*From: *Hiranya Jayathilaka <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Subject: **Time to Call it a Day?*
*Date: *June 10, 2015 12:08:33 AM PDT
*To: *"[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
[THIS AN INITIAL REQUEST FOR COMMENTS ONLY. NOT A VOTE.]
Hi Folks,
It doesn't look like there's any active development happening in
Synapse anymore. Here's a quick run down of our track record over
the last few years:
* No. of commits in 2015: 2
* No. of commits in 2014: 10
* Last committer vote: December 2013
* Last release: January 2012 (v2.1)
Needless to say these are not the signs of a healthy open source
project. Additionally, we have very little traffic on our mailing
lists, and our efforts to do a release have been impeded by a
number of factors (committers having difficulty finding time,
slow release cycles of Axis2 and other dependencies etc.).
Deepal is trying really hard to get an Axis2 release out the
door, but despite his best efforts that release is also being
delayed due to lack of time and manpower.
Given this status, I'm beginning to wonder whether it's time to
close down the shop, and move the project into Attic. What do you
think?
In my PERSONAL opinion, both Axis2 and Synapse have had a great
run, and now it's time for them to gracefully retire. From the
lack of mailing list and development activity, it looks like
there's not much interest in these technologies any more. At
least not to the point, where new releases are required --
existing users might still need patches and routine maintenance
to already released code. The problems these projects attempt to
solve (SOAP services and enterprise integration), have been well
studied, researched and solved over the last 15 years. Many
powerful and mature solutions exist (some of which are based on
Axis2 and Synapse), but there doesn't seem to be any interest
towards further developing these core platforms. The industry
focus has shifted to other matters.
However, that's just my personal view point. If the community at
large believes otherwise, then we need to take a few corrective
measures. Some of us need to join the Axis2 release effort, and
expedite that release cycle. There's an open invitation from the
Axis2 PMC, and I'm sure they will be happy to grant us commit
access if any of us are willing to join. Then we need to get the
Synapse release process underway, and start thinking about the
future development prospects for the Synapse project.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Hiranya
--
Hiranya Jayathilaka
Mayhem Lab/RACE Lab;
Dept. of Computer Science, UCSB; http://cs.ucsb.edu
<http://cs.ucsb.edu/>
E-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>; Mobile: +1
(805) 895-7443 <tel:%2B1%20%28805%29%20895-7443>
Blog: http://techfeast-hiranya.blogspot.com
<http://techfeast-hiranya.blogspot.com/>
