jon 01/10/17 21:20:19
Added: docs/site newproject.html
xdocs/site newproject.xml
Log:
Jon is tired of repeating the same things over and over. Therefore, he is
submitting this document as a proposal for how to explain to people what
the Jakarta policy is on accepting new projects. He has not linked it into
the main site yet because it is still a proposal and needs the PMC's
approval. He would also like to add that the PMC should feel free to
submit patches or edit this document directly. He will not accept anything
other than a patch though.
:-)
-jon's voice talking about jon
Revision Changes Path
1.1 jakarta-site2/docs/site/newproject.html
Index: newproject.html
===================================================================
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd";>
<!-- Content Stylesheet for Site -->
<!-- start the processing -->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
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<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/>
<meta name="author" value="Jon
S. Stevens">
<meta name="email" value="[EMAIL PROTECTED]">
<title>The Jakarta Site - New Project Proposals</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#525D76">
<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0">
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<a href="http://jakarta.apache.org";><img
src="http://jakarta.apache.org/images/jakarta-logo.gif"; align="left" border="0"/></a>
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<p><strong>Essentials</strong></p>
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& Status</a>
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href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mission.html";>Mission</a>
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href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/faqs.html";>FAQs</a>
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<table
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%">
<tr><td bgcolor="#525D76">
<font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica,sanserif">
<a name="Introduction"><strong>Introduction</strong></a>
</font>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<blockquote>
<p>
This document will attempt to describe the criteria for what it takes to
get the members of the <a href="whoweare.html">Jakarta PMC</a> to accept
the creation of a new top level project within the Jakarta Project. This
document does not describe what it takes to get into the <a href="/commons/">Jakarta
Commons</a> project because there is a whole
separate set of rules over there that have been hashed out separately.
</p>
</blockquote>
</p>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><br/></td></tr>
</table>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="2" width="100%">
<tr><td bgcolor="#525D76">
<font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica,sanserif">
<a name="Criteria"><strong>Criteria</strong></a>
</font>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<blockquote>
<p>
Jakarta has a high threshold for creating new projects. It isn't easy.
</p>
<p>
Over the years the members of the PMC have established a base set of
criteria for acceptance into the Jakarta project. The criteria is not a
hard strict set of rules. Instead, it is based on the fundamental belief
that Jakarta is more than what something like Sourceforge.net is.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta community is primarily developers who like to focus their
efforts towards server side technologies where Sourceforge.net is more
of a general place for anyone to host any type of project. Please note,
this is not a negative view on the service that Sourceforge.net provides
to the open source community, it is simply a statement which reflects
the actual focus and differences between the two.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC is the group of volunteers who have stepped up to take
leadership roles over the long term health of the Jakarta project. As a
result, the rules for adding a new project also hinge on how well the
people submitting the proposal can convince the PMC to accept it. At
some level, the Jakarta project is a living entity with its own
personality. Projects with excellent proposals may still be rejected
because of things as seemingly mundane as personality conflicts between
developers.
</p>
<p>
In order for a new project to be considered, a proposal must be sent to
the general@jakarta <a href="mail.html">mailing list</a>. All discussion
about the proposal should also happen there.
</p>
<p>
The proposal submitter(s) should be well versed in the policies that <a
href="guidelines.html">govern the way that the Jakarta project is
run</a>. This is important because these are the rules that govern how
your project will need to be run. If the proposal submitter does not
agree to them, then looking elsewhere is wise.
</p>
<p>
One of the most important criteria's for acceptance is for the proposal
submitter(s) to provide proof that their project has an established
developer community supporting the projects development and user base.
This is something that takes time and energy. The reason for requirement
is that Jakarta is a long term hosting platform for projects. Once a
project has been accepted by the Jakarta project it will remain with the
Jakarta project indefinitely and because of the visibility of the Jakarta
project, will most likely develop a large user and developer base.
</p>
<p>
It is required that at least 2 developers be actively working on the
project. It is further required that at least one PMC member have commit
access to the project as well as a developer interest in it. Think of
this as being similar to bringing a new baby into a household. You want
to be sure that it will be supported by its parents.
</p>
<p>
Proposals for projects which are the result of a company wanting to off
load it (for various reasons) will be under greater scrutiny by the
Jakarta PMC for inclusion because the offloading of software generally
is the result of lack of interest in it by the people submitting the
proposal (for various reasons). This lack of interest translates into
the notion that the project won't receive the support that it will need
in order to be successful under the Jakarta umbrella. Often, we will
recommend that the project go off on its own for a while and then
re-submit the proposal at a later date after it has been in the wild for
a while.
