The ASF question, again.

[Chris J. Davis]

There was more discussion on IRC today about becoming an ASF incubator
project.

In a nutshell, Owen brought up the topic of creating an LLC for
Habari, so that we don't have people paying for things anymore, which
is A GOOD THING (tm), which prompted the question from the peanut
gallery, if we would be better served to apply to the ASF to become a
project.

The advantages of this are many and varied, but in light of our
current discussions we would be provided with all of the hosting, bug
tracking, source control, etc services we need maintained by very
smart people, who are not the Habari PMC... mostly (Full disclosure I
am part of the ASF infrastructure team).

Also, we would have access to a well established legal entity with a
wealth of experience in navigating the waters of licenses,
conferences, etc. I know we are also talking about putting together a
small habari conference thingy, and being part of the ASF would help
this as well since we would have access to people who have been doing
this very thing for 10 years or more.

I would like to gauge the feeling/interest of the community on this
topic now that we have a bit more growth under our belt.

Anyone like to comment?

Chris J. Davis

[Chris Meller]

I didn't much follow the LLC discussion, but what value would that in itself provide? It's not as if the LLC would have a bank account filled with monies to pull from, so someone (or multiple someones) would still end up paying for things, even if they were under the "umbrella" of the LLC.

Can someone review the conditions / qualifications / etc. for ASF incubation again, so we're all clear on what would be required?

[Caius Durling]

On 14 Apr 2009, at 18:41, Chris J. Davis wrote:

There was more discussion on IRC today about becoming an ASF incubator  
project.

The only concern I'd have is if it introduces any more "red tape" into our community. Have to jump through more hoops to commit code, etc.

I guess as we started off with an idea we'd *possibly* be applying to the ASF one day we're already doing stuff inline with what they'd expect to accept us though.

I guess I'm not too concerned as long as it doesn't introduce more bureaucracy into the project—having help with stuff like hosting would be very cool however.

C

---

Caius Durling

ca...@caius.name

+44 (0) 7960 268 100

http://caius.name/

[Rich Bowen]

On Apr 14, 2009, at 13:41, Chris J. Davis wrote:

>
> There was more discussion on IRC today about becoming an ASF incubator
> project.

...

> Anyone like to comment?

Naturally, I'm biased, being an ASF member for going on 8 years now,
and a member of both the Apache Web Server PMC and the ApacheCon PMC.
The advantages are many, although, in all honesty, one hopes to never
have to take advantage of many of them (the legal protection ones).

The ticket tracking solution is a different kind of annoying than the
one we have - all ticket trackers suck. The choice would be JIRA and
Bugzilla.

The incubator process should be relatively easy. There are two
requirements of incubation. 1) Unencumbered code and 2) Diverse
community.

1) Unencumbered code means that the entire code base can be licensed
under ASL2.0 without violating anybody's IP. We've been careful with
this, and resisted non-ASL code being introduced. We can clear this
one very quickly.

2) Diverse community is defined as "not more than a third of the
committers work at any one company." I'm not aware that any two
committers are at the same company. When we started, two of us worked
for Asbury College, which was half. Neither one of us does any more,
and the committer pool has grown. We're good here, too.

Someone (an ASF member) would need to be the sponsor of the project.
That would most obviously be me.

--
"Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile
high.
How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I
read them." -- Arnold Lobel

[Chris J. Davis]

The only red tape that would be imposed on the project would be the release procedure.

It requires two votes from the incubator PMC to do a release while in incubation. Once we become a TLP we make those decisions just as we always have.

[Ali B.]

To be frank, I have no idea what LLC is. Well I do know what it stands for, but how is becoming an LLC would actually cover the expenses? Does it mean letting people donate? Something else?

As for becoming an ASF incubation project. I do have mixed feelings about it. Although I do tend to like the idea in genenral. Indeed, having the project under the umbrella of an establishement like the ASF is great. On the other hand, I am concernd about the technical limitation which that might present. The option between two, rather painless and least-usable, bug trackers is just one.

