Hi Incubator,
We've previously been discussing graduation in this email thread, and we
would be glad for any additional feedback or
questions y'all have for the project. Sorry for not including the general
list here previously,
The full history is below, but I'll re-add the original email here so it's
easier to read.
-----
Hi y’all,
It’s exciting to see how far the Apache Polaris (Incubating) project has
come in just over a year, and I think it’s time that we start considering
whether the podling is ready to graduate to a full-fledged Apache project.
We’ve seen production releases, new persistence backends, OPA support, and
so much more. Most importantly, this work has been done with public design
and discussion, following the Apache model for community development.
Github Issues and PR review happen in an open and vendor-neutral manner.
There are many active committers and PPMC members from different
organizations working together and releasing quality software. I’ve seen
solid work done to protect the Apache Brand and ensure licensing is
appropriate, as well as some great handling of public events. Even as a
young project, Polaris has already hosted many successful meetups and has
been the subject of talks at a variety of conferences. We also have a
lively dev-list and lots of one-on-one discussions happening on the Slack
channel. In many cases, I think that the Apache Polaris Community is
functioning exactly how a top-level Apache project should
<
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria
.
For those interested in the statistics
-
Apache Polaris has had 6 Releases (0.9, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0, 1.2.0,
1.3.0)
-
Our github is at 1.8k stars with 357 Forks
-
We have closed 2819 PRs
-
There are have been ~100 Contributors to the project
-
The PPMC has 13 Members (6 elected during incubation period) and there
are 8 other committers (5 elected during incubation period)
-
Representatives from Dremio, Snowflake, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, And
more!
That said, I do still have some concerns about other areas of community
development. While I think we are having lots of great conversations about
the future of the project, we still seem to have difficult moments where
communication appears to be breaking down, and people are becoming a bit
more heated. We also seem to be lacking a bit of mutual trust and respect.
I want to make sure that the Polaris community is a welcoming one, where
engineers all respect each other’s contributions and, most importantly,
act
in good faith. We’ve seen some instances where PRs may be perceived as
merged prematurely, or that there are double standards for what
constitutes
a “blocker” on a PR. I want to know if others in the community feel this
way, and more importantly, if there are any constructive ideas on how to
help us get along and make the community as welcoming as possible. Please
do not take this lightly; I know it can be easy to just write off other
engineers as a “problem,” but that kind of attitude won’t help this
project
move forward. I would encourage everyone to think about how they
personally
can contribute to a better environment. If I’m alone in this sentiment,
feel free to ignore me, but I think it’s always a good exercise to think
about how I interact with others to make them feel as welcome as possible.
I don’t mean to be all gloomy on this matter, though; I think some things
have been moving in the right direction. A great example is some of the
discussions we’ve seen lately on the mailing list. Although we had some
disagreements on a PR, there is now a pretty constructive dialogue
happening where I do feel like all of the community members are trying to
find common ground and listen to each other’s viewpoints without personal
judgment. This shows me that we are still having constructive engagements
even when there was prior disagreement. I wasn’t able to attend the recent
sprint planning meeting, but from what I have heard, that’s another
instance where it feels like folks came away from that meeting with a bit
more camaraderie than they had going in.
All in all, I want what’s best for the community. I hope that by bringing
up graduation, and bringing some of my concerns into the public light,
we’ll be able to make progress and graduate the project. I want to know
everyone else’s feelings on the general maturity of the project, whether
they think it’s appropriate to graduate, and whether they have any other
suggestions for paths forward to make Polaris even better in the future.
Thanks for your time,
Russell Spitzer
Resources:
https://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qBIxClspQA--uQB0MS3LQO-uEDjdXtbqMPSRNbgeKdk/edit?usp=sharing
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jean-Baptiste Onofré <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] Apache Polaris - Moving towards Graduation
To: <[email protected]>
Hi,
As I previously mentioned, I believe the current challenges stem from
communication between a few individual contributors. We have established
project guidelines that have already helped improve our interactions, but
as with all Apache projects, this remains an ongoing effort.
As a mentor, my role is to explain the Apache Way and our best practices
(and also share the Apache policies and interact with other Apache teams
like Infra). I aim to act as a "catalyst" rather than a "dictator,"
recognizing that every community is unique. I continue to work closely
with
various contributors to assist with communication styles that respect our
diverse cultures, backgrounds, and sensitivities.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you need support or someone to
listen; my door is always open.
Regards,
JB
On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 1:26 PM Kevin Liu <[email protected]> wrote:
I've had many positive interactions with the Polaris community, both
online
and in-person, and have found everyone to be helpful and collaborative.
I'm
really looking forward to the move towards graduation and to further
contributing to this awesome community!
While I am glad to see the general support for graduation, I am a bit
disappointed that we haven't yet discussed specific ways to improve our
community dynamics or resolve disagreements more efficiently. I have had
many private conversations with community members expressing
frustration,
and I was hoping this thread would provide a space for that reflection.
