Incubator Board Report 2006Q1
Prologue
Projects
ActiveMQ
The full status of incubation is here. In summary we're most of the way through incubation now, things have been progressing very well; the code is clean and using only Apache-compliant libraries, it has the correct copyright notices and is in the org.apache.activemq namespace and is generally working well now. We've got the software grants sorted and most developers have their CLAs on file and accounts created (we've a few more to do once we know the CLAs are on file).
We've voted on a milestone release which should go out soon once we've figured out the practicalities of doing an incuabtor milestone release. Our main outstanding issue now is creating the full website at Apache - which should be done in the next week or two - for now there is a simple home page.
Apollo
Has already graduated.
Agila
Project is moving along with an interested core continuing to work on the software. Progress is still slow in terms of community building. Recent additions to the incubator in areas of SOA such as Tuscany, ServiceMix, Celtix etc offer an opportunity for Agila's workflow and BPEL implementations.
Axion
AltRMI
Felix
Mostly a quarter of contributions and new committers that came with them:
- Domoware Contribution
- HttpService Contribution
- WireAdmin Contribution
- M2 plugin and archetype for OSGi projects completed
- Organized repository structure
- R4 released and ASL compatible
- ...
Might want to list the new committers here:
- Rob Walker
- ...
FtpServer
Graffito
Graffito has nicely grown recently with activity encouraged by the final release of Jetspeed 2.0 and good progress made on the JCR support though Jackrabbit.
We've just added a new committer :
- Alexandru Popescu
and some existing Portals committers also actively contributing to the integration of Graffito with Portals.
Harmony
Harmony project has moved out of it's initial phase in which it formalized contribution and other governance issues and has now accepted two major class library code contributions, one from IBM and one from Intel. Work continues on those two codebases, with topics ranging from bug fixing, enhancements, as well as other topics such as how to organize test framework and documentation.
Two releases of snapshots are imminent, one of a basic VM implementation (JCHEVM) and one of the current classlibrary. We are doing this to make it easier for users to work with the software.
Our focus in the upcoming quarter is to continue our emphasis on community building through adding new committers and expaning the scope of our activities to include other kinds of committers (test, documentation, qa...) and continue to solicit donations to our codebase as well.
Hermes
Has already graduated.
Jackrabbit
Jackrabbit added four new committers to the project this quarter:
- Serge Huber
- Felix Meschberger
- Brian Moseley
- Angela Schreiber
in recognition of their outstanding and sustained contributions to the project. Jukka Zitting has volunteered to be the RM for our first set of incubating releases. We plan to seek graduation from incubator as soon as we have a track record for a successful release vote.
JuiCE
A few more people are interested from WSS4J and XML-Security projects. We are trying to formalize a plan to revive this project. Werner (from wss4j) has patches in his sandbox, we are working to get him commit privileges. We have received a certificate from SUN for signing the juice jar so that it can be dropped in just like any other JSSE provider's jar.
log4net
- The log4net project is still in incubation, but it is active. The Logging Services PMC has elected Rob Grabowski (rgrabowski@apache.org) as a new committer. This would brings the number of active committers to 4, helping meet incubator exit criteria.
- The log4net committers are working on compatibility with the .NET 2.0 releases from Microsoft and Mono.
log4php
- Some minor bug fixes committed.
- Added new php5 classes to start coding log4php using the new php5 object model.
Lucene4c
Lucene4c is stalled for the time being. I (Garrett Rooney) simply don't have the time to work on it, and nobody else has jumped up and started contributing. If there's some official way to move it to a "dormant" state until such time as someone feels motivated to work on it again I'd be in favor of that. (added by Otis Gospodnetic on behalf of Garret Rooney)
mod_ftp
Work is progressing on folding the mod_ftp build system into the normal, generic Apache 2 build environment. Additional logging and debugging were added to the present codebase. Creation of the test suite is also continuing.
Muse
Has already graduated.
Roller
We currently have a critical dependency on Hibernate which needs to be resolved. There have been several offers to replace Hibernate with Apache License compatible products, including JDO. Craig Russell is actively working on a JDO implemenation that should be able to replace Hibernate. We have just removed one other LGPL dependeny on "FindBugs".
While the remaining LGPL dependencies are being resolved, the project has continued to move forward by making releases through the RollerWeblogger.org site, including the 2.0.1 release on 5 January 2006. The release is clearly marked "2.0-incubating". The 2.1-dev codebase is being tested in production at the RollerWeblogger.org site.
Aside from dependencies, the biggest issues we have to resolve now are moving the documentation (JSP Wiki) and issue tracking (JIRA) from their current homes to the ASF.
Since our last report, we've added another new committer, Matt Schmidt, bringing the tally to seven committers and PPMC members.
ServiceMix
The full status of incubation is here. In summary we're most of the way through incubation now, things have been progressing very well; the code is clean and using mostly Apache-compliant libraries (more on that below), it has the correct copyright notices and is in the org.apache.servicemix namespace and is generally working well now. We've got the software grants sorted and most developers have their CLAs on file and accounts created (we've a few more to do once we know the CLAs are on file).
