I have worked with Sebastian Schelter closely for some time and have had a number of contacts with the rest of the TU team and to a lesser degree with the UCI and UCSD academic collaborators and think that Stratosphere would make an excellent project.
Moreover, I think that the academic tradition that Stratosphere springs from is a short walk from the Apache way so incubation should be relatively painless. On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 12:14 AM, Alan Gates <ga...@hortonworks.com> wrote: > I would like to propose Stratosphere as an Apache Incubator project. I > have posted the proposal to > https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/StratosphereProposal and posted the > text of the proposal below. > > Alan. > > = Stratosphere = > > == Abstract == > Stratosphere is an open source system for parallel data analysis. > Stratosphere deeply integrates MapReduce and database technologies to > provide expressive and optimizable programming interfaces and at the same > time efficient and scalable execution. > > == Proposal == > Stratosphere is an open source system for expressive, declarative, fast, > and efficient data analysis. Stratosphere combines the scalability and > programming flexibility of distributed MapReduce-like platforms with the > efficiency, out-of-core execution, and query optimization capabilities > found in parallel databases. > > == Background == > There is currently a need for general-purpose cluster computing platforms > that are compatible with the Hadoop ecosystem, are more efficient, easier > to use, and can support more applications than Hadoop MapReduce, but are > not restricted to a specific data model and language (such as the > relational model and a variant of SQL). Stratosphere fulfils these needs. > > Stratosphere exposes expressive APIs in Java and Scala (conceptually > similar to Spark, Cascading, Scalding) that allow arbitrary user-defined > functions in the same language and data model that the program is written > in. Stratosphere programs pass through a cost-based optimizer that finds > the best execution path for these programs depending on the data and > cluster characteristics. The design and implementation of Stratosphere is > based on research that generalizes query optimizers in relational > databases. Stratosphere has a distributed runtime that is architected upon > the principles of parallel databases, providing true pipelining (a basis > for stream processing) and efficient out-of-core algorithms for grouping, > sorting, joining, and aggregating data. Stratosphere provides first-class > support for iterative algorithms via a built-in iterate operator, covering > Machine Learning and graph analysis use cases. It achieves performance > similar to Apache Giraph without being a specialized graph processing > system. > > Stratosphere has undergone three major releases (v0.1, v0.2, v0.4) and > some minor ones. > > == Rationale == > Stratosphere started out in 2008 as a research project by the Technical > University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the Hasso > Plattner Institute, and has received subsequent funding from the German > Research Council, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, the > European Commision, and industry. > > The traction of Stratosphere has by far exceeded our initial expectations, > and we are therefore seeking an organizational long-term home for > Stratosphere beyond the University walls that will house and further > encourage contributors from companies and other organizations that are > interested in Stratosphere. We believe that the Apache Software Foundation > is the ideal home for Stratosphere. Stratosphere integrates with several > existing Apache projects, such as HDFS, YARN, HBase, and Avro. The team is > familiar with the Apache processes and fully subscribes to the Apache > mission. One of the proposing members is a long-time Apache contributor and > PMC member. > > == Initial Goals == > * Move the existing codebase to Apache > * Integrate with the Apache development process > * Ensure all dependencies are compliant with Apache License version 2.0 > * Incremental development and releases per Apache guidelines > > > == Current Status == > === Meritocracy === > Stratosphere operated on meritocratic principles from the get go. The > initial project proposal submitted to the German Research Council > in 2008 stated that all code developed in the project will be released as > open source under the Apache 2 license. Currently, all the > discussions pertaining to Stratosphere development are public on [[ > https://github.com/stratosphere/stratosphere|GitHub]] and our [[ > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/stratosphere-dev|mailing list]]. > The current incubation proposal includes the major code contributors to > Stratosphere. Several additional people have worked on the Stratosphere > codebase for research prototypes and industry use cases and would be > interested in becoming committers. We are starting with a small committer > group and we plan to add additional committers following an open > merit-based decision process during the incubation phase. > > === Community === > Currently, the core of Stratosphere is developed at TU Berlin, mainly by > the committers listed in this proposal. Additional people from several > Universities and companies in Europe are working with Stratosphere and are > interested in becoming committers to the project. > > During the years, Stratosphere has been adopted as a platform for research > and teaching in several Universities (TU Berlin, HU Berlin, HPI, RWTH, > Inria, KTH, U. Trento, UCSD, and others), and it is currently witnessing > its first industrial installations. We are seeing a rapidly growing > interest in Stratosphere by both startups and large companies, as well as a > growing community (our first [[ > http://stratosphere.eu/events/2013/summit.html|Stratosphere Summit]] in > November 2013 attracted over 80 participants). Stratosphere was recently > accepted as a mentoring organization in Google Summer of Code 2014. > > We believe that acceptance in the Apache Software Foundation will > consolidate the current community under one organizational umbrella, and > most importantly accelerate the growth of the community. > > === Core developers === > The core developers of the system are Stephan Ewen, Fabian Hueske, Daniel > Warneke, Robert Metzger, Ufuk Celebi, and Aljoscha Krettek, who are all > committers in the current proposal. > > === Alignment === > Stratosphere is compatible with, and related to several Apache projects. > Stratosphere re-uses parts of Apache Hadoop, in particular HDFS and YARN, > as well as Apache HBase and Apache Avro. Stratosphere is a very good > compilation target for query languages such as Apache Hive and Apache Pig. > > == Known Risks == > === Orphaned Products === > There is strong interest in Stratosphere by several companies and > organizations, and there is currently a long-term commitment to fund > salaried developers for Stratosphere by public and private organizations in > Europe. > > === Inexperience with Open Source === > Sebastian Schelter is a committer and PMC member of Apache Mahout and > Apache Giraph, member of the Apache Software Foundation, member of the > Incubator PMC and project mentor for Apache Drill. Sebastian, along with > our mentors, will guide the rest of the committers that have experience > with releasing software as open source but little experience in > participating in an open source project besides Stratosphere itself. > > In mid-2013 Stratosphere transitioned from an “open source project with > publicly accessible source code” to an open source project that puts the > community first. We moved from a University-hosted git repository to > GitHub, where we discuss all issues publicly. This also includes release > planning (via GitHub’s milestone feature) and code reviews. We also moved > our build system to the publicly available Travis-CI. The mailing lists are > hosted with Google Groups, we use the public Maven repository > infrastructure of Sonatype. The source code of the www.stratosphere.euwebsite > is publicly available and is meant to be changed by external > contributors (for example for documentation purposes). > > === Homogeneous Developers === > Most committers in this proposal belong to the same institution (TU > Berlin). The engagement of these committers goes well beyond the necessary > development to support research, and all committers work on Stratosphere in > their free time. Several people from other institutions are working on and > are familiar with the Stratosphere codebase. We will work to attract them > as future committers during the incubation phase, following a merit-based > approach. > > === Reliance on Salaried Developers === > Currently, Stratosphere receives support from salaried developers, in > particular from graduate students at TU Berlin that are funded by the > German Research Council, the European Institute of Technology, and the > European Commission. These students work in their free time on Stratosphere > in addition to their employment. > > We expect that Stratosphere development will occur on both salaried and > volunteer time. We will recruit additional committers, including > non-salaried developers, and we will work to ensure that the project will > move forward independently of salaried developers. > > === Relationship with Other Apache Products === > Stratosphere interfaces with several existing Apache projects: Apache > HBase for storage, Apache Hadoop (HDFS for storage, YARN for resource > management, and Stratosphere contains a generic wrapper for Hadoop > MapReduce input formats), and Apache Avro (for serialization). Stratosphere > uses Apache Maven and