</p>
<p>
For example, we have seen proposals that contain paragraphs like this:
</p>
<div align="left">
<table cellspacing="4" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif"
width="1" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
<td bgcolor="#023264" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif" width="1"
height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif"
width="1" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1"><img src="/images/void.gif" width="1"
height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
<td bgcolor="#ffffff"><pre>
FooProduct is currently a production quality product, and in fact is
being used on a live website. It was developed as a product by
FooCompany, with the intention that we would sell it. However, due to
various economic factors such as the decline in the ASP market and the
recent difficulties in obtaining venture capital, we have decided that
at this time it is not feasible for is to continue in that direction.
</pre></td>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1"><img src="/images/void.gif" width="1"
height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif"
width="1" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
<td bgcolor="#023264" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif" width="1"
height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
<td bgcolor="#023264" width="1" height="1"><img src="/images/void.gif"
width="1" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0"/></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>
A statement like this in a proposal, will undoubtedly raise red flags
(and potentially negative responses) with the Jakarta PMC because it
clearly shows that the company could not find a market for the product
and is looking to give the product an extended life or use the high
visibility of the Jakarta project to bring people to work on it. While
the product may have quite a lot of development put into it over a
number of years (or not), it certainly doesn't fit well into the culture
of the Jakarta project simply because we do not want to be a place where
someone tries to place their wares in the hopes of a better life for it.
Even worse off is the idea of trying to use the visibility of the
Jakarta project for your own gains. We want to know up front that the
project will have a strong future and that is primarily based on the
project having a strong developer and user community.
</p>
<p>
On the same thread, think of the possibility of a product which was
developed commercially, failed or didn't have the support behind it,
then donated to the Jakarta project and then pulled back in commercially
by the same company after many people spend their time donating to
the project. It would be as if everyone in the open source community
gave their work away for free and the only people who would benefit is
the company. Of course the people who were working on it would still be
able to use it, but any additions that the company makes after that
would not necessarily need to be contributed back under the ASF License
and the community would probably end up split and hurt as a result. The
Jakarta PMC is wary of such tactics (pre-meditated or not).
</p>
<p>
Design, developer, user documentation, example code, and a reference
implementation definitely increase -- but not guarantee -- the chances
of Jakarta acceptance of non-established projects.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC will be much more open to accepting a project which is
already open source than to accepting a project which is currently
closed source. We often receive proposals that start with "We will open
our project if you choose to accept it." This is the wrong way to
approach the Jakarta PMC. A closed source project does not have a
developer community. The project only has the developers who worked on
it, which clearly does not satisfy our most important criteria.
Therefore, unless those same developers actively participate in the
development of existing Jakarta projects a general level of developer
trust has not been established and the Jakarta PMC has nothing to base
their criteria on. Again, placing the project in the wild for a bit to
develop a community and then coming back and giving a proposal will give
a much higher chance of being accepted.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC will be much more open to accepting a project for which
the people behind the project have some degree of open source
experience. In other words, if the submitter of the proposal does not
have open source experience (both as a participant as well as a
committer), then maybe spending some time contributing to existing open
source projects would be beneficial to us all before going ahead with
the proposal. Doing so will lower the amount of (very limited) resources
that the Jakarta PMC needs allocate to deal with educating someone on
how to run an open source project in a highly visible environment.
</p>
<p>
Final acceptance is based on the ability of the proposal to persuade the
Jakarta PMC to give at least three +1 votes and zero -1 votes to the
proposal. The voting should happen on the general@jakarta <a
href="mail.html">mailing list</a>.
</p>
<p>
It should be noted that all projects which are currently under the
Jakarta project are considered grand fathered into the Jakarta project
and may or may not have met all of the criteria listed above (hindsight
is 20/20).
</p>
<p>
Lastly, please be aware that submitting a proposal will most likely
result in a long thread about what an asshole Jon Stevens is and a bunch
of followup emails which show appreciation for his honest and direct
no-bullshit approach. While this banter endlessly amusing for him, it
gets old very quickly for everyone else. That said, it is often best to
realize that Jon will never change (he is very nice in person and will
quickly buy anyone dinner and/or a beer if they come to Berkeley) and
that some people will agree with his style and that some people won't.
