Although this is a response to Jordan’s message, it isn’t targeting only Jordan. There are a few things that are important to address in this thread and I actually don’t want to focus much on the comparison to other systems.
There is apparently this perception that only committers can do stuff in the project and contributors are only supposed to focus on their 1-2 patches. Contributing patches is clearly important but there is a lot more that everyone in this list can do: interact with folks on the list, code reviews, contribute to the roadmap, propose new features. One important difference between a committer and a contributor is the fact that the committer was granted karma to check in code, which comes with merit. If you are a contributor and you have done enough, you’ll be granted that privilege as well. Actually, becoming a committer is supposed to be a natural step: you have to be doing a lot for the community except checking in code, so we offer you that. There is a lot of frustration around patches not being checked in, and I hear all of you. There is a pretty significant backlog and part of the reason we have been struggling a bit with new features is due to the fact that we have a backlog of bugs alone and not enough active committers. Over time we have had more committers moving to something else than new committers. We have even had new committers moving to something else right after being invited. My suggestion is that if you’re upset that your patch isn’t getting in, then instead of moving away from the community, adopt a different attitude. If your patch is stuck, help someone else with his/her patch and if folks see that kind of effort it is very likely that you’ll have an easier time… and very likely you’ll be offered committership too at some point. About comparing to other systems, I’m personally concerned about the backlog and I have been trying to address it. I’m willing to help with anything that is needed in the project, but I need folks to be a bit more proactive and do stuff themselves rather than just rely on the people who know the inner details of ZooKeeper. If you get it wrong, then we can help you fix it, there is no better way to learn than trying yourself. Specifically to the comparison, if the community feels that it is important, then please start a page, I’ll definitely chime in. My sense is that etcd and consul need to do a lot more advertisement because they are a few years behind in development experience. On our end, we need to make sure we keep ZooKeeper great and by doing so I’m sure we will keep our users and get new ones. Cheers, -Flavio > On 01 Jul 2016, at 02:56, Jordan Zimmerman <[email protected]> wrote: > > Point taken :) But, only the committers can get work into the project. Also, > a real white paper or web page comparing the two would need the work of > people who know the inner details of ZooKeeper. I’d like to see this be on > the main ZooKeeper website or wiki. > > -Jordan > >> On Jun 30, 2016, at 7:36 PM, Patrick Hunt <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> The "ZooKeeper Team" is you -- all of you! :-) >> >> Our project is community based and as such everyone can develop, test, >> improve, market, evangelize, etc... the project. If you're using ZK please >> feel free to let folks know. If you have ideas or just want to "scratch an >> itch" please participate. >> >> At this point on the ycomb forum I already see some great responses such as >> "I too have been using ZK for many years now, and it's pretty great.". >> Please feel free to comment there, in blog posts (we can host them here at >> Apache as well) or anywhere. End of the day we can propone the project all >> we want, but nothing beats user testimonials -- and we've got lots of those! >> >> If folks want to put together an "official response" i'm sure we could come >> up with something. Please propose, we could host it on the wiki if there's >> enough interest. >> >> Patrick >> >> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Jordan Zimmerman < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> FYI >>> >>> https://coreos.com/blog/etcd3-a-new-etcd.html >>> >>> I think the ZooKeeper team needs to have a formal answer for etcd/consul. >>> The developer community keeps asking questions like “compare it to ZK” and >>> the etcd devs are very public and active with their responses. E.g. >>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12011066 >>> >>> -Jordan >>> >>> P.S. This gives a chance to plug my TTL PR which is a feature they have >>> that ZK doesn’t: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ZOOKEEPER-2169 >
