Hi folks, Here's the board report draft for this month.
" ## Description: The mission of Apache Polaris is the creation and maintenance of software related to a catalog for data lakes. It provides new levels of choice, flexibility and control over data, with full enterprise security and Apache Iceberg interoperability across a multitude of engines and infrastructure ## Project Status: Current project status: Ongoing (recently graduated) Issues for the board: None ## Membership Data: Apache Polaris was founded 2026-02-18 (17 days ago) There are currently 28 committers and 18 PMC members in this project. The Committer-to-PMC ratio is roughly 7:5. Community changes, past quarter: - No new PMC members (project graduated recently). - Danica Fine was added as committer on 2026-02-27 ## Project Activity: * Releases: - Work began on Apache Polaris 1.4.0, the first release under the new TLP status. This release prep is a bit longer, as it needs updates on LICENSE/NOTICE, including new artifacts (like Python CLI). - Catalog Migrator 1.0.0 (RC2): A critical tool for migrating tables from Glue/Hive to Polaris entered its final voting stage in early March. - We will also consider releases for new tools soon (Polaris Console, Polaris MCP server, ...) * Technical Roadmap & Feature Development: Following the successful 1.3.0 release in mid-January, the development team shifted focus toward enterprise hardening and interoperability. - Scan Metrics Persistence: A major architectural effort is underway to integrate query scan metrics into the catalog, enabling better observability for downstream engines like Spark and Trino. - Credential Vending Enhancements: Significant PR activity has focused on refining AWS IAM AssumeRole flows and expanding support for storage-scoped credentials, reducing security overhead for multi-tenant data lakes. - Generic Table Stability: The "Generic Table" feature officially graduated from beta. This allows Polaris to manage metadata for Delta Lake and Apache Hudi tables alongside Iceberg, positioning it as a universal catalog. * Governance & Graduation Infrastructure The transition to a TLP required significant "Project Hygiene" to ensure compliance with the Apache Way: - Release Process Modernization: The community moved to a unified CI/CD pipeline, merging six disparate workflows into one. This has stabilized the build process and automated the generation of convenience binaries and Docker images. - Legal & Licensing: Conducted a comprehensive audit of all dependencies. Resolved a key legal blocker regarding third-party library nesting to ensure the upcoming 1.4.0 release (the first as a TLP) is fully compliant. * Ecosystem Integration - Engine Support: Verified compatibility and performance benchmarks for the latest versions of Apache Doris and StarRocks, which now use Polaris as their default external Iceberg catalog. - Community Engagement: Recorded high attendance at the February 19th community sync, where the transition to TLP was celebrated and the 2026 roadmap—including AI/ML metadata extensions—was first socialized. ## Community Health: * Governance Independence The project has achieved a high level of organizational maturity and is no longer reliant on its founding contributors. - Diverse PMC: The Project Management Committee (PMC) now includes 13 members representing eight different organizations, including Dremio, Snowflake, Google, Microsoft, Confluent, Bloomberg, Starburst, and LanceDB. - Organic Leadership: Of the current PMC, 46% (6 members) were elected during the incubation period based on their merit and contributions, rather than being part of the initial donation. Similarly, 5 out of 8 current committers were promoted from within the community during incubation. * Engagement & Outreach Metrics (Feb – March 2026) The "graduation window" saw a spike in community engagement, particularly from new enterprise adopters. - Contributor Growth: The project surpassed the 100-contributor milestone in February. Since the end of January, 13 new individual contributors have had their first pull requests merged. - Mailing List Activity: The dev@ mailing list saw a 25% increase in traffic during February, focused on TLP transition logistics, the 1.4.0 roadmap, and the resolution of legal hygiene tasks. - Meetups: * Warsaw (Feb 18): A community-led meetup focused on Iceberg V4 and Polaris performance. * Redmond (Feb 26): Hosted by Microsoft, focusing on Polaris integration within the Azure/Fabric ecosystem. * Participation Quality Unlike many projects that see "drive-by" contributions, Polaris has seen a rise in "deep" technical participation: - Feature Design: Significant community-led design discussions occurred in February regarding Scan Metrics Persistence and ExternalCatalogFactory refactoring. - Integration Support: Third-party projects like Apache Doris, StarRocks, and Fivetran have integrated Polaris as their default Iceberg REST catalog, contributing back stability fixes and performance optimizations. * Documentation & Onboarding To ensure continued health, the community has prioritized "contributor experience": - Unified CI/CD: A major effort in February consolidated several disparate CI pipelines, reducing PR feedback loops and making it easier for new developers to verify their work. - Blog & Roadmap: The project launched several technical blogs in early 2026, including guides on policy-driven table maintenance and AI-native storage integration with LanceDB. " I would like to submit the board report early next week. Please share your comments or questions with me. Thanks, Regards JB
