of the Incubator.
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