Proposal submitted to Incubator PMC on 29 July 2007.
Contents
Abstract
Revival of the terminated log4php incubation with a new development community and a goal to migrate log4php to PHP 5.
Proposal
Restart the terminated log4php incubation, open the log4php SVN module to modifications and grant commit rights to the initial committers.
Background
Log4PHP is a PHP 4 logging framework patterned after log4j. log4php entered the incubator by early 2004 and was terminated for lack of community momentum in early 2007. Knut Urdalen approached the log4php-dev mailing list with a proposal to upgrade log4php to PHP 5 (http://marc.info/?l=log4php-dev&m=118150883217263&w=2) and several other potential new committers have expressed interest.
Rationale
Log4PHP is being used in various open source and enterprise level systems and web applications built with PHP. However, the current code base is PHP 4 and the majority of PHP development has moved to PHP 5. Existing users of Log4PHP may have to choose between abandoning or branching log4php or staying with PHP 4 longer than desirable.
Initial Goals
A PHP 5 release based derived from current PHP 4 code with a reasonable migration path for existing log4php users.
Current Status
Log4PHP had no new commits or activity on its mailing lists for over a year and incubation was terminated in February 2007. Several developers have expressed interest in restarting work on Log4PHP.
Meritocracy
None of the proposed committers has previously contributed code to Log4PHP. A call for developers interested in restarting development was made to the log4php-dev mailing list, so the proposed committers are effectively selected on willingness and prospective merit.
Community
The previous Log4PHP community has effectively faded away. Creating a branched project outside of the ASF was discussed on the log4php-dev mailing list, however it was considered desirable to stay within the ASF even with the minimum community requirements that would be necessary to graduate the incubator before a formal release could occur.
Core Developers
The proposed developers are Log4PHP users who are interested in continued evolution and health of Log4PHP.
Alignment
Log4PHP is heavily inspired by Log4j and hence the Apache Logging Services is a natural place for the project.
Known Risks
The most significant risk would be failure to build a sustainable development community. As Log4PHP is currently functional on PHP 4, there is minimal technical risk to updating the framework to PHP 5 and further development.
Orphaned products
The existing code is effectively orphaned, but it is already within the ASF. The proposed effort could only improve the situation.
Inexperience with Open Source
The proposed developers have contributed to several open-source projects and have shown a history of open discussion and civil behavior.
Homogenous Developers
The proposed developers have no common employer or other affliation.
Reliance on Salaried Developers
The proposed developers are not being compensated for their Log4PHP efforts and development would not stop due to a change of funding.
Relationships with Other Apache Products
Log4PHP has no dependency on other Apache products, but is heavily inspired by Log4j.
A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand
Branching the existing code outside of the ASF was considered, but was not seen as desirable to either the development or user community if it could be avoided.
Documentation
Existing limited documentation would be migrated from xdoclet to Maven 2. No plans for substantial distinct documentation effort.
Initial Source
The initial source is the existing Log4PHP code base in the Incubator SVN.
Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan
There is no anticipated bulk contributions. Anticipated development would be incremental and covered under the developer's Contributor License Agreement.
External Dependencies
No known external dependencies. travel website
Cryptography
There is no known cryptography currently in or proposed for Log4PHP.
Required Resources
New accounts for the core developers with appropriate karma.
Mailing lists
Already exist from previous incubation attempt.
Subversion Directory
Issue Tracking
Would use http://issues.apache.org/jira. A new project for log4php would need to be added.
Other Resources
Initial Committers
- Knut Urdalen (knut dot urdalen at gmail dot com) - CLA on file
- Bachelor of Computer Science
- Technical Director at Suddenly Oslo
- Developer at the PRADO Development Team
- Leading the Norwegian PHP User Group
- Technical writings:
Wrote a feature article for php|architect "Logging and Monitoring with log4php"
- Alvaro Carrasco (alvaro at epliant dot com) - CLA on file
- Michael Schmitz (Michael.Schmitz at tietoenator dot com) - CLA in transit
- Master of Computer Science
Project Manager at TietoEnator, Cologne, Germany
- Contributed to various Open Source projects like CVS, SCWM, bk2site, etc
- Curt Arnold (carnold at apache dot org) - CLA on file
- Logging Services PMC chair
- Contributions expected to be limited to release and build issues.
Sponsors
Champion
- Curt Arnold (carnold at apache dot org)
Nominated Mentors
- Curt Arnold (carnold at apache dot org)
Sponsoring Entity
- Apache Logging Services PMC