Being in a high profile position with strong views and a lack of time to
fully explain them in a way that everyone will feel peachy about
generally causes at least a few people to get pissed off directly at him
instead of the opinions he expresses. As a side note, he has observed
that the people who truly contribute to the Jakarta project are
generally the same people who also tend to agree with him. Conversely,
the people who don't contribute much or at all are the ones who tend to
hate him the most or threaten the excuse that they won't work on
projects which Jon is a member of (he is a member of almost all of them
in one way or another). <a href="/velocity/ymtd/ymtd.html">You make the
decision</a>. p.s. He usually doesn't talk about himself in the second
person. :-)
</p>
</blockquote>
</p>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><br/></td></tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<!-- FOOTER -->
<tr><td colspan="2">
<hr noshade="" size="1"/>
</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2">
<div align="center"><font color="#525D76" size="-1"><em>
Copyright © 1999-2001, Apache Software Foundation
</em></font></div>
</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
<!-- end the processing -->
1.1 jakarta-site2/xdocs/site/newproject.xml
Index: newproject.xml
===================================================================
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<document>
<properties>
<author email="[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Jon S. Stevens</author>
<title>New Project Proposals</title>
</properties>
<body>
<section name="Introduction">
<p>
This document will attempt to describe the criteria for what it takes to
get the members of the <a href="whoweare.html">Jakarta PMC</a> to accept
the creation of a new top level project within the Jakarta Project. This
document does not describe what it takes to get into the <a
href="/commons/">Jakarta Commons</a> project because there is a whole
separate set of rules over there that have been hashed out separately.
</p>
</section>
<section name="Criteria">
<p>
Jakarta has a high threshold for creating new projects. It isn't easy.
</p>
<p>
Over the years the members of the PMC have established a base set of
criteria for acceptance into the Jakarta project. The criteria is not a
hard strict set of rules. Instead, it is based on the fundamental belief
that Jakarta is more than what something like Sourceforge.net is.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta community is primarily developers who like to focus their
efforts towards server side technologies where Sourceforge.net is more
of a general place for anyone to host any type of project. Please note,
this is not a negative view on the service that Sourceforge.net provides
to the open source community, it is simply a statement which reflects
the actual focus and differences between the two.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC is the group of volunteers who have stepped up to take
leadership roles over the long term health of the Jakarta project. As a
result, the rules for adding a new project also hinge on how well the
people submitting the proposal can convince the PMC to accept it. At
some level, the Jakarta project is a living entity with its own
personality. Projects with excellent proposals may still be rejected
because of things as seemingly mundane as personality conflicts between
developers.
</p>
<p>
In order for a new project to be considered, a proposal must be sent to
the general@jakarta <a href="mail.html">mailing list</a>. All discussion
about the proposal should also happen there.
</p>
<p>
The proposal submitter(s) should be well versed in the policies that <a
href="guidelines.html">govern the way that the Jakarta project is
run</a>. This is important because these are the rules that govern how
your project will need to be run. If the proposal submitter does not
agree to them, then looking elsewhere is wise.
</p>
<p>
One of the most important criteria's for acceptance is for the proposal
submitter(s) to provide proof that their project has an established
developer community supporting the projects development and user base.
This is something that takes time and energy. The reason for requirement
is that Jakarta is a long term hosting platform for projects. Once a
project has been accepted by the Jakarta project it will remain with the
Jakarta project indefinitely and because of the visibility of the Jakarta
project, will most likely develop a large user and developer base.
</p>
<p>
It is required that at least 2 developers be actively working on the
project. It is further required that at least one PMC member have commit
access to the project as well as a developer interest in it. Think of
this as being similar to bringing a new baby into a household. You want
to be sure that it will be supported by its parents.
</p>
<p>
Proposals for projects which are the result of a company wanting to off
load it (for various reasons) will be under greater scrutiny by the
Jakarta PMC for inclusion because the offloading of software generally
is the result of lack of interest in it by the people submitting the
proposal (for various reasons). This lack of interest translates into
the notion that the project won't receive the support that it will need
in order to be successful under the Jakarta umbrella. Often, we will
recommend that the project go off on its own for a while and then
re-submit the proposal at a later date after it has been in the wild for
a while.
