We began working with the VCL software about two years ago at Amherst College, and in that time, the community has grown well beyond its NCSU roots. I am seeing significantly more activity on the lists as well as more JIRA issues and contributed code from the wider community. I would also support a vote for graduation.
As for the website, I agree that some design work would be really useful. I am assuming that ASF would provide a hosting arrangement, i.e. a domain like vcl.apache.org<http://vcl.apache.org>? Would that also include server space to run any type of CMS? Confluence is a nice all-in-one package, though if you are considering a complete overhaul of the site, I could also recommend a system like Drupal (MySQL + PHP). Drupal has a lot of bells and whistles that can make for a very nice, highly interactive site. The downside of drupal is that it is not specifically designed to handle software documentation. On the other hand, if we only need to serve static html pages that focus on documentation, etc, I can also recommend Sphinx. The downside of Sphinx is that it is really best for Python and C++ projects, and it doesn't support web-based updates -- it does create excellent sites, though. I am also a little unclear on the timeframe for modifying the website -- it this something that would be done prior to graduation or upon graduation? Aaron Coburn -- Aaron Coburn Systems Administrator and Programmer Academic Technology Services, Amherst College acob...@amherst.edu<mailto:acob...@amherst.edu> On May 2, 2012, at 9:14 AM, Aaron Peeler wrote: I feel we have meet our diversity issue and also expect to add more committers over the next couple of months. I would positively support a vote for graduation. I agree on the other points mentioned. Status page needs to be updated. We can work on this part easily. The web site needs to be migrated off confluence. Has anyone researched other CMS options for the website. I think this would be a good community discussion thread. Which CMS, the layout, (content, documentation, design ideas, etc.) Aaron On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 12:44 PM, Andy Kurth <andy_ku...@ncsu.edu<mailto:andy_ku...@ncsu.edu>> wrote: This thread is to discuss whether the Apache VCL community feels that this incubating project is ready to proceed with the process to graduate to a top level ASF project. There are several requirements which must be met and steps completed in order to graduate. This discussion thread is the first step towards graduation. Please review the following pages. http://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html#Graduating+from+the+Incubator There are many items described in the ASF graduation documentation which we have obviously satisfied (create a release, etc). The following are issues that I feel either need to be addressed, would be concerned about regarding board/mentor approval, or have been brought up before. Please share your thoughts. Also, please review the ASF graduation documentation and bring up anything else which might be a concern. Status File: (https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/public/trunk/content/projects/vcl.xml) This is not up to date and is missing information. Previous board reports need to be added. News items need to be added containing the string "new committer". Doing this will cause the numberCommittersNew column on the "Status of the Clutch" page to turn green (http://incubator.apache.org/clutch.html). Also, the list of commiters in the status file and project page hasn't changed since Apache VCL started. The new committers obviously need to be added. I'm not sure how the original list was decided upon, but I feel several names should be removed since they have not contributed any code and some have not been involved in the community at all. I think the list should be Aaron Coburn, David Hutchins, Andy Kurth, James O'Dell, Aaron Peeler, Josh Thompson. Also, Brian Bouterse contributed some code a while ago. I'm not sure if he is still interested in being a committer. Diversity: ASF requirement: "The project is not highly dependent on any single contributor (there are at least 3 legally independent committers and there is no single company or entity that is vital to the success of the project)." This issue has been raised before. I feel we meet this requirement and that the community is generally diverse, can govern itself, and be self-sufficient. Website: This is not necessarily a requirement for graduation but I feel that it should be addressed prior to graduation. Our website/documentation is pretty rough and really should be redesigned. I'm guessing the board members will look at it prior to voting. In addition, there will likely be a press release if/when we graduate and website views will spike. This shouldn't hold up the graduation process, but I would like agreement that this should be completed by graduation. Thank You, Andy -- Aaron Peeler Program Manager Virtual Computing Lab NC State University All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.
