Hi Pei, First off, thanks for your replies and yes I think you've picked up on the core of the issue: we are not trying to be difficult here, but at the same time, I think there are a bit of some growing pains that will need to be overcome since you guys have explicitly requested to be part of the Apache Software Foundation and that carries with it a set of expectations that more or less need to be dealt with.
You are doing a great job of communicating and helping out, so please keep it up. At the same time, I have some comments below: On Jul 23, 2012, at 8:18 AM, Chen, Pei wrote: > Hi, > My apologies as we tried to be transparent as we can in the original project > proposal: > - There are currently over 50 contributors/developers actively contributing > to cTAKES spread across over 8 sites (Mayo, BCH, Colorado University, > Pittsburgh, UCSD, MITRE, etc.). > - We have already communicated to developers as well as known users about the > move to Apache as soon as we could. They have also been invited to the > various ctakes-dev@ mailing lists as soon as they were created (which seems > to be a first logical step in also becoming contributors/committers). There is nothing in the above that mentions a 2.6 release pending at SF.net? That's my point. Intended forthcoming releases are something that are fairly important to mention when coming into Apache. The expectation is that you guys had an existing community before hand and you brought the code and community to Apache for some reason -- but that whatever you guys had before coming here would also *come here* and not be continued *in parallel* to what's going on here. That's all I'm trying to say, take it over leave it. > > If there is anything we could have clarified, please let us know. We are > grateful to have such active mentors help us out here and feel free to ask us > any questions regarding cTAKES itself (as we may not even know enough about > the Apache way to ask the right questions :) ). I'm all for being open and > transparent as much as we could. +1, great thanks, appreciate it. > > Regarding the 2.6 release: > If it is okay with the group, I would strongly suggest to keep 2.6 as planned > (in SF) for now. There were communication and expectations that went out > already for it to be completed by next week. That's the problem I have -- where are these communications occurring? Why are they not occurring here on the Apache cTAKES list? > The code was already done and frozen some time ago, documentation/links was > also already done some time ago as well (so there is really no duplication of > effort here). > https://wiki.nci.nih.gov/display/VKC/cTAKES+2.6+-+Relation+Extractor How long is some time ago -- was it before proposing to the Apache Incubator? > > Note: There is a window over the next 2-3 months where there are no > expected/scheduled changes the current code base which we could take > advantage of. All of the developers are aware of the migration; so we can > make a clean cut from SourceForge in the code and therefore we can also have > a coordinated effort amongst all of the developers. I am confident that we > will have many more release (probably fair frequent initially) while we are > in incubation, but I think the Apache way is still a learning process for us, > let alone 50 other developers. And here's another concern I have -- where are these 50 developers and if there are 50 people with merit in cTAKES working on the project in some form or fashion, how come there are only a handful of committers and PPMC members here? > I'll be more than happy to create a mirror/snapshot of what's currently in > SF and we'll begin the process. I think that may well be a great solution to help get things going -- but I'm more concerned with the answers to the process and community questions I posed above. In terms of concrete actions, at the very least I would suggest: 1. Figuring out how to rectify or better explain the discrepancy between the # of cTAKES committers/contributors that apparently are participating in SF.net cTAKES but are not doing so here, at least formally through Apache committership and PPMC membership. 2. Getting the 2.6 codebase for cTAKES in SVN ASAP and seriously considering making the 2.6 release *here* at the ASF. What is the problem with doing that? Are you concerned that it will add extra time? Cheers, Chris ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Mattmann, Ph.D. Senior Computer Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246 Email: [email protected] WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