I'd be thankful if someone can share with us (or link to) some littrature that puts more details into what it's like to be in an ASF incubator.

 
Ali B. / dmondark
http://awhitebox.com

[Scott Merrill]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Chris Meller <ch...@doesnthaveone.com> wrote:
> I didn't much follow the LLC discussion, but what value would that in itself
> provide? It's not as if the LLC would have a bank account filled with monies
> to pull from, so someone (or multiple someones) would still end up paying
> for things, even if they were under the "umbrella" of the LLC.

In theory, if someone were to approach Habari saying "You stole all
the code from proprietary Secret Project X", we would have a hard time
defending ourselves. An LLC would, in theory, be able to better retain
legal counsel and execute a defense.

I'm sure there are other benefits, but the above is what I've
understood to be one of the biggest.

> Can someone review the conditions / qualifications / etc. for ASF incubation
> again, so we're all clear on what would be required?

How:
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html

Who:
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html

When:
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Process_Description.html

Entry Guides:
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/index.html

I'm generally agreeable to the idea of incubation. Some small pain in
transition and learning new tools would be a fair trade in exchange
for being relieved of infrastructure responsibility, improved
marketing capacity, and an increased sense of legitimacy in the eyes
of the general public.

[Chris Meller]

So we all seem to be generally in favor of incubation and unsure of the potential value of an LLC... Where do we go from here?

[Chris J. Davis]

We need to take a vote, one that is open to the community. If the outcome of that vote is to move forward with incubation then we need to write a proposal thingy as outlined in the How link that skippy provided.

Once we have the proposal ready we submit it to the ASF and wait for them to approve us.

So, I will call the vote. Since this is an extremely important decision in the life of our community I would suggest a 36 hour window for voting. As with all votes the only binding votes are those of the PMC, but all community members are encouraged to vote so that we (the PMC) can know how you feel. Knowing this will help us make an informed decision.

Do I have +1's from the PMC for opening the vote?

[Chris Meller]

ASF incubation seems to offer a number of potential benefits and no obvious detriments, so I'll go +1.

[Rich Bowen]

+1 from me. 

--

Rich Bowen

[Rich Bowen]

On Apr 14, 2009, at 13:49, Caius Durling wrote:

On 14 Apr 2009, at 18:41, Chris J. Davis wrote:

There was more discussion on IRC today about becoming an ASF incubator  
project.

The only concern I'd have is if it introduces any more "red tape" into our community. Have to jump through more hoops to commit code, etc.

No, it doesn't. You still type 'svn commit' just like usual.

I guess as we started off with an idea we'd *possibly* be applying to the ASF one day we're already doing stuff inline with what they'd expect to accept us though.

I guess I'm not too concerned as long as it doesn't introduce more bureaucracy into the project—having help with stuff like hosting would be very cool however.

The extra bureaucracy is that the PMC chairman (something we don't currently have) would have to submit quarterly reports to the Board of Directors - something that's probably a really good idea anyways.

--

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important. (Eugene McCarthy)

[Chris Meller]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote:

On Apr 14, 2009, at 13:49, Caius Durling wrote:

<snip>

I guess I'm not too concerned as long as it doesn't introduce more bureaucracy into the project—having help with stuff like hosting would be very cool however.

The extra bureaucracy is that the PMC chairman (something we don't currently have) would have to submit quarterly reports to the Board of Directors - something that's probably a really good idea anyways.

There are also more formal release procedures, which would also help us.

[Sean T Evans]

I seem to recall that one of the concerns raised previously was with the
release cycle rules for an incubator project. In light of A) the current
time span between releases as is, and B) the loose consensus that we
didn't handle the 0.6 one as cleanly as we'd like; I think those issues
are minor. I'm willing to +1 opening a general vote, with the
observation that, as this is a major change, I don't feel that 36 hours
is sufficient. I'd like to see at least 72 hours, and preferably a full
week so that everyone involved has time to do a little more research and
raise any final questions. For some people, the work week doesn't offer
sufficient time for this, so spanning a weekend would be favorable in my
opinion.

