Hi, gang! I'm Anton Tagunov, a committer with Avalon and Excalibur apache projects. I'm afraid I have not been much active withing these projects lately, but I've still got the commit priviliges and an active apache account.
I have a full understanding of current situation @fop: 0_20_2 branch has been frozen and all efforts have been directed at reacheing 1.0 release. On the other hand there has not been a release for quite a while. The only thing available to users is 0.20.5. And I do know that a massive refactoring has happened on the path to 1.0. And I do know that 0.20.5 code is a bit messy which in the beginning caused the refactoring. However, being practicle we (I work for Deutsche Bank now) definetely need fop NOW. We do use 0.20.5. And we do have local patches for it. I feel these patches may be of a certain value to others too. Also I would also like to leverage public review available with open source. Besides we do have at least several patches against 0.20.5 flying around cvs. To make a long story short this is what I propose: * I go over bugzilla and collect reasonable patches * I collect my own patches * as I don't have carma for xml-fop I create one cummulative patch available as www.apache.org/~atagunov/fop/patch.diff * I create a 0.20.6-RC1 and make available at www.apache.org/~atagunov * this release candidate is accompanied with one question: please make sure that there has been no degradation against 0.20.5 * announcement(s) are made via regular apache news channels - [EMAIL PROTECTED], they go to planetapache, etc. * after one or more release candidates some of the peoples with appropriate carma commits changes to cvs (yes, I know there may be issues with re-adding the files back around xml-fop/src/org but that should be solvable one general concensus is reached) and 0.20.6 is released The mantra of 0.20.6 would be: no new features, not much labor, go for low-hanging fruit and fix what is easy to fix and for what patches are already available. That should be relatively easy. Piece of cake. On the upside FOP project which has not had releases for quite a while while gains some more visibility and showes it is alive. 0.20.6 announcements will be accompanied with a big fat comment that it is just a bug-fix and the real paradize is expected with 1.0. I do understand the nature of software development. I do understnad you're at 1.0-dev. I honestly hope some day I will find enought time and enery to dig into that. But being practical this is what I can offer fop community right now: assistance in 0.20.6 release. Low-hanging fruit. Light bug fixing. Perhaps Victor and/or some other patch authors would assist. Thoughts? Anton Tagunov www.apache.org/~atagunov Deutsche Bank/Pushkin Project, Moscow, Russia --------------------------------------------------------- http://mobile.ngs.ru/games - Java-игры для мобильников и не только... http://love.ngs.ru - Знакомства в Новосибирске