</p>
<p>
For example, we have seen proposals that contain paragraphs like this:
</p>
<source>
FooProduct is currently a production quality product, and in fact is
being used on a live website. It was developed as a product by
FooCompany, with the intention that we would sell it. However, due to
various economic factors such as the decline in the ASP market and the
recent difficulties in obtaining venture capital, we have decided that
at this time it is not feasible for is to continue in that direction.
</source>
<p>
A statement like this in a proposal, will undoubtedly raise red flags
(and potentially negative responses) with the Jakarta PMC because it
clearly shows that the company could not find a market for the product
and is looking to give the product an extended life or use the high
visibility of the Jakarta project to bring people to work on it. While
the product may have quite a lot of development put into it over a
number of years (or not), it certainly doesn't fit well into the culture
of the Jakarta project simply because we do not want to be a place where
someone tries to place their wares in the hopes of a better life for it.
Even worse off is the idea of trying to use the visibility of the
Jakarta project for your own gains. We want to know up front that the
project will have a strong future and that is primarily based on the
project having a strong developer and user community.
</p>
<p>
On the same thread, think of the possibility of a product which was
developed commercially, failed or didn't have the support behind it,
then donated to the Jakarta project and then pulled back in commercially
by the same company after many people spend their time donating to
the project. It would be as if everyone in the open source community
gave their work away for free and the only people who would benefit is
the company. Of course the people who were working on it would still be
able to use it, but any additions that the company makes after that
would not necessarily need to be contributed back under the ASF License
and the community would probably end up split and hurt as a result. The
Jakarta PMC is wary of such tactics (pre-meditated or not).
</p>
<p>
Design, developer, user documentation, example code, and a reference
implementation definitely increase -- but not guarantee -- the chances
of Jakarta acceptance of non-established projects.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC will be much more open to accepting a project which is
already open source than to accepting a project which is currently
closed source. We often receive proposals that start with "We will open
our project if you choose to accept it." This is the wrong way to
approach the Jakarta PMC. A closed source project does not have a
developer community. The project only has the developers who worked on
it, which clearly does not satisfy our most important criteria.
Therefore, unless those same developers actively participate in the
development of existing Jakarta projects a general level of developer
trust has not been established and the Jakarta PMC has nothing to base
their criteria on. Again, placing the project in the wild for a bit to
develop a community and then coming back and giving a proposal will give
a much higher chance of being accepted.
</p>
<p>
The Jakarta PMC will be much more open to accepting a project for which
the people behind the project have some degree of open source
experience. In other words, if the submitter of the proposal does not
have open source experience (both as a participant as well as a
committer), then maybe spending some time contributing to existing open
source projects would be beneficial to us all before going ahead with
the proposal. Doing so will lower the amount of (very limited) resources
that the Jakarta PMC needs allocate to deal with educating someone on
how to run an open source project in a highly visible environment.
</p>
<p>
Final acceptance is based on the ability of the proposal to persuade the
Jakarta PMC to give at least three +1 votes and zero -1 votes to the
proposal. The voting should happen on the general@jakarta <a
href="mail.html">mailing list</a>.
</p>
<p>
It should be noted that all projects which are currently under the
Jakarta project are considered grand fathered into the Jakarta project
and may or may not have met all of the criteria listed above (hindsight
is 20/20).
</p>
<p>
Lastly, please be aware that submitting a proposal will most likely
result in a long thread about what an asshole Jon Stevens is and a bunch
of followup emails which show appreciation for his honest and direct
no-bullshit approach. While this banter endlessly amusing for him, it
gets old very quickly for everyone else. That said, it is often best to
realize that Jon will never change (he is very nice in person and will
quickly buy anyone dinner and/or a beer if they come to Berkeley) and
that some people will agree with his style and that some people won't.
Being in a high profile position with strong views and a lack of time to
fully explain them in a way that everyone will feel peachy about
generally causes at least a few people to get pissed off directly at him
instead of the opinions he expresses. As a side note, he has observed
that the people who truly contribute to the Jakarta project are
generally the same people who also tend to agree with him. Conversely,
the people who don't contribute much or at all are the ones who tend to
hate him the most or threaten the excuse that they won't work on
projects which Jon is a member of (he is a member of almost all of them
in one way or another). <a href="/velocity/ymtd/ymtd.html">You make the
decision</a>. p.s. He usually doesn't talk about himself in the second
person. :-)
</p>
</section>
</body>
</document>
![http://jakarta.apache.org/images/jakarta-logo.gif"](http://jakarta.apache.org/images/jakarta-logo.gif"){kind=link}
