Heath, I represent such a 'larger shop'. I'm the Director of Development for a software company who employs a medium-sized staff of developers. Most of our core products depend on Lucene.Net. The developers on my staff are allowed (expected even) to work on open source software on-the-clock. We've already been doing that with Lucere (a fork of Lucene.Net) and we also commit to a few other open source projects (unrelated to Lucene).
I agree with your concerns about a slow development pace. I would not say that the community is happy with the slow development pace. I think the community would be over-joyed to get releases on the same schedule that Java Lucene releases on. We've become complacent because, well, something is better than nothing. If this becomes a persistent issue for Lucene.Net due to ASF's standards, then the project may not be able to survive here. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I would hope though, that we can build a team which can steadily meet the ASF's expectations. Regarding you being a committer on the project... The main thing to ask yourself is whether or not you have the available time to work on this, in whatever capacity you have the skills for. I think having someone to do website maintenance, commit patches submitted by contributors, and do other non-code maintenance tasks (like keeping up with the JIRA issues, etc) would still be a valuable contribution to the project team. Also, someone with minimal Java skills but strong C# skills could still be quite valuable from a coding perspective. While a lot of the work is porting, which requires and understanding of both platforms, there's still general debugging, unit tests, and similar kinds of work that could be completely based around the C# side of the code. So, if you are able to commit the time, and willing to use whatever skills you have to their most effective end, you could be very valuable to the team. Thanks, Troy On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Heath Aldrich <[email protected]> wrote: > Troy: > I guess it depends on the definition of committer... if that is someone who > needs the java skills, then I'm not much help. > If it is someone who can address the site page, submit builds, etc... I can > do that and am willing to. > > > However, my concern is that even if the thing went back to the incubator, the > community at large is pretty happy with a slow (almost dead) development > cycle - or at least we accept it. > Isn't that just going to result in this whole conversation again? > > > Don't get me wrong, I think we need to keep the project alive where we can at > least post bug fixes and have a home to port newer versions as the desire > arises... I'm willing to be considered a committer if that will help. But it > doesn't make sense to waste everyone's time if we're just going to be canned > for not having new releases anyway. > > I am confused where the larger shops are in this matter... I run a very small > shop (2 developers including me)... > Where are the shops that have developed their commercial product on Lucene? > I noted we had some interest in Phil Haack at one point and I thought that > was a good sign. > It would be great to find a way to get some of the people with skin in the > game to get involved. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Troy Howard [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 12:38 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Vote thread started on [email protected] > > Scott, > > I will gladly help put this proposal together and would like to volunteer as > a committer. I am communicating with others to find some additional > candidates to be committers. > > Regarding Heath, a quote from his last message in this thread: > > "While I have developed extensively against Lucene.net, I do not possess the > java skills needed to do a port of the code... So, while I wouldn't mind > being a committer, I do not think I am qualified." > > Thanks, > Troy > > > On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Lombard, Scott > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Grant, >> >> Thanks for your time explaining all the details. I will be willing work on >> a proposal to put Lucene.Net back in to incubation. I will need other >> people to step up and be committers as well. Heath has volunteered and as >> Grant has stated 4 committers are needed to for incubation. Who else is >> willing to be a committer? >> >> Grant I will definitely be taking you up on your offer to help on bring >> Lucene.Net into incubation. >> >> Scott >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Grant Ingersoll [mailto:[email protected]] >> Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 12:32 PM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: Vote thread started on [email protected] >> >> >> On Dec 30, 2010, at 9:51 AM, Heath Aldrich wrote: >> >>> Hi Grant, >>> >>> Thanks for taking the time to respond. >>> >>> While I have developed extensively against Lucene.net, I do not >>> possess the java skills needed to do a port of the code... So, while >>> I wouldn't mind being a committer, I do not think I am qualified. (I >>> guess if I was, I could just use Lucene proper and that would be >>> that) >>> >>> As to other duties of a committer, I think the ASF is perceived as a black >>> box of questions for most of us. >>> >>> For one, I don't think anyone outside the 4 committers even understand >>> *why* it is a good thing to be on the ASF vs. CodePlex, Sourceforge, etc. >>> Maybe if there was an understanding of the why, the requirements of the ASF >>> would make more sense. I think a lot of us right now just perceive the ASF >>> as the group that is wanting to kill Lucene.net. >> >> I don't think we have a desire to kill it, I just think we are faced with >> the unfortunate reality that the project is already dead and now us on the >> PMC have the unfortunate job of cleaning up the mess as best we can. Again, >> it is not even that we want to see it go away, we on the PMC just don't want >> to be responsible for it's upkeep. You give me the names of 4 people who >> are willing to be committers (i.e. people willing to volunteer their time) >> and I will do my best to get the project into the Incubator. However, I >> have to tell you, my willingness to help is diminishing with every trip we >> take around this same circle of discussion. >> >> Simply put, given the way the vote has gone so far, the Lucene PMC is no >> longer interested in sustaining this project. If the community wishes to >> see it live at the ASF then one of you had better step up and spend 20-30 >> minutes of your time writing up the draft proposal (most of it can be copied >> and pasted) and circulating it. In fact, given the amount of time some of >> you have no doubt spent writing on this and other related threads you could >> have put together the large majority of the proposal, circulated the draft >> and got other volunteers to help and already be moving forward in a positive >> direction. Truth be told, I would do it, but I am explicitly not going to >> because I think that if the community can't take that one step to move >> forward, then it truly doesn't deserve to. >> >>> >>> I get your comments about the slower than slow development, but that is >>> also somewhat of a sign that it works. While 2.9.2 may be behind, it seems >>> very stable with very few issues. If we send the project to the attic, how >>> will anyone be able to submit bugfixes ever? Frankly, I use 2.9.2 every >>> day and have not found bugs in the areas that I use... but I'm sure they >>> are in there somewhere. >>> >>> As for the name, I thought Lucene.net was the name of the project back in >>> the SourceForge days... >>> So my question is based on the premise that "if the lucene.net name was >>> brought *to* ASF, why can the community not leave with it?" >> >> Again, IANAL, but just b/c it was improperly used beforehand does not >> mean it is legally owned by some other entity. The Lucene name has >> been at the ASF since 2001 and Lucene.NET is also now a part of the >> ASF. (If your interested, go look at the discussions around iBatis >> and the movement of that community to MyBatis) >> >> -Grant >> >> >> This message (and any associated files) is intended only for the use >> of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain >> information that is confidential, subject to copyright or constitutes >> a trade secret. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby >> notified that any dissemination, copying or distribution of this >> message, or files associated with this message, is strictly >> prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify >> us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your >> computer. Thank you, King Industries, Inc. >> > >
