| [birt-dev] Eclipse BIRT PMC Meeting Minutes - Tuesday, January 9, 2007 |
Meeting
BIRT PMC, 10am Pacific, Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Attendees
Wenfeng Li - BIRT PMC Lead - Actuate Corporation (www.actuate.com)
Paul Clenahan - BIRT PMC - Actuate Corporation (www.actuate.com)
Scott Rosenbaum - BIRT PMC - Innovent Solutions (www.innoventsolutions.com)
Jason Weathersby - BIRT PMC - Actuate Corporation (www.actuate.com)
Mike Fox - BIRT PMC - IBM Corporation (www.ibm.com)
Larry Liang - BIRT PMC - InetSoft Technology Corporation (www.inetsoft.com)
For this meeting, also:
Nick Halsey - Vice President Marketing, JasperSoft (www.jaspersoft.com)
Tim Cloonan - Community Initiatives, JasperSoft (www.jaspersoft.com)
Barry Klawans - Chief Technology Officer, JasperSoft (www.jaspersoft.com)
Mike Milinkovich - Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation (www.eclipse.org)
Minutes
JasperSoft Potential Contribution
Nick Halsey, Tim Cloonan, and Barry Klawans from JasperSoft joined us for the first part of the PMC meeting. JasperSoft are exploring potential contributions to the Eclipse BIRT project and had approached Mike Milinkovich to see what the next steps would be. Mike introduced the JasperSoft team to the BIRT PMC.
In this initial discussion, the PMC outlined the overall scope of the BIRT project charter, the current work being done and the various members to the project. The PMC had already shared information on the typical steps that an individual or organization might follow to join the project (see http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/contribute.php). We also discussed how the growth of the BIRT project, like other projects in the Eclipse Foundation, is organic -- that is, each project typically grows via proposals and subsequent contributions from member organizations, assuming the proposal is line with the overall direction for the project.
At this exploratory stage, the JasperSoft team did not have any specific proposals for a contribution or area of interest. They plan to follow-up with the BIRT PMC with specific ideas in the future.
After this discussion, the JasperSoft team and Mike left the meeting and the PMC discussed other topics...
Meeting Logistics
Due to the holidays and travel schedules, there was no BIRT PMC meetings on December 25, January 1, and January 8.
BIRT 2.1.2 Development
We assigned and addressed a few more Bugzilla entries in the release. Since the last PMC meeting, 5 additional Bugzilla items were added to the 2.1.2 plan and have been addressed. The total number of issues addressed in this release is now 48. The release continues to be targeted for Feb.
General Information:
BIRT 2.1.2 is the second maintenance release in the BIRT 2.1 release series and is intended to be narrow in scope since the development team is concentrating on BIRT 2.2. BIRT 2.1.2 is part of the Callisto coordinated maintenance release plan (see http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Callisto_Coordinated_Maintenance). The 2.1.2 release is focused on addressing critical bugs identified by the community, including any critical issues raised by other Callisto projects.
The Development Plan for BIRT 2.1.2 is available on the Eclipse BIRT pages (http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/project_plan_R2_1_2.php).
For a list of bugs assigned to the release, refer to Bugzilla: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?classification=BIRT&target_milestone=2.1.2
BIRT 2.2 Development
BIRT 2.2 development continues, with Milestone 4 due to be released this week. This is a slight delay (original target was Jan 4), due to an dependency on Java 1.5 that has been introduced by the EMF project.
Java 1.5 Dependency
Although we have been developing BIRT 2.2 as part of the Europa Simultaneous release stack, we have been attempting to ensure that BIRT 2.2 will also continue to be compatible with Java 1.4, and the Callisto stack. However, the EMF 2.3 release has recently moved to require Java 1.5 and, since BIRT is dependant on EMF, this means that BIRT 2.2 now needs Java 1.5 if it builds/runs with EMF 2.3.
The BIRT 2.2 compatibility stack would become:
JRE 1.5.x
Eclipse Platform 3.3
GEF 3.3
EMF 2.3
DTP 1.5
WTP 2.0
This is concerning to the BIRT PMC since it limits the deployment environments for BIRT reports to only application servers that support Java 1.5 or later. Many corporate IT organizations do not have support for Java 1.5 in place and, due to the typical adoption lag, will not have for some time.