Thanks for reiterating on this point; IMO a sign of a healthy community
is
to have these discussions openly and find common solutions. I think
effective collaboration is an ongoing effort. If there's anything I can
help with to facilitate the discussion, please let me know. Happy to
help.
Best,
Kevin Liu
On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 11:38 AM Russell Spitzer <
[email protected]>
wrote:
While I am glad to see the general support for graduation, I am a bit
disappointed that we haven't yet discussed specific ways to improve
our
community dynamics or resolve disagreements more efficiently. I have
had
many private conversations with community members expressing
frustration,
and I was hoping this thread would provide a space for that
reflection.
That said, I recognize this is an ongoing process. Let’s ensure we
continue
to look for opportunities to better understand each others'
perspectives
to
ensure the long-term success of Polaris.
Given the clear consensus to move forward, I will start a formal vote
to
document the community's shared intent to graduate.
On Sun, Jan 25, 2026 at 11:12 AM Francois Papon <
[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
As a mentor of the project (not from the beginning) and to have
been a
mentor of other projects in the ASF, I also think that the project
is
ready to Graduate.
The project is very active and there is a lot of discussion in the
mailing list. Even if people are not always agreed, the discussions
are
safe and it's good to have these kind of threads on the mailing
list.
There is also new committers that is also a good thing.
regards,
François
[email protected]
[email protected]
Le 17/01/2026 à 21:16, Russell Spitzer a écrit :
Hi y’all,
It’s exciting to see how far the Apache Polaris (Incubating)
project
has
come in just over a year, and I think it’s time that we start
considering
whether the podling is ready to graduate to a full-fledged Apache
project.
We’ve seen production releases, new persistence backends, OPA
support,
and
so much more. Most importantly, this work has been done with
public
design
and discussion, following the Apache model for community
development.
Github Issues and PR review happen in an open and vendor-neutral
manner.
There are many active committers and PPMC members from different
organizations working together and releasing quality software.
I’ve
seen
solid work done to protect the Apache Brand and ensure licensing
is
appropriate, as well as some great handling of public events. Even
as a
young project, Polaris has already hosted many successful meetups
and
has
been the subject of talks at a variety of conferences. We also
have
a
lively dev-list and lots of one-on-one discussions happening on
the
Slack
channel. In many cases, I think that the Apache Polaris Community
is
functioning exactly how a top-level Apache project should
<
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria
.
For those interested in the statistics
-
Apache Polaris has had 6 Releases (0.9, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0,
1.2.0,
1.3.0)
-
Our github is at 1.8k stars with 357 Forks
-
We have closed 2819 PRs
-
There are have been ~100 Contributors to the project
-
The PPMC has 13 Members (6 elected during incubation period)
and
there
are 8 other committers (5 elected during incubation period)
-
Representatives from Dremio, Snowflake, Amazon, Google,
Microsoft,
And
more!
That said, I do still have some concerns about other areas of
community
development. While I think we are having lots of great
conversations
about
the future of the project, we still seem to have difficult moments
where
communication appears to be breaking down, and people are
becoming a
bit
more heated. We also seem to be lacking a bit of mutual trust and
respect.
I want to make sure that the Polaris community is a welcoming one,
where
engineers all respect each other’s contributions and, most
importantly,
act
in good faith. We’ve seen some instances where PRs may be
perceived
as
merged prematurely, or that there are double standards for what
constitutes
a “blocker” on a PR. I want to know if others in the community
feel
this
way, and more importantly, if there are any constructive ideas on
how
to
help us get along and make the community as welcoming as possible.
Please
do not take this lightly; I know it can be easy to just write off
other
engineers as a “problem,” but that kind of attitude won’t help
this
project
move forward. I would encourage everyone to think about how they
personally
can contribute to a better environment. If I’m alone in this
sentiment,
feel free to ignore me, but I think it’s always a good exercise to
think
about how I interact with others to make them feel as welcome as
possible.
I don’t mean to be all gloomy on this matter, though; I think some
things
have been moving in the right direction. A great example is some
of
the
discussions we’ve seen lately on the mailing list. Although we had
some
disagreements on a PR, there is now a pretty constructive dialogue
happening where I do feel like all of the community members are
trying
to
find common ground and listen to each other’s viewpoints without
personal
judgment. This shows me that we are still having constructive
engagements
even when there was prior disagreement. I wasn’t able to attend
the
recent
sprint planning meeting, but from what I have heard, that’s
another
instance where it feels like folks came away from that meeting
with
a
bit
more camaraderie than they had going in.
All in all, I want what’s best for the community. I hope that by
bringing
up graduation, and bringing some of my concerns into the public
light,
we’ll be able to make progress and graduate the project. I want to
know
everyone else’s feelings on the general maturity of the project,
whether
they think it’s appropriate to graduate, and whether they have any
other
suggestions for paths forward to make Polaris even better in the
future.
Thanks for your time,
Russell Spitzer
Resources:
https://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/Graduation+Criteria
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qBIxClspQA--uQB0MS3LQO-uEDjdXtbqMPSRNbgeKdk/edit?usp=sharing
