Agreed. ZooKeeper is very useful as part of the Hadoop project (which I don't use myself :-)
Don't fix it ! Op 22 mrt 2010, om 19:32 heeft Patrick Hunt het volgende geschreven: > You have probably heard by now that there is a discussion going on in > the Hadoop PMC as to whether a number of the subprojects (Hbase, Avro, > Zookeeper, Hive, and Pig) should move out from under the Hadoop > umbrella and become top level Apache projects (TLP). This discussion > has picked up recently since the Apache board has clearly communicated > to the Hadoop PMC that it is concerned that Hadoop is acting as an > umbrella project with many disjoint subprojects underneath it. They > are concerned that this gives Apache little insight into the health > and happenings of the subproject communities which in turn means > Apache cannot properly mentor those communities. > > The purpose of this email is to start a discussion within the > ZooKeeper community about this topic. Let me cover first what becoming > TLP would mean for ZooKeeper, and then I'll go into what options I > think we as a community have. > > Becoming a TLP would mean that ZooKeeper would itself have a PMC that > would report directly to the Apache board. Who would be on the PMC > would be something we as a community would need to decide. Common > options would be to say all active committers are on the PMC, or all > active committers who have been a committer for at least a year. We > would also need to elect a chair of the PMC. This lucky person would > have no additional power, but would have the additional responsibility > of writing quarterly reports on ZooKeeper's status for Apache board > meetings, as well as coordinating with Apache to get accounts for new > committers, etc. We currently submit these same reports, however they > are forwarded to the board through the Hadoop PMC Chair. For more > information see > http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#roles > > Becoming a TLP would not mean that we are ostracized from the Hadoop > community. We would continue to be invited to Hadoop Summits, HUGs, > etc. > > I see three ways that we as a community can respond to this: > > 1) Say yes, we want to be a TLP now. > > 2) Say yes, we want to be a TLP, but not yet. We feel we need more > time to mature. If we choose this option we need to be able to clearly > articulate how much time we need and what we hope to see change in > that time. > > 3) Say no, we feel the benefits for us staying with Hadoop outweigh > the drawbacks of being a disjoint subproject. If we choose this, we > need to be able to say exactly what those benefits are and why we feel > they will be compromised by leaving the Hadoop project. > > There may other options that I haven't thought of. Please feel free to > suggest any you think of. > > Here are the thoughts I've formed so far on the subject: > > Benefits of moving to TLP: > > a) Here's the boards view as communicated to me: > > "we're looking to ensure that proper and effective oversight is > reached, and umbrellas can get in the way of that. If you *also* think > that all of your communities have proper oversight, and that you're > communicating enough about each/all of them to the Board, so that *it* > can provide oversight, then that's just fine. Go do the review and > come back and say, "we're all good. no changes are necessary."" > > b) setting our own course - we would have our own PMC and therefore > have more latitude (within the apache rules of course) in setting > direction. PMC members would be focused on ZooKeeper exclusively. > > > Serious reservations I personally have with a move to TLP today: > > a) I do not think ZooKeeper currently has a sufficiently large and > diverse enough community such that it can fend for itself as a > TLP. Our community is working hard to establish a critical mass, given > our maturity level, complexity of code, and the stakes involved (ZK is > literally the linchpin of many of our user's computing > infrastructures) it has been hard to attract/promote developers. We > currently have 5 active committers, 4 from one company and 1 from > a separate one (who only recently joined the committer ranks). The > board has stated they are willing to break their own rules here (form > a TLP with less than acceptable diversity) however I don't believe that > would be prudent from our perspective. > > b) Loss of branding and discover-ability - "in the land of the cloud > the elephant is king". IMO being associated with Hadoop is a huge win > for us in terms of branding and discover-ability. This is similar to > the benefits we get of being an Apache project. People who are serious > about the cloud need to look at Hadoop. In the process they discover > ZooKeeper. > > c) "if ain't broke don't fix it". I have frequent interactions with > Hadoop PMC/Chair and an Apache board member. We are getting excellent > representation through this process and I don't see how visibility > "up" or support "down" could be improved. > > Questions? Thoughts? Rebuttal? Let the discussion begin. > > Patrick > >
