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
<_cdtdoug@gmail.com_