Hi, As a new committer, I'm getting ready to dive into the repository. I checked Bugzilla this morning -- there's 142 open issues. There's a lot of stuff to do, and I'm asking for help.
*** First, I'd like to open a discussion on priorities. What are the most important bugs/issues to resolve? We can discuss on the list, but I thought it'd be helpful to keep a running list on the Wiki: http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-velocity/IssuePriorities It'd be great if we could list out the unresolved issues that are the most important. You can informally vote for an issue by adding your initials to the "Priority" column. We should be able to make rapid progress in the "Bug" and "Enhancements - Basic" sections. Incidentally, here's some thoughts on how you can get your submitted patch committed. (All these Wiki pages are in draft form -- I'd welcome any comments). http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-velocity/GettingYourPatchCommitted *** The second discussion is on a RoadMap. I'd like to see a release that captures some of the backlog of bug fixes/enhancements. My personal opinion is that we should commit as much of the backlog as possible, provided it fits with the core vision of Velocity. Maintaining compatibility for users of old versions has been paramount up to this point. We need to continue that philosophy for at least another release. Following 1.5, should we aim for a version 2.0 that relaxes the compatibility requirement? I've a big bias against massive version 2.0 rewrites -- they're very difficult to complete. But incrementing the major version number would allow us to make non-compatible changes to the language that improve usability. An example might be changing the way Velocity handles white space to be less confusing. I've put a few basic comments here. What does everyone else think? http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-velocity/RoadMap *** The third discussion is on openness and communication. I hate it when an idea or issue gets put out there and nobody responds. I'd like to suggest all of us make a point on providing feedback to new ideas and for the committers to provide feedback on how a submitter can get his/her patch committed. Three committers isn't quite enough. Maybe we can get some new committers in the next 3-6 months from the pool of active contributors. Looking forward to everybody's thoughts. Let me know if this seems like a good process. Best, WILL