[Arthus Erea]

I'm a little worried about the PMC chairman idea.

As I've always understood it, the PMC is entirely equal in every respect. No single PMC member has greater authority than others.

Would ASF incubation force us to change this, giving one PMC member greater authority?

If we need to have a "figurehead" chairman, I'm okay with that. But I'd like to think that person is only chairman when it comes to coordination with ASF — within Habari itself, I don't think we should elevate someone.

Also, would ASF incubation change the policy of how people are added (or removed) from the PMC? I'd really like for someone to nail down a concrete page (maybe on the wiki) of:

I. What ASF incubation is

II. What it gives us

III. What it requires

IV. What we must change

[Chris Meller]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Sean T Evans <se...@morydd.net> wrote:

<snip>

I seem to recall that one of the concerns raised previously was with the
release cycle rules for an incubator project. In light of A) the current
time span between releases as is, and B) the loose consensus that we
didn't handle the 0.6 one as cleanly as we'd like; I think those issues
are minor. I'm willing to +1 opening a general vote, with the
observation that, as this is a major change, I don't feel that 36 hours
is sufficient. I'd like to see at least 72 hours, and preferably a full
week so that everyone involved has time to do a little more research and
raise any final questions. For some people, the work week doesn't offer
sufficient time for this, so spanning a weekend would be favorable in my
opinion.

We've been discussing it on IRC, and there's certainly no reason we couldn't put a final decision on hold while we get any questions we may have answered. If anyone has specific questions, please try and make them into a list so we have a specific set of items to address.

Expanding to a week seems to be fine with everyone. It's more important that we get questions and concerns taken care of than that we stick to some specific timeline.

[Chris J. Davis]

I am in favor of a longer timeline, but not one so absurd that it
would destroy the sense of immediacy and importance this subject
should have. So, a week is great. 2 months? Not really :)

[Scott Merrill]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Arthus Erea <arthu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a little worried about the PMC chairman idea.
> As I've always understood it, the PMC is entirely equal in every respect. No
> single PMC member has greater authority than others.

I don't see a PMC chairman mentioned in the Incubation docs. I see an
Incubator Chairman:
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html#Chair+of+the+Incubator+PMC

Chair of the Incubator PMC
The person appointed by the Board to have primary responsibility for
oversight of the Incubator Project, its policies, and policy
implementation.

See the rest of this:
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html

> Would ASF incubation force us to change this, giving one PMC member greater
> authority?

Not at all.

It would give someone within the ASF proper with some authority over
us, to ensure we're doing things by the book. It would not create a
new power structure. It's primarily an issue of someone taking
responsibility for the boring task(s) of documentation and reporting.

> Also, would ASF incubation change the policy of how people are added (or
> removed) from the PMC?

I think this document might help:
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/ppmc.html
Specifically the "Voting in a new committer" section.

I'd really like for someone to nail down a concrete
> page (maybe on the wiki) of:
> I. What ASF incubation is
> II. What it gives us
> III. What it requires
> IV. What we must change

You have access to the wiki! Start the page you want to see, and fill
it in with the information you currently possess. Link the page here,
and we can all fill in the missing pieces, as well as ask our own
questions. ;)

Cheers,
Scott

[Chris J. Davis]

The "Chairman" is simply someone who is responsible for being the connector between our community and the larger ASF community.

To use an example from my Church (please bear with me if you are not "religious") the chairman is akin to the Primate (head) of an Orthodox Church. The Primate is a bishop who is elected by all the other bishops to represent them and the church. They have no power that is not given to them by the other bishops and as such they are not in "Charge".

That being said when there is a question that needs to be answered outside of the church it is the Primate who answers... after taking counsel with the other bishops.

This is how the Chairman would work in the Habari community. We the PMC would elect someone to represent us to the ASF. It should be someone whom we all respect and whom we think exemplifies the spirit of Habari.

I hope that makes sense.

[Ali B.]

I'm in favor of expanding this vote window to a week. I'd like to have a good read of the above linked articles and some more.

