Retirement of Xalan-C seems ok to me if only due to my lack of involvement with it; I've only helped on the Java side IIRC. So that would be (a) for me.
Gary On Fri, Oct 7, 2022, 08:19 Roger Leigh <rle...@codelibre.net> wrote: > Dear all, > > > > > > It’s been over three months since my original email on this subject. > There is a related discussion about this on the Xerces-C++ mailing list > just now, and it would be useful to reach a conclusion on this for Xalan-C > as well. > > > > I've updated the git statistics I did earlier in the year, which can be > viewed or downloaded here: [image: xerces-xalan-git-monthly.xlsx icon] > xerces-xalan-git-monthly.xlsx > <https://codelibreconsulting.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/Opensourcesoftware/EabAzxgzU3pCjUSKSVvWjZgBlUGZUb91q2PVMkGk1oaIHw?e=MVBvPA>. > There are no changes—there has not been a single commit to the source > repository since 2021. There has not been any change to the maintenance > status of the project since my last email: there are no active maintainers, > no one has shown any interest in doing any maintenance, and none of the > previous maintainers who are still present actually use Xalan any longer—so > there is little prospect of previously active maintainers returning. I > myself will be leaving the project once this question is answered > irrespective of the outcome—I no longer use Xalan-C, I have no time to > commit to it for future work and releases, I just want to see it retired > gracefully so that we don’t leave anyone with the mistaken impression that > this is a project which is active and well supported when it is most > certainly not. This is not a library which new projects should be > considering to use. > > > > This is the commit history since 01 Oct 2012: > > > > $ git shortlog -s --oneline --all --since "01 OCT 2012" > > 1 Benjamin Beasley > > 1 Bill Blough > > 1 Biswapriyo Nath > > 1 Kvarec Lezki > > 182 Roger Leigh > > 29 Steven J. Hathaway > > > > I would like for the PMC to vote on the future of the project. Do we > > > > 1. Retire the project to the Attic > 2. Keep the project going > > > > I’m not sure if I’m formally a PMC member or not, but realistically I’m > the only one who has done any work on the project for the past 8 years. So > if I can vote on this I’ll vote for (a). > > > > > > Kind regards, > > Roger > > > > *From:* rle...@codelibre.net <rle...@codelibre.net> > *Sent:* 22 June 2022 23:21 > *To:* d...@xalan.apache.org; c-users@xalan.apache.org > *Subject:* Future of xalan-c > > > > Dear all, > > > > > > I wanted to write this email to sound out where the project is, where it > is going, and whether or not it has a future. If it does not have a > future, is it time to wrap up the project and move it to the Attic? > > > > To start with, a bit of context. This is a summary of the project’s > commit activity over the previous 22 years: > > > > > > Back in July 2020, just a little under two years ago, I released Xalan-C > 1.12. This was the first release since Xalan-C 1.11 in October 2012, and > it incorporated a number of patches which had been accumulated over the > course of years by several downstream distributors. > > https://apache.github.io/xalan-c/releases.html#major-changes shows the > major changes in this release. On the above graph, this release is > comprised of the commits from 2019 to 2020. I was the *sole* committer > for this release. > > > > The previous 1.11 release was made in October 2012 with Steven J. Hathaway > being the principal contributor. > > The previous 1.10 release was made in October 2005 with David N Berton and > Dmitry Hayes being the principal contributors. > > The previous 1.9 release was made in December 2004 with June Ng, Matthew > Hoyt, David N Berton and Dmitry Hayes being the principal contributors. > > The previous 1.8 release was made in April 2004 with Matthew Hoyt, David N > Berton and Dmitry Hayes being the principal contributors. > > > > The main points I’d like to make here are the following: > > > > - Active development of Xalan-C effectively finished with the *1.10* > release in 2005. The vast majority of work since then has been little more > than essential bugfixing and portability work to support new platforms and > toolchains. > - 1.11 was a bugfix release. It was primarily comprised of essential > bugfixes, and fixes for building with different toolchains on different > platforms and some documentation work. There was one code improvement of > note: “Add number and nodeset types as top-level stylesheet parameters” > - 1.12 was a bugfix release. It was primarily comprised of essential > bugfixes, and fixes for building on different platforms, with the CMake > support generalising that to build on current platforms, plus the > documentation switch to Markdown. There were zero new features or > improvements outside essential bugfixing. > - There is essentially ~zero developer mailing list activity > - There is essentially ~zero user mailing list activity > - Community involvement on GitHub is present but at very low and > sporadic levels. We have three PRs from contributors other than myself ( > https://github.com/apache/xalan-c/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed). One > was a triviality, two were portability fixes just altering > platform-specific ifdefs. There is one open PR ( > https://github.com/apache/xalan-c/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr). This > looks simple but I’m not sure of the impact in case of unexpected > subtleties. > > > > I became involved in the project for pragmatic reasons—I worked on a > project using XSLT and picked up Xalan-C as a dependency. I wrote and > contributed the CMake support and worked on the 1.12 release for that > reason. But I don’t know the underlying codebase, and I can’t do any real > feature development or deep bugfixing. I don’t have the expertise with > XSLT, or the time to do this. And since I no longer work on any projects > using Xalan-C, I’m no longer realistically able to do any further > maintenance work either. If I hadn’t done the most recent work and made > the 1.12 release, it’s most likely that the incorporation of community > patchsets and making a point release would not have happened. No one aside > from me has worked on Xalan-C since Steven J Hathaway’s last work in 2012. > > > > I don’t personally think there is sufficient community involvement or > developer involvement to realistically support Xalan-C as an active project > in any sense. There is no one working on it. And while I’m sure there are > some users, there’s next to no active engagement of users as a community. > > > > I’ve made a good effort to keep the project going for the near- to > medium-term. The CMake build made it possible to build on all contemporary > platforms. The documentation switch to Markdown made it possible to build > without obsolete and unavailable Java libraries. The bugfixes we included > in 1.12 fixed a number of critical issues. So 1.12 should serve as a > usable release for the foreseeable future even in the absence of further > development. > > > > However, I don’t see a future for anything beyond 1.12 unless there is a > dramatic change. XSLT usage is declining, and Xalan-C doesn’t support XSLT > 2.0 and beyond. Rather than letting the current situation linger on > indefinitely, I wanted to suggest we take stock of where we are, and if > there is consensus to do so, I think it would be advisable to draw a line > at this point and end the project gracefully. > > > > > > Kind regards, > > Roger >
