Hi Brett,
thanks for the detailed update and the refs to the earlier discussion - it
helps! I understand that the project has reached a certain point where most of
the functionality is in place and current users are pretty happy with it.
Except for the cases where they step on some issues. In which case, as you
pointed out, they are usually capable to submit a patch for it.
[fat fingers - continue...]
I can think of a few potentially helpful steps forward (in no particular order)
- a software that isn't released for a prolonged period of time, might be
perceived as abandoned or dormant, especially if a user/dev list isn't
very fast in responses
- review patches quickly - don't make people wait too long for a reply
- I think a community release shouldn't be expected to be an equivalent to
that of what a GA release might be. If the community thinks that it
is worthy of fixating a certain logical point of the life-cycle - it's
enough to make a release. The next one can be rolled-out shortly
thereafter and deliver a bit of improvement since the last. Rinse and
repeat
- having regular releases, especially for a software that addresses
people's real pain-points, tends to attract more users. And some of them
will be contributing in one form or another. Hence creating a pool for
your future committers and growth of the community
- frequent releases is a reassurance for ther users that their issues will
be quickly addressed on a predictable schedule
- a release process shouldn't be especially painful: all it takes is a
tag on a master branch that can serve as a foundation for a checksummed,
and signed source code archive
- if you see particular issues that INFRA can help with and tickets are
staying open for too long - try to joing #infra IRC channel and talk
directly to the guys there. THey are busy but usually are very helpful!
And a couple of "marketing" points:
- good "how to contribute" is always a challenge. But it doesn't have to
be done overnight - a series of steady improvements will get your there
soon enough
- a clean webpage with easy navigation is helpful
- a hackathon or a meetup might be a great way to get people together and
brainstorm things. Include remote people over some sort of video
conferencing, e.g. Hangout: I've seen it done in other projects and it
works great
- convert most active contributors to the committers. The entry level
barrier doesn't have to be incredibly high - just set it to what feels
right from the complexity and learning curve points
- consider giving a talk in the tech meetup that seems to be appropriate
for you - it might help to recruit more users
- tweet about the project and communicate the cool points about it. I see
it has been done back in 2011 and before that.
Please let me know how I can help you with any of the chores. We all have day
jobs but I'd be happy to spend some cycles and help a bit if I can. Feel free
to reach out to the general@incubator.apache.org - it's a great group of
people, joining together to advance open-source projects.
Looking forward to hear from you guys soon with the great news about next
steps in the community! Or questions! Or help requests! Or else ;)
Have a great weekend! Regards,
Cos
On Fri, Jul 04, 2014 at 09:45AM, Brett Porter wrote:
> Thanks Konstantin.
>
> Lars gave a bit of an update here:
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-npanday-dev/201406.mbox/%3C000101cf87b4%2404611cd0%240d235670%24%40lcorneliussen.de%3E
>
> We do have stuff to release, which has been stuck for some time. However,
> all of the blockers to a release have been removed recently. I started the
> process of getting through the JIRA tickets (see previous mail to the list)
> - once that can get cleared up, I think it's ready to start.
>
> A few other status updates...
>
> I've also just got the site publishing under svnpubsub, and will document
> how to do that so that folks can start making changes again. Users have
> drawn attention to the fact that the home page doesn't list any recent
> activity. Some effort needs to go into making it clearer of the current
> status and how to contribute. I'll start another discussion around that.
>
> We're a bit stuck with the builds not working on Jenkins again - but I've
> reached out to Infrastructure to try and get that resolved.
>
> The other day I also went through the podling status page and updated it
> with current information. I'll look at the status report before the end of
> the week.
>
> I'm happy to give this push to get the next release out and make it easy to
> repeat so that some momentum can be rebuilt, and contributions can be put
> into a release.
>
> As Lars pointed out, we have a few users who are interested in seeing a
> release, and some that are interested in contributing fixes from time to
> time - we really need to get more of those semi-regular contributors on as
> committers.
>
> Cheers,
> Brett
>
> On 2 Jul 2014, at 3:34 pm, Konstantin Boudnik <c...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> > Guys,
> >
> > per this thread on the general@ list
> > http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/201406.mbox/%3CCA%2BULb%2BvGa9bnrR7KOmRMRZXoXqnkY9rVxxWS_SB%2B0a5P_be7wg%40mail.gmail.com%3E
> >
> > I'd like to introduce myself and kick-off the discussion about future
> > project
> > road map. Clearly, I would love to find out how I help you guys in moving
> > project forward, building active and thriving community, and achieving all
> > the
> > goals of what constitutes a successful Apache incubation.
> >
> > I am looking into the project web page and see that it has been a while
> > since
> > the last release. What do you think is the reason for it? The project has
> > matured? Is it pretty stable hence doesn't require much of the bugfixes?
> > Anything else?
> >
> > If you interested, you can quicky lookup into who I am at
> > https://people.apache.org/committer-index.html#cos
> >
> > Looking forward for your input and ideas on how we can move forward!
> > --
> > With regards,
> > Cos
> >
> >
>
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