Alternative approaches are being researched and discussed to have BIRT 2.2 continue to support Java 1.4.
General Information:
The next major release of BIRT is BIRT 2.2, scheduled for June 2007 as part of the Europa Simultaneous Release (http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Europa_Simultaneous_Release).
The draft BIRT 2.2 Development Plan has been published for review: http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/project_plan_R2_2_0.php. As previously indicated, not all projects in BIRT 2.2 are committed/staffed yet. While we are still in the process of research to determine project scope and feasibility for the release, we have identified one project that we do not have the resources to address: the XML Output Emitter. We would welcome any proposals from the broader community for assistance in developing this project.
A number of BIRT Project Specifications (BPS) relating to BIRT 2.2 have been posted on the BIRT Wiki.
Excel Emitter
The work for the Excel Emitter has been completed but is not yet checked in. The code is in the process of being Committed.
EclipseCon 2007
The reporting track at EclipseCon is filling up with a number of quality submissions. The following Long Talks have been accepted and scheduled for the main conference program. The long talks are part of the core conference and have no additional fee.
Deploying Eclipse BIRT Report Web Applications using Eclipse WTP (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3797)
Integrating Java code with Eclipse BIRT (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3798)
Overview of Eclipse's Business Intelligence & Reporting Tools (BIRT) Project (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3803)
Charting with Eclipse BIRT (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3804)
Dynamic BIRT Reporting (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3884)
On Monday, the conference will have a day of tutorial presentations. The tutorials are in-depth, hands-on programs. The reporting track features four tutorial submissions.
For someone that is new to BIRT, the all day Long Tutorial Building Reports with BIRT (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3644) will provide a great introduction to BIRT report development and integration.
The Short Tutorials are two hour presentations that are focused on a single BIRT subject. They are designed to really dive into the details of a particular topic. The following reporting short tutorials will also be offered on Monday.
Eclipse Chart Engine API and Integration (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3604)
Extending BIRT (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3612)
Report Integration - The BIRT API's (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3614)
For those of you that are interested in a preview of the new features available in BIRT 2.2, a half hour demo What’s New For BIRT 2.2 (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=3925) will be very interesting.
The reporting track will also have six Short Talks, each a lightning fast ten minute presentation on one specific BIRT feature. We are currently still accepting proposals for reporting Short Talks. If you are going to be at EclipseCon, and you have experience with BIRT, please submit a proposal (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/index.php?page=submissions/).
BIRT Events
The following upcoming events will include talks on BIRT and/or Actuate sponsored BIRT booths:
EclipseCon 2007 on March 5-8, 2007 - Santa Clara, CA - http://www.eclipsecon.org/2007/ - 5 long (1 hour) sessions, 6 short (10 mins) sessions, 1 demo/panel, 2 demos, 1 long (3hrs) tutorials, and 3 short (2hr) tutorials allocated to BIRT.
BIRT Articles
The following articles have recently been published on BIRT:
Eclipse Magazine - December 2006 - POJO Access Using BIRT by David Trainor and Jason Weathersby - http://www.eclipsemag.net/
Java Developers Journal - October 2006 - Java Feature: Developing an Eclipse BIRT Report Item Extension by Jason Weathersby; Iana Chatalbasheva; Tom Bondur - http://java.sys-con.com/read/286915.htm
Eclipse Magazine - September 2006 - BIRT Reporting Interactivity by David Trainor and Jason Weathersby - http://www.eclipsemag.net/
Eclipse Magazine - August 2006 - Using BIRT 2.1 for Embedded Reporting by Jason Weathersby - http://www.eclipsemag.net/
ONJava - July 26, 2006 - Deploying BIRT by Jason Weathersby - http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2006/07/26/deploying-birt.html
Eclipse Review Magazine - Spring 2006 - Business Intelligence And Reporting Tools by Jason Weathersby and Krishna Venkatraman - http://www.eclipsereview.com/issues/eclipsereview_200606.pdf