On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 2:49 PM, Dave Fisher <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Jan 6, 2012, at 11:07 AM, Andrew Rist wrote:
>
>> +1
>>
>>   - short-medium term stabilise the extensions code and hosting
>>   - long term move to a federated approach
>>
>> I think this is indeed the growing consensus.  I support moving forward with 
>> SF in negotiating an approach that conforms to the boundaries you describe 
>> below and lead us in this direction.
>
> Agreed that this is the general consensus. I think that these are different 
> threads of conversation.
>
> One thread is the MOU with SF defining what a stable E & T requires including 
> dealing with the loss of the Oracle based user registrations on which it 
> still depends.
>

Just to be fair, we should ask if Infra@ had a solution for how they
would maintain the service "with the loss of the Oracle based user
registrations on which still depends"?

> The second thread is what does the federated approach look-like. Jürgen has 
> provided some of what is already supported. I think we need a page somewhere 
> to show the existing structure. We can't proceed intelligently without real 
> choices clearly presented. Otherwise we are talking generalities, or making 
> decisions based on our perceptions of policy boundaries and not technical 
> merit. The fastest approach to graduation might not be the best approach for 
> the whole ecosystem.
>
> While we are on the topic of externally hosted services last week Rory 
> Flatscher was happy to report that codesnippets.s.oo.o was still functional. 
> This is an externally hosted site at BestSolutions@ ...
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> On 1/6/2012 4:38 AM, Ross Gardler wrote:
>>> On 6 January 2012 11:52, Ross Gardler<[email protected]>  wrote:
>>>> On 6 January 2012 09:32, Andrea Pescetti<[email protected]>  wrote:
>>>>> On 04/01/2012 Roberto Galoppini wrote:
>>>>>> 2012/1/4 Jürgen Schmidt:
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>>> Sounds good. The stabilization phase can be done anywhere, but as Rob 
>>>>> wrote
>>>>> if we cannot keep the current repository as part of the project anyway, it
>>>>> makes sense to do it as part of a larger effort.
>>>> Can we please put a stop to this meme. Nobody has said that it *can't*
>>>> be kept as part of the project. I have no idea why this keeps getting
>>>> repeated. There are issues to be addressed, but nobody has said we
>>>> can't address them. That's what this thread is about, creating a
>>>> proposal for the board to consider and give us an indication as to
>>>> whether it would be acceptable or not.
>>> Furthermore, please remember that to allow a single third party to
>>> host a required service for an Apache project is also against ASF
>>> policy. In fact it is quite possibly against the law (I'm no lawyer so
>>> this is speculation).
>>>
>>> The ASF is a charity, as such we cannot do anything that benefits one
>>> organisation more than another. Allowing SF to host the *only*
>>> extensions site would mean that only SF could make a profit from doing
>>> so and thus the ASF would be benefiting SF more than anyone else. We
>>> can't slam one organisation (TOO, for example) whilst actively
>>> supporting another.
>>>
>>> So far this thread has made it clear (at least to me) that there are
>>> two phases to this:
>>>
>>> - short-medium term stabilise the extensions code and hosting
>>> - long term move to a federated approach
>>>
>>> Stabilisation needs to happen before the 3.3 release
>>> Federation can't happen before the 3.4 release and may not happen until 
>>> later
>>>
>>> Rob has suggested we consider accepting the SF offer and asking infra
>>> to help with the longer term goal of federation (which was originally
>>> suggested by Gav).
>>>
>>> In this proposal I would like to require that SF  open source their
>>> work on stabilising the platform (which is their intention, as I
>>> understand it). The federation code would be managed here in the
>>> foundation.
>>>
>>> This means that the ASF remains in control of the "level playing
>>> field" since we control the point of entry to the federated platform.
>>> Others can start up catalogue sites if they want by using the existing
>>> Drupal code or by building something else that plugs into the
>>> federation site, which could simply be an FTP site and an meta-data
>>> file.
>>>
>>> The downside of this plan is that we lose control over the existing
>>> extensions platform, although we can take it back for internal hosting
>>> at any point since it is open source.
>>>
>>> On the other hand if the ASF maintains the Drupal extensions platform
>>> we cannot distribute it since it is GPL. We could put it on
>>> apache-extras, but that is no different to it being in SF without the
>>> SF offered resources.
>>>
>>> However, infra is not proposing, as I understand it, to distribute the
>>> platform. The infra proposal is for the ASF to host a federation
>>> platform and for individuals to provide a download location for their
>>> extensions (which could be their own website, SF, Google Code or
>>> whatever they want).
>>>
>>> There is very little difference, in my opinion, between these two
>>> proposals. The only significant different that I can see is who does
>>> the work in the short term. Am I missing something?
>>>
>>> The middle ground is to have SF do the stabilisation and for the ASF
>>> to accelerate the move to a federated site. In my opinion (and it is
>>> only my opinion), this model risks slowing down graduation since the
>>> federation site would need to be active in order to ensure a level
>>> playing field for all.
>>>
>>> From my point of view the decision hinges on how high up the priority
>>> list does the AOO community have a federated extensions site? If it's
>>> high and there will be plenty of work on the federation code then the
>>> "middle ground" option is a good one. If it is not high then we need
>>> to get feedback from the board as to whether my concerns about level
>>> playing fields are valid or not. We also need feedback from the IPMC
>>> (since legal@ has delegated to them) on whether we can resolve the IP
>>> issues relating to distributing non-apache licensed code via an ASF
>>> hosted extensions site (my personal opinion is that this will not be a
>>> significant problem as long as branding is managed correctly).
>>>
>>> Is this a fair (high level) summary of the position so far? If so
>>> which is the preferred route for AOO?
>>>
>>> Ross
>>
>

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