Richard S. Hall wrote:
Upayavira wrote:
It just means that whatever you release has more standing. It is an
official Apache release. More people thus are likely to try it, so
you'll get better feedback. I guess that's the point in it.
Yeah, I guess I understood that a little.
What I was wondering, is how this changes our focus? Right now we am
focusing on creating a release. If we decide to think about preparing
for graduation, do we stop focusing on that and start focusing on
something else? If so, what is that something else?
The incubator release process is more involved.
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Well targeting an incubator exit does not necessarily change your
primary focus of getting a release out. Graduating first may make it a
bit easier to get that release out since our PMC (once formed) would
vote on the matter rather than the incubator PMC. Being closer to the
code and understanding the functionality I think this community can make
a better quicker evaluation than the incubator PMC.
Graduation will delay an initial release but not by much.
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Graduation may however delay a release a bit since we would have to wait
until the next board meeting to present our proposal as a resolution for
the board to ratify. Again as Upayavira stated, the value of your
release after graduation would be greater than if you did release from
the incubator. If there is some doubt we can always just take a vote on
what to do here. Also you can still focus on tying up loose ends for a
release even if we do shoot for an incubator exit.
Either way in the grand scheme of things I don't think there will be a
net difference to Felix in the long term. Personally I don't think it's
worth the effort now to release if the release is not an official Apache
endorsed product. I'd keep working on taking care of loose ends while
trying to graduate this project. Those who want to build with Felix can
still do that using sources from the repository and can await graduation
then shortly there after an official release which will be imminent.
Other projects cannot *easily* use an unofficial incubator release.
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Also I'm a bit biased here because we at Directory would like to use
this release (official release hopefully) to release a Felix based OSGi
version of ApacheDS in the coming few months. Otherwise we have to
start long threads on the incubator list discussing the legal aspects of
whether or not we can release ApacehDS with dependencies on an incubator
release of Felix. No project has yet released a product based on an
incubator release of another dependent project so it's uncharted
territory which would require a good amount of discussion. Also the
outcome is undefined since this is a relatively new situation for the
incubator to establish policies around. The incubator release will take
time and so will this conversation. Graduating Felix first then
releasing it would be a much clearer path for those who wish to build
upon this initial Felix release. This shows just how important an
Apache endorsed release is verses an incubator release.
Alex