Our main outstanding issues are now
- creating the website at Apache (should be done in the next week or so)
- getting a definitive answer on if we are allowed to use CDDL software such as the JAXB2 Reference Implementation. We have so far not seen a definitive answer anywhere and so are continuing to use it unless we are given guidenence that we should not.
stdcxx
Stdcxx status report for the calendar quarter ending in 12/2005:
This is the second quarterly report for stdcxx.
The stdcxx community has spent the last three months working toward version 4.1.3 of the project. The major accomplishments thus far include the completion of the test suite driver (STDCXX-4), the migration of a large number (but not all) of stdcxx tests from the Rogue C++ Standard Library test suite to this driver and to the ASF Subversion repository (STDCXX-4), and the creation of a Windows configuration and build infrastructure (STDCXX-5, STDCXX-13).
The successful completion of these objectives marks an important milestone for the stdcxx project. To facilitate the migration of existing users of the Rogue Wave C++ Standard Library to stdcxx, the stdcxx community is currently in the process of releasing version 4.1.3 of the project. This release has been scheduled to coincide with the release of the Rogue Wave C++ Standard Library 4.1.3 on which stdcxx is based. A vote to release stdcxx 4.1.3 is under way on stdcxx-dev.
In other news, the stdcxx PPMC recently voted to extend an offer of committership to Anton Pevtsov. Anton is the author of the Windows build infrastructure and his help with porting the test suite over the last few months has been essential. In addition, in preparation for graduation and the forming of a PMC, the stdcxx PPMC has started to discuss expanding its membership from the current 5 (including 3 mentors) to involve other active committers.
Going forward, the most important goals of the growing stdcxx community continue to be to increase the visibility of the project and further increase the number as well as diversity of its users, contributors, and committers, finish porting the stdcxx test suite, and implement a complete test harness for the project to facilitate automated nightly testing. Other goals include expanding the set of platforms to Apple Darwin and other BSD-based operating systems, enhancing support for the C++ Standard Library extensions described in the (Draft) Technical Report on C++ Library Extensions.
Martin Sebor
Synapse
The Synapse project is progressing well. We have met the target functionality for an M1 release, have voted on it and hope to release it during January. We have had a number of votes and hold a regularly scheduled IRC chat that is well attended by a core team of contributors. The M1 release offers a useful set of functionality, has a codebase that is 100% new code developed by the community under the CLA and ASL2. The release offers users the ability to route, transform and log web service messages passing thru the Synapse intermediary. It utilises a number of existing Apache projects including Axis2.
There is a simple Wiki based website for Synapse documentation. We are improving the junit test coverage and javadoc in an ongoing basis.
The community is diverse but most of the code has come from members of two companies. There is however active participation from a few other companies on the mailing list and in the IRC chats. We expect to nurture that more and expect to see increased participation as awareness grows with the upcoming M1 release.
The project aims to join as a sub-project of the Web Services project and attracts participation from committers of Axis2 in particulare. We are tracking our progress here.
Tobago
The incubation task are all done and the MyFaces PMC has voted to accept Tobago as a MyFaces subproject. Therefore the incubator sign-off is pending.
The slowly growing community has reported many bugs and suggestions since the incubation.
The maven2 migration of Tobago is completed. When MyFaces is migrated to maven2 too, a common code base will be set up to share.
Tobago runs with the current version of MyFaces. However some minor bugs have to be fixed with the upcoming new version of MyFaces. The Tobago developers expect a release soon after this. A release plan will be setup when Tobago is an own project in the MyFaces category of Jira.
TSIK
Interest is waning a bit. We have not been able to hook TSIK onto any of the dependency chains (example Axis->WSS4J) that we have. We may have to seriously consider the worst case scenario of stopping incubation.
Tuscany
Project is just starting incubation. CLAs are on file for the initial committers. A CCLA has been received for the initial contributions of C++ and Java implementations and the code has been imported into SVN. Activity is starting on the development mailing list and includes new contributors to the project.
WADI
WADI is in the very early phases of incubation, working through issues related to the transfer from Codehaus to the ASF. Progress has been slow due to holiday break as well as engineering and social issues surrounding the Geronimo 1.0 release, for which there is a strong community interest in having WADI properly working and integrated.
There is focued mentor attention in helping this community make the move from Codehaus to the ASF.
Woden
The WSDL 2.0 processor being developed by this incubator project is progressing according to the Milestone plan on the Woden web site. We are still aiming for an initial release around April 2006 and hopefully, promotion from incubation. M2 delivered December 9th includes most of the WSDL parsing logic and about one third of the WSDL validation. M3 due January 20th will complete the parsing logic and most of the validation. Web site documentation and expansion of the junit test suite are also due in M3. Other goals of the project will be addressed after M3. So far, the code has been developed by two committers, both from IBM. M2 was the first code base suitable for broader participation. We have two potential contributors from other organizations who have offered help recently and the Woden wiki now has a list of the main outstanding tasks that need to be completed. We will be liaising more closely with those potential contributors to expand the collaboration on the project.
Another key development is that the WSDL 2.0 became a W3C Candidate Recommendation on January 6, 2006. We are likely to see increased participation in Woden and engage in interoperability testing with other implementations.
WSRP4J
Nothing much happened in the project; the activity is very low - we voted in a new committer (Vishal Goenka) to get more active. WSRP4J is still in the move from the WS to the portals project (move of mailing lists is missing). We hope to get a more active community in the near future by incorporating the GSoC code.