----- Original Message ----
> From: David Reiss <dre...@facebook.com>
> To: thrift-dev@incubator.apache.org
> Sent: Thu, August 12, 2010 4:09:58 PM
> Subject: Re: time for a reboot?
>
> Can you be more specific about what you consider
> "downward pressure"?
1) Facebook submitted the code grant over a year after
the code was checked into svn. As it turns out Facebook
had done a poor job of managing the intellectual assets
therein, and did little to help me chase down people with
interests in the codebase. When suggestions were made
by me as to what tasks needed to be carried out by the
current committers to deal with the situation, nothing
was done. It was only after arm-twisting by both me
and Upayavira that Todd Lipcon was offered commit in
order to deal with the issues and cut a release. Nobody
has been considered for commit by this project since
then, and Todd seems to have lost interest in further
work here.
The community had no idea why it took so long for thrift
to cut a release, but the fact is that 90% of the delay
was caused by Facebook. Apache simply had to clean up
the mess, despite being blamed for the delay by others.
2) When Upayavira or I or anyone else ask questions about
the project and its future here, Facebook devs always
speak on behalf of the devs instead of encouraging input
from others. The answers we get amount to the bare minimum
required not to shut the project down, and it is a shame
that other devs are not encouraged to speak for themselves
or their own interests in the project.
3) Instant releases are counter to Apache's goals for code
management and distribution policies. As dev tools they
are tolerable, but when end-users are told to use those
instead of true releases they are not.
4) Running trunk in production is poor practice and puts
too much pressure on other committers to maintain stability
in trunk. While I haven't seen commits being vetoed,
I also haven't seen commits get discussed post-commit,
which means the review is happening prior to commit instead
of post commit. That should be addressed by the community
by doing more experimentation in trunk, and once the project
hits 1.0 it should cut a stable branch and backport trunk
work to it. For examples on best practice for managing
subversion trees have a look at the httpd or subversion
project.
I could go on, but that should be a sufficient start.
>
> On 08/12/2010 12:16 PM, Joe Schaefer wrote:
> > It has come to my attention that this project has
> > made no effort to maintain its list of PPMC members.
> > A best-effort was made by Gavin McDonald to construct
> > that list from the subscriber base to thrift-private@
> > which may be found here:
> >
> > http://incubator.apache.org/projects/thrift
> >
> > This project remains at a crossroads, and my personal
> > graduation vote based on the current trajectory would
> > not be favorable.
> >
> > Apache projects are not cathedrals, they are bazaars.
> > The committers on the project are facilitators, not
> > gatekeepers. Every person who has ever submitted a patch
> > to either jira or this mailing list should be encouraged by
> > the existing devs to become a committer on this project,
> > but that never happens here. Instead people fork,
> > like what happened with c-thrift. That is not goodness
> > from an Apache standpoint; it would be far better to
> > create a sandbox in the subversion tree for experimentation
> > by community members.
> >
> > Trunk should be treated as Commit-then-Review. It is
> > a-ok to break it, and anyone running trunk in production
> > better be prepared to deal with the fallout of that
> > decision.
> >
> > Look, cassandra came into Apache a year or so after
> > thrift did, and they have already graduated. Part of
> > the reason why they have been successful where thrift
> > has not is because the Facebook devs there were not
> > allowed to place downward pressure on the community
> > the way they have here. The sooner this community
> > starts routing around them, the more likely this
> > project has a chance of real success at Apache.
> >
> > I have asked for special permission from my colleagues
> > in the Incubator to experiment with processes designed
> > to get out of your way in as far as it is possible,
> > so there can be no excuses as to why Thrift is not
> > succeeding except for the fact that the devs have
> > not done an adequate job of growing the community.
> > I expect that permission to be granted very soon,
> > and would like those committers on this project
> > who still care about it to take advantage of this
> > special opportunity before it's too late. So far
> > Bryan is the only person I would trust to make an
> > IPMC member or serve as Chair for this project
> > should it pursue graduation, but if others start
> > showing more active interest I am more than happy
> > to consider them.
> >
> >
> >
>
