I support this. We have the PGA now as a way to illustrate how to use
the API, but GenApp should provide a way for us to help developers
create more application-centric user interfaces.
Marlon
On 3/25/15 11:14 AM, Marru, Suresh wrote:
Hi All,
Since there is not much discussion on this thread, I will make it more explicit
on one option (which is Emre’s preference) and solicit further discussion.
How about Emre can bring in GenApp into Airavata, integrate it further into
Airavata and bootstrap the community here. Some of Airavata Community might get
interested in GenApp. Once there is a quorum and feel if GenApp goals are
diverging from Airavata (or if the community becomes distinct), then GenApp
could go through incubator and get on a path towards a Apache Top Level Project
(TLP).
Either way, Emre has been guiding GSoC students, on Airavata Integration, I
suggest they join the dev list and write their proposals on this list.
Thoughts, concerns?
Cheers,
Suresh
P.S Chris, I am taking liberty to send your private list reply to this, please
excuse.
On Mar 22, 2015, at 3:45 PM, Mattmann, Chris A (3980)
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi everyone! Welcome Emre and if there are any questions about
Incubation I’d be happy to help answer them. Suresh great work
bringing the conversation to the lists.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chris Mattmann, Ph.D.
Chief Architect
Instrument Software and Science Data Systems Section (398)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
Office: 168-519, Mailstop: 168-527
Email: [email protected]
WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Adjunct Associate Professor, Computer Science Department
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Mar 19, 2015, at 11:46 AM, Marru, Suresh <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Emre,
I firstly applaud the CCP-SAS team in having GenApp as an Open Source project
with an interest to grow a community. Normally, Apache has not been encouraging
“umbrella” projects where lot of sub-projects exist. So the suggest mechanism,
will be to go through the Incubator Process and work towards a GenApp top level
project. But, here is a debatable situation and there are multiple ways we can
view this.
* GenApp can be considered a downstream project of Airavata in which case it
can be argued for a stand alone project.
* GenApp is consuming Airavata API’s and helping users build gateways based on
their applications (the lab generated code you refer below). In this
perspective, GenApp could rightly belong into Airavata itself and have its own
product releases. This is very similar to how Airavata currently releases XBaya
and very soon a PHP Gateway.
Ofcourse, there is a pragmatic way to approach this and have you get started
within Airavata and if we realize its significant to stand on its own (and you
might have generated some developer/community interest by then), this can then
spin off into an incubator project and eventually into a TLP.
I am cc’ing Airavata Community for input. I would have suggested apache
incubator general list, but that may be early to start with. We should have
expert advice here (there are a lot of apache members on airavata pmc and we
have Chris Mattmann who is member of the current board).
Cheers,
Suresh
On Mar 19, 2015, at 9:23 AM, Emre Brookes <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Suresh Marru,
I am writing this letter pursuant to your consideration of the inclusion of
"GenApp" as a sub-project of Apache Airavata.
The GenApp framework is a new open framework generating code on a set
of scientific modules that is easily extensible to new environments.
For example, one can take a set of module definitions and generate a
complete HTML5/PHP science gateway and a Qt4/GUI application on the
identical set of modules. If a new technology comes along, the
framework can easily be extended to new "target languages" by
including appropriate code fragments without effecting the underlying
modules. One motivation for the development was based upon observation
of scientific lab generated code, which frequently is underfunded and
developed by overburdened researchers. Many times useful code and
routines are lost with the retirement or redirected interest of the
scientists. One goal for this framework is to insure good scientific
software can be preserved in an ever evolving software landscape
without the expense of a full time CS staff. A GSoC 2014 project
integrated GenApp with Apache Airavata in the HTML5/PHP, Qt3/GUI
and Qt4/GUI "target languages".
The GenApp framework was developed for and is currently in use by
CCP-SAS http://ccp-sas.org to make accessible codes involved
in the the scientific analysis of small angle scattering experiments.
After reviewing the philosophy of Apache
http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
we feel in concert and believe the GenApp code and Apache will benefit
by its inclusion. We understand that there will be additional work
and overhead involved in managing such a project, but that their are
many benefits. As one of our projects goals is to insure the longevity
of scientific lab developed software, building a community is essential.
Apache membership will provide an established organization for users
and developers to collaborate. As we are in a rapid growth phase,
with multiple scientific labs interested in bringing their codes to the
framework, and a formal roll out to the scientific community of
a GenApp generated science gateway at the end of May, we feel the
time is now to apply the Apache model.
Please let me know if you have any questions or wish further details.
Best regards,
Emre
Emre Brookes
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry,
U. Texas Health Science Center @ San Antonio
[email protected]
