+1 (binding) :-) On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Tobias Schlitt <tob...@schlitt.info> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Please vote on the acceptance of Zeta Components for incubation at the > Apache Incubator. The full proposal is available at the end of this > message and on the wiki at > > http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/ZetaComponentsProposal > > We ask the Incubator PMC to sponsor the project with Erik Abele as the > Champion and Craig L. Russel, Julien Vermillard and Christian Grobmeier > volunteering to be mentors. Note that the acceptance of Julien and > Christian for the IPMC is currently pending. > > Please cast your votes: > > [ ] +1, bring Zeta into Incubator > [ ] +0, I don't care either way > [ ] -1, do not bring Zeta into Incubator, because... > > The vote is open for the next 72 hours and only votes from the Incubator > PMC are binding. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Proposal: Zeta Components > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > Zeta Components is a high-quality library of loosely-coupled PHP components. > > - ------ > Status > - ------ > > The proposal has been discussed on the incubator mailinglist. 3 mentors > have volunteered, the confirmation of Julien Vermillard and Christian > Grobmeier for the IPMC is pending. > > - -------- > Proposal > - -------- > > Originally developed as an open source project named eZ Components [1] > by eZ Systems AS [2] under New BSD license. eZ Systems has agreed to > relicense the source code and documentation, under the name Zeta > Components, and donate it to the Apache Software Foundation. > > The goal of the project is to provide high-quality, loosely-coupled > components for the development of applications based on PHP version 5.1 > and above. Zeta contains standard PHP framework components (e.g. > database abstraction, templating, email, image manipulation); and > modules which are unique in the PHP world, like a document format > conversion component, a WebDAV server module and a workflow based > programming framework. > > The project is developed with a strong focus on code and documentation > quality, and backwards compatibility. It follows a well-defined > development process with extensive architecture and design discussions, > and prescribes a test-driven development approach. > > - ---------- > Background > - ---------- > > PHP is the most common language for developing web applications, but is > also in use in other areas. While the language itself already ships with > many libraries to solve different tasks, there is still a need for user > land libraries to provide more complex repetitive functionality. > > Zeta provides components dedicated to such functionality. An example for > a tasks that can be solved using Zeta are processing and sending of > email. This is already possible from within pure PHP. But working with > multi-part MIME emails is not easily possible and a real pain when doing > that on your own. For that reason, a module exists in Zeta which allows > the developer to easily create and send such emails and to receive and > process them. > > The Zeta project currently consists of the following components: > > * Archive > * Authentication > * AuthenticationDatabaseTiein > * Base > * Cache > * Configuration > * ConsoleTools > * Database > * DatabaseSchema > * Debug > * Document > * EventLog > * EventLogDatabaseTiein > * Execution > * Feed > * File > * Framework > * Graph > * GraphDatabaseTiein > * ImageAnalysis > * ImageConversion > * Mail > * MvcAuthenticationTiein > * MvcFeedTiein > * MvcMailTiein > * MvcTemplateTiein > * MvcTools > * PersistentObject > * PersistentObjectDatabaseSchemaTiein > * PhpGenerator > * Search > * SignalSlot > * SystemInformation > * Template > * TemplateTranslationTiein > * Translation > * TranslationCacheTiein > * Tree > * TreeDatabaseTiein > * TreePersistentObjectTiein > * Url > * UserInput > * Webdav > * Workflow > * WorkflowDatabaseTiein > * WorkflowEventLogTiein > * WorkflowSignalSlotTiein > > As can be seen, there are typical web-application modules included, such > as the Feed component - which allows users to generate and consume > different types of aggregation feeds -, the already mentioned Mail > component, a template component for website templates and a WebDAV > server component. Beside that, the library also contains many modules > which are not only suitable for web applications, like a component for > managing various archive file formats, multiple layers of database > abstraction, tools for image manipulation, basic interfaces and > implementations of a model-view-controller structure and more. > > In contrast to other frameworks, the components in Zeta are loosely > coupled and there are almost no hard inter-dependencies between them. > Instead, if a component can be integrated with another one, a so-called > Tiein component is provided, supplying the classes necessary to couple > the components. This allows users to cherry pick the components they > need, without the need of using the whole stack. That is especially > useful for using the provided modules in legacy code or when there is a > standard framework to build new applications on. > > - --------- > Rationale > - --------- > > Zeta is a library of high-quality, loosely coupled components for > application