Apache Commons libraries internally. Stratosphere can > be a great compilation target for Apache Pig and Apache Hive, although such > functionality is not yet implemented. > > Stratosphere is also related with several projects undergoing incubation > in the Apache Incubation project, such as Tez, Drill, and Spark > (graduated). While all these projects target sufficiently different spaces > and have different architectures, it would be interesting to explore code > reuse possibilities. For example, we are currently basing our design for > compiling SQL to Stratosphere on the Optiq library, also used by Apache > Drill. > > === An Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand === > We believe that the Apache brand will help us attract contributors to > Stratosphere, by giving us a well-defined, transparent development process > under a known brand. At the same time, Stratosphere already has a healthy > community and current funding guarantees the further codebase development > and growth of the project for the next 3-5 years. The reason for this > proposal is not to gain publicity, but to further strengthen the longevity > of the project as explained in the Rationale section. > > == Documentation == > * [[https://stratosphere.eu|Project website]] > * [[http://stratosphere.eu/docs/0.4/|Documentation]] > * [[https://github.com/stratosphere/stratosphere|Codebase]] > * [[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/stratosphere-dev|Mailinglist]] > > == Initial Source == > Stratosphere is hosted on [[ > https://github.com/stratosphere/stratosphere|GitHub]] . This is the > codebase that we will migrate to the Apache Foundation. The code was > previously hosted on a TU Berlin’s own git infrastructure. It has always > been Apache 2.0 licensed. > > === Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan === > All initial and past committers will sign a CLA with the ASF while the > incubator proposal for Stratosphere is being discussed. All organizations > that have employed Stratosphere contributors in the past will sign a SGA. > Current contributors will sign a CCLA. All major contributors are still > active in the project. > > === External Dependencies === > All critical dependencies are, to the extend of our knowledge, from other > Apache projects. These include Apache Hadoop (for YARN and HDFS) and some > libraries (log4j, commons codec, junit and more). Our web frontend uses > some MIT-licensed JavaScript libraries. > > == Required Resources == > > === Mailing list === > We will migrate our mailing lists to the following: > * us...@stratosphere.incubator.apache.org > * d...@stratosphere.incubator.apache.org > * priv...@stratosphere.incubator.apache.org > * comm...@stratosphere.incubator.apache.org > > === Source control === > We would like to use Git for source control and enable GitHib mirroring > functionality, where code reviews on GitHub are automatically > forwarded to the developer mailing list. (See also: [[ > https://blogs.apache.org/infra/entry/improved_integration_between_apache_and] > ]) > > > === Issue tracking === > We are currently using GitHub for issue tracking. We request an > Apache-hosted JIRA, and we will import existing issues there. > > > == Initial committers == > * Stephan Ewen - stephan.e...@tu-berlin.de > * Fabian Hueske - fabian.hue...@tu-berlin.de > * Daniel Warneke - warn...@posteo.de > * Robert Metzger - metrob...@gmail.com > * Ufuk Celebi - u.cel...@fu-berlin.de > * Aljoscha Krettek - aljoscha.kret...@gmail.com > * Kostas Tzoumas - kostas.tzou...@tu-berlin.de > * Sebastian Schelter - s...@apache.org > > === Affiliations === > * Stephan Ewen (TU Berlin) > * Fabian Hueske (TU Berlin) > * Daniel Warneke (Amadeus IT Group) > * Robert Metzger (TU Berlin) > * Ufuk Celebi (FU Berlin) > * Aljoscha Krettek (TU Berlin) > * Kostas Tzoumas (TU Berlin) > * Sebastian Schelter (TU Berlin) > > == Sponsors == > === Champion === > Alan Gates (ga...@apache.org) > > === Nominated Mentors === > * Sean Owen (sro...@apache.org) (Note: Sean is an Apache member but not > currently on the IPC, he will need to request IPMC membership) > * Ted Dunning (tdunn...@apache.org) > * Owen O'Malley (omal...@apache.org) > > === Sponsoring Entity === > The Apache Incubator > > > -- > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE > NOTICE: This message is intended for the use of the individual or entity to > which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential, > privileged and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader > of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that > any printing, copying, dissemination, distribution, disclosure or > forwarding of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have > received this communication in error, please contact the sender immediately > and delete it from your system. Thank You. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > >
