From:
Wayne Beaton <
wayne@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
Tools PMC mailing list <
tools-pmc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
2010/02/08 10:52 PM
Subject:
Re: [tools-pmc] GEF Incubator Proposal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to better understand where the push back is coming from. Anthony, are you concerned that this means more work? Or that the work will be split? Or that it will be confusing for the community? Or confusing for somebody else? I'm having trouble understanding the underlying problem. Sorry.
IMHO, Ian's item #2 is probably one of the best reasons to create an incubator. Unfortunately, being a committer is a binary state on a project: either you have access or you do not. Earlier attempts at finer-grained access have resulted in lots of misery for all involved.
Without the incubator, existing GEF committers will have to work with contributors for any contribution. This takes time away from other important GEF activities, like working on in-plan items.
In the incubator, you can have a different set of committers (which may intersect with the GEF committers) managing off-plan contributions from the community while working on new and innovative ideas. All this, under the supervision of the "parent" GEF project. Some of these contributors can become committers on the incubator and learn the social conventions while they work on their cool new ideas; making these people committers on the incubator will reduce the time requirements from GEF committers (though somebody will have to monitor these new committers to make sure that the development process is followed). This pattern has been followed by numerous mature projects.
I'm thinking of ways that we can make this better. Some thoughts:
1) Change the EDP so that mature projects can designate a portion of their code repository as their "incubator" and allow this portion to have its own set of committers, and leverage parallel IP. This would require significant change to the processes the Foundation has in place; as I go through the mental exercise, it all feels just a little too cumbersome.
2) Relax some of the requirements on (some) projects. There is some minimal project data at needs to be provided via the portal (like description, source code URLs, that sort of thing). Incubators, at least, shouldn't have to have releases. Do they need to have plans? If we reduce the requirements placed on an "incubator" project, does that make creating one more palatable? I've been discussing this in my blog [1] and in bug 300000 [2]
Wayne
[1] _
http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/wayne/2010/01/28/acknowledging-incubators/_
[2] _
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=300000_
Ian Bull wrote:
Actually, while I think making this part of GEF proper
could work, the more I think about it the more an
incubator makes sense.
1. GEF is clearly a mature project in maintenance mode.
Many of the ideas being presented in this proposal stray
well off the beaten path. An incubator will help ensure
that GEF maintains it's current direction in the short
term, with the possibilty of new ideas flowing in down the
road.
2. The people doing the work are (for the most part) not
active committers on other projects. An incubator will
give us a chance to help mentor them.
3. The GEF project, follows a similar plan as the platform
(with respect to schedules, etc...). Forcing new ideas to
follow API freeze rules (for example) will only stiffle
innovation.
We could, if it makes more sense, propose this project
under "Technology". But since this is tied closely to GEF,
a tools project (IMHO) seems appropriate.
cheers,
ian
On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Doug Schaefer