development on basis of PHP. The project existed for five > years now under the New BSD license, named eZ Components. It has been > developed so far as a product of eZ Systems AS by a team of lately 4 > core developers and received various contributions from 3rd parties. > > The unique characteristics of the project are a strong focus on > high-quality code and documentation as well as extensibility. > > About the project > ================= > > The Zeta project is well established under the name eZ Components and > has a vital open source community around it. Its goal is to provide > high-quality PHP code in form of general purpose, re-usable components. > Being developed for 5 years now, the project has well established > processes for development in place: > > Zeta underlies very hard code and documentation quality constraints. For > each new feature or component, requirements and architecture documents > need to be provided and publicly discussed, before they are implemented. > In addition, a test driven development approach is appointed, ensuring > few bugs and backwards compatibility. Full API documentation, a tutorial > and extensive examples are required for every components, before it is > released. > > More information about the development process can be found in the > development process [3] and the coding standards [4]. > > History > ======= > > The Zeta project was initially started in 2005 and developed until now > by eZ Systems under the name eZ Components [1]. The initial goal was to > refactor the core libraries used by the open source content management > system eZ Publish [5] for the purpose of cleaning up the code base and > migrating it to PHP version 5. > > Already during the initial planning phase, it turned out that a > refactoring was not feasible and a re-write of the desired library > became necessary. In addition, it was decided not to concentrate on the > needs of eZ Publish exclusively, but to create a general purpose library. > > The source code base was mainly developed by employees of eZ Systems > under the New BSD license, with multiple contributions from 3rd parties. > Every external contributor needed to sign a CLA [6] which is derived > from the CLA used by the Apache Software Foundation. > > Since eZ Systems will still make use of the Zeta project and plans to > even increase the usage drastically, their employees will continue to > contribute. eZ Systems also maintains a very vital open source community > around eZ Publish and it is expected, that their partners and > contributors also make use of and contribute to the Zeta project. > > The main development team of eZ Components left eZ Systems in early > 2010. While their initial idea was to continue with the project > themselves, they finally worked out the plan of moving the project into > a dedicated foundation together with their old employer. The ASF was > decided to be the most feasible new owner of the project. > > To reflect the change of ownership and the changing project structure, > the name eZ Components was changed to Zeta Components. The original > development team is willing to maintain the project further on, as they > already put lots of efforts into it and feel very passionate about it. > eZ Systems is so kind to donate the IP of the source code basis, > documentation and infrastructure code to the Apache Foundation. > > The goal of all involved parties is, to avoid a re-focusing of the > project, in terms of it becoming an exclusive part of the eZ Publish > content management system, and to further develop Zeta as an independent > project. > > The most recent state of the eZ Components project can be found here: > > * Website: http://ezcomponents.org > * Code repository: http://svn.ez.no/svn/ezcomponents/ > * Issue tracker: http://issues.ez.no/ProjectSelect.php?Id=1 > * Mailinglist archive: http://lists.ez.no/pipermail/components/Systems > > Statistics > ========== > > Zeta currently consists of: > > * 712,708 lines of code: > * 294,234 of these are non*test code: > * 151,439 of these docs > * 142,795 of these non*docs > * Non test code consists of: > * 1,909 classes: > * 184 abstract classes (9.64%) > * 1725 concrete classes > * ~123 lines of code per class > * Tests consist of: > * 651 classes with 7134 methods > > Needs for Zeta Components > ========================= > > Some of the initial reasons to start the project have already been > explained in the "About the project" section. Find in following a > summary of the reasons why there is still a need for the project and > where its benefits are: > > While there are many frameworks and class repositories for the PHP > language out there, none of them has such a strict focus on quality. > Many frameworks are developed by hobby programmers and do therefore, or > for historical reasons, not have a quality assurance process in place. > The result is varying code quality and often un-maintained code. Many of > them also still support PHP 4, which results in slow and hard to > maintain code. In addition to that, many such projects suffer from > lacking architecture and design processes, as well as naming and usage > inconsistencies. Furthermore they allow code duplication and therefore > do not give the user a consistent choice of functionality. > > The Zeta project has, in contrast to that, strict quality assurance, > architecture and design processes and consistent naming, development and > documentation guidelines. Its components are built upon PHP 5.1 and > support all later versions. Zeta focuses on generality and > extensibility. Beside that, Zeta components provide many components > which cannot be found in any other PHP library in this way. These are: > > DatabaseSchema: > > A component to read, write and store database schemas independent from > the relational database system in use. Beside that, schema differences > can be stored and written to a database to update the schema. > > Document: > > Using this component, a developer can convert between many different > document formats, like (X)HTML, DocBook XML, ODF, Wiki markup and more. > The component is designed to support any kind of document format in the > future. > > Graph: > > This module is used to render many different kinds of charts from > numerical data into various image file formats. It can be used with any > of the image generation libraries available in PHP. > > Mail: > > While most email libraries just support sending plain text or HTML > emails, this component supports various email RFCs including multi-part > MIME. Furthermore it can receive email via IMAP and POP and process > these mails to be presented in the very same way as they are represented > for sending. > > PersistentObject: > > This component is inspired by Javas Hibernate component, providing an > object-relational mapping mechanism. It supports typical CRUD operations > and has an optional layer for identity mapping. > > Search: > > An abstraction layer for different search engines, one of them being > Solr, is realized in this component. Its goal is to enable an > application developer to transparently exchange the search engine used > in an application. > > Webdav: > > This module delivers a fully featured, customizable WebDAV (class 1 and > 2) server implementation to the user. Its is developed with focus on > interaction with different clients and to iron out their misbehaviours. > The server can easily be integrated into custom applications. > > Workflow: > > There is currently no other known library for graph (or workflow) driven > development in PHP. This framework provides the basis for such a > programming approach as well as control and storage mechanisms. > > The current code base is designed in a flexible and extensible way, so > that integration of new features is easily possible. Several such > feature additions have already been noted down in the > issue tracker [7] to be implemented in the future (current count is > 124). In addition to that, several new components have already been > discussed on the mailinglist for being added in the future. > > The current user and developer base almost guarantees, the there is an > active future for the project. > > Zeta and the ASF > ================ > > In early 2010 the last members of the eZ Components development team > left eZ Systems for various reasons. Since they gave their all for the > project in the past and still fully support the project and its ideals, > the idea of spinning off the project into an independent foundation was > born. Discussions with eZ Systems' management and developers turned out, > that this is the way to go. > > The Apache Software Foundation is the most accepted OSS foundation and > best supports the ideas involved in the spin-off perfectly: > > * Maintain clean IP > * Keep permissive licensing > * Grow the contributor base > * Stick to a meritocratic approach > > There is no comparable project inside the ASF and we really think, that > both parties (the project and the ASF) would benefit from contribution > the code base. Zeta and its community will get a new and secure home and > will flourish from the above named facts. The ASF will receive many new > developers and enthusiasts, which are likely to also participate in the > foundation itself and possibly other Apache projects. > > - -------------- > Current status > - -------------- > > The following sections give you an overview of the state of the Zeta > project, in terms of its compatibility and willingness to become an > Apache project. > > Meritocracy > =========== > > Although initialized and led by a company so far, the project has been > following a quite meritocratic approach from its start. All technical > decisions have been discussed publicly on the mailinglists and were > never dictated by the management. Furthermore, the project was always > open for 3rd party contributed components, patches and feature requests. > > This approach is mainly the result of all core developers being involved > in other open source projects around PHP. Find details on this in the > "Core Developers" section of this document. > > One reason for moving the project to the ASF is to stabilize and expand > the meritocratic approach. We want to communicate this goal clearly to > the community and want to gather more contributors for the project. > > Community > ========= > > eZ Components was mainly developed by the core team of lately 4 > employees of eZ Systems. During the past 5 years, 10 employees > contributed actively to the project. In addition, 18 external > contributors signed the CLA and actively provided patches or full > components to the project. > > The project maintains a vital open source community, with currently more > than 15 people active on the development mailinglist, discussing and > contributing. In addition, there is an active IRC channel, which counts > between 20 and 40 people and is used for support and technical discussions. > > We are sure that this community will stay with the project, if it moves > to the ASF, and that there is growing potential from the PHP users > community. Especially when people realize that the project is no more a > "product of eZ Systems", but a fully independent OSS project. > > eZ Systems plans to integrate the components provided by the Zeta > project further into their product eZ Publish. Therefore, the company > also plans to have their developers contribute further. This includes > bug fixes, feature additions and potentially new components. > > In addition to that, there is a vital community of partners and open > source contributors around eZ System's product eZ Publish. These parties > already make heavy use of eZ Components and will continue to use it as > Zeta Components, since the project provides essential building blocks > for eZ Publish development. While some of them already contribute to the > project, it is expected, that contributions and participation from this > community grow in the future. > > Beside that, the contributors are willing to represent and evangelize > the project at open source events and to attract new contributors. > > Core Developers > =============== > > Zeta has four core developers by now, which all have a degree in > computer science and are long time members of the open source community > around PHP. As there are: > > Derick Rethans: > > Derick works on the core and multiple extensions for the PHP language > itself. In addition, he is the creator of the widely used Xdebug PHP > debugging extension [8]. > > Sebastian Bergmann: > > As the creator and maintainer of PHPUnit [9], Sebastian is head of > development of this de-facto standard for unit testing in the PHP world. > > Kore Nordmann: > > Kore Nordmann maintains several open source projects, for example Arbit > [10], a PHP based issue tracking and project management system. Beside > that, he regularly contributes to various other projects in the PHP world. > > Tobias Schlitt: > > As a long time member of the PEAR project [11], the standard PHP code > collection, Tobias has brought experiences in software architecture and > PHP development. Beside his work on Zeta, he contributes to various > other open source projects and is a maintainer of Planet PHP [12]. > > Alignment > ========= > > The Zeta project fits especially into the ASF for its meritocratic > development approach and the target of having a very permissive license. > There is currently only one component in Zeta interacting with an ASF > project: The Search component supports Solr as a backend. However, PHP > is a project that is quite close to the ASF and many applications > written on basis of Zeta will run in an Apache web server. > > In addition, some employees of eZ Systems also contribute to other ASF > projects. Jerome Renard maintains some custom Apache server modules and > contributed bug reports and patches in the past. Paul Borgermanns > contributes to Solr and Tika. > > - ----------- > Known Risks > - ----------- > > In following, we try to analyze the risks for the Zeta project. > > Orphaned Products > ================= > > The Zeta project has been developed for the past 5 years under the name > eZ Components. There is a vital and active community around it. While > the core development team has been paid for development in the past, > they did that also with their heart and soul and will therefore not > allow the project of becoming orphan. > > eZ Systems will continue to use the project in its main product (eZ > Publish) and even plans to extend the usage. To realize this, eZ Systems > will make its developers contribute to the project. > > The project is in use by many PHP companies and in open source projects > like Arbit. In addition, 2 of the core developers plan to found a > company and to build their business model onto this project, among others. > > Chances that development of Zeta will die away in the future are > therefore rare. > > Inexperience with Open Source > ============================= > > The project exists since 5 years as an open source project and one > reason for putting it into the ASF is to keep it this way. All core > developers have long time experiences in leading and contributing to > various open source projects. eZ Systems is an open source company and > its business model is fully built upon OSS. > > Homogeneous Developers > ====================== > > 3 of the 4 core developers of Zeta reside in Germany, but work for 2 > different companies. One of them resides in London, UK. eZ Systems is > located in Norway and has a vital community of partners and contributors > among Europe and even world wide. All parties involved in the project > are looking forward to new team members from all over the world. > > Reliance on Salaried Developers > =============================== > > The four core contributors were paid for working on the project in the > past 5 years. However, their intention to work on the project on a not > salaried basis is clear and strong, as can be seen by the efforts put > into the project becoming independent. > > eZ Systems might pay developers for working on Zeta in the future. Two > of the core contributors might work on the project in terms of their own > company in the future. > > Relationships with Other Apache Products > ======================================== > > Zeta Components are already used in some open source projects outside > the Apache Foundation, like eZ Publish and Arbit. We encourage other > projects to make use of the components and are looking forward to their > feature requests and contributions. Beside that, the Search component in > Zeta enables the easy usage of Solr (Lucene) from within PHP. > > We would also be happy to receive technical input from any other Apache > project and OSS projects in general and are looking forward to > integrating with them. > > A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand > ============================================= > > All core contributors of the project already have a well-established > standing in the OSS community, since they contribute to various projects > for a long time now. The goal of joining the ASF is not driven by the > demand of more publicity. None of the contributors has misdemeanors > against any OSS project / foundation at any time. > > However, the core contributors fully agree with the values and ideals of > the ASF and would be happy to be part of this movement. > > - ------------- > Documentation > - ------------- > > [1] Current project website: http://ezcomponents.org > [2] eZ Systems AS: http://ez.no > [3] Dev. process: http://ezcomponents.org/contributin/dev_process > [4] CLA: http://ezcomponents.org/contributing/coding_standards > [5] eZ Publish: http://ez.no/ezpublish > [6] CLA: http://ezcomponents.org/contributing/cla > [7] Issue tracker: http://issues.ez.no/ProjectSelect.php?Id=1 > > [8] Xdebug: http://xdebug.org > [9] PHPUnit: http://www.phpunit.de > [10] Arbit: http://arbitracker.org > [11] PEAR: http://pear.php.net > [12] Planet PHP: http://planet-php.net > > - -------------- > Initial Source > - -------------- > > Alls source code was developed in the SVN repository provided by eZ > Systems so far. This repository, including all releases and branches of > the code, can be found in http://svn.ez.no/svn/ezcomponents/. > > - --------------------- > External Dependencies > - --------------------- > > There are no external dependencies which need to be taken into account. > Zeta components works on basis of PHP and its bundled libraries. It can > optionally work with external tools like e.g. Solr and ImageMagick, but > there is no reason to bundle these resources users are not forced to > make use of them. > > - ------------------ > Required Resources > - ------------------ > > All essential project project infrastructure should be hosted in the > ASF. This includes: > > * SVN > * mailinglists > * basic website > * issue tracker > > The version history of the old SVN (hosted by eZ Systems) should be > imported to the ASF SVN. > > Mailinglists > ============ > > * zeta-private > * zeta-dev > * zeta-commits > * zeta-users (could initially also be handled on zeta-dev) > > Subversion directory > ==================== > > We would like to have the code repository hosted by the ASF: > > https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/zeta > > Issue Tracking > ============== > > Although some of the core developers would favor having Arbit [10] as > the issue tracker, we agree that this essential piece of infrastructure > should be hosted central in the ASF and not on a sponsored, external > server. We would therefore go with Jira. Regarding CI, we will probably > require a Hudson instance. > > - ------------------ > Initial Committers > - ------------------ > > * Derick Rethans <e...@derickrethans.nl> > * Kore Nordmann <k...@php.net> > * Tobias Schlitt <t...@php.net> > * Sebastian Bergmann <sebast...@php.net> > * Ole Marius Smestad <o...@ez.no> > * Roland Benedetti <r...@ez.no> > > All reminded to send CLAs, some known to be received already. > > - ------------ > Affiliations > - ------------ > > Ole Marius Smestad is head of development of eZ Publish, Roland > Benedetti is product manager of eZ Publish, both employed by eZ Systems. > Kore Nordmann and Tobias Schlitt are in the process of creating a > company together. All four core contributors worked together on the > original eZ Components project on behalf of their employment at eZ > Systems AS, but are now independent of this company. > > - -------- > Sponsors > - -------- > > Champion > ======== > > Erik Abele (ASF member) accepted being our champion. > > Mentors > ======= > > * Julien Vermillard (ASF member, applying for IPMC) > * Craig L. Russel (ASF member) > * Christian Grobmeier (not ASF member, applying for IPMC) > > The acceptance of Julien and Christian for the IPMC is still pending. > > We are still looking for more mentors. > > Sponsoring Entity > ================= > > We want to kindly ask the Apache Incubator project for sponsoring. > > - -- > Tobias Schlitt tob...@schlitt.info GPG Key: 0xC462BC14 > a passion for php http://schlitt.info/opensource > eZ Components are Zeta Components now! http://bit.ly/9S7zbn > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iEYEARECAAYFAkvxe2IACgkQ5bO3TcRivBTRWgCcCD58fxfc0JIom3c7/Y6S94pf > h8cAn2ZRoEew4RK+gJEaZqH1Vbr8KX2q > =F6vk > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org > >
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