Ali B. / dmondark
http://awhitebox.com

[Scott Merrill]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Ali B. <dmon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm in favor of expanding this vote window to a week. I'd like to have a
> good read of the above linked articles and some more.

I don't think anyone's going to be against extending the duration of
this to one week. So let's just all agree that the vote deadline has
been pushed back to Wednesday, April 22.

Please read the Apache Incubator documentation, as well as info about
what it means to be a top-level Apache project, should we get accepted
and eventually graduate.

[Arthus Erea]

I have created a wiki page to summarize what entering ASF incubation
means.

http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/ASF_Incubation

Please add additional information or questions. If you have the answer
to a question, answer it in the appropriate section and delete the
question.

[Christian Mohn (h0bbel)]

Why delete the question? I proper Q: A: Would be easier to read?

[Arthus Erea]

Well, I planned to integrate the answer into the text of the article
but either way is fine.

[Andy C]

From the Wiki page but replying here so people will actually read
it...

'The primary benefit of entering into ASF incubation is having the
expertise and recognition of the Apache Software Project behind us.'

OK - so I've heard of Apache but I've also heard of Wordpress.
Precisely what does the Habari community gain from this wealth of
'expertise and recognition' - experienced developers willing to
contribute or a couple of referrers from apache.org.

'The primary manifestation of this benefit is having solid legal
ground to defend against intellectual property and other claims.'

And the Habari blogging platform is so important,, so significant and
so massive that we anticipate a lot of legal claims and corporate law
suits that could somehow threaten the project's existence.

Just for the record, how many law suits have been files against the
habari project thus far ?

'If accepted into incubation, Habari shall become Apache Habari. '

Dislike. Strongly dislike.

On Apr 15, 11:32 pm, Arthus Erea <arthus.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I planned to integrate the answer into the text of the article  
> but either way is fine.
>
> On Apr 15, 2009, at 6:24 PM, Christian Mohn (h0bbel) wrote:
>
>
>
> > Why delete the question? I proper Q: A: Would be easier to read?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: habari...@googlegroups.com [mailto:habari...@googlegroups.com
> > ]
> > On Behalf Of Arthus Erea
> > Sent: 16. april 2009 00:21
> > To: habari...@googlegroups.com
> > Subject: [habari-users] Re: The ASF question, again.
>
> > I have created a wiki page to summarize what entering ASF incubation
> > means.
>
> >http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/ASF_Incubation
>
> > Please add additional information or questions. If you have the answer
> > to a question, answer it in the appropriate section and delete the
> > question.
>
> > On Apr 15, 2009, at 5:47 PM, Scott Merrill wrote:
>

[Ali B.]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Arthus Erea <arthu...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have created a wiki page to summarize what entering ASF incubation
means.

http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/ASF_Incubation

A list of very good questions has developed in the linked Wiki page. Most of which are major concerns.

Few of us are familiar with the ASF internals, language and the incubation process. Can you guys please bare with us and help clarify these issues? :)

[Andy C]

Just when Habari should have been capitalising on the 0.6 release
after 15 months of (perceived) inactivity from potential users and
sparking interest from potential contributors for 0.7 with a focus on
theming (and taxonomy), we now find ourselves discussing ASF
incubation.

Surely this would be more appropriate as we approach 0.9 RC3 ?

If we ever do.

On Apr 16, 1:55 am, "Ali B." <dmond...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Rich Bowen]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 17:31, Arthus Erea wrote:

> I'm a little worried about the PMC chairman idea.
>
> As I've always understood it, the PMC is entirely equal in every
> respect. No single PMC member has greater authority than others.
>
> Would ASF incubation force us to change this, giving one PMC member
> greater authority?

No. The PMC chair does not have greater authority. They merely have
the responsibility to produce a report. Thing "secretary" rather than
"king".

Technical decisions are still made by full committee.

>
> If we need to have a "figurehead" chairman, I'm okay with that. But
> I'd like to think that person is only chairman when it comes to
> coordination with ASF — within Habari itself, I don't think we
> should elevate someone.

That's correct. That's how it works.

>
> Also, would ASF incubation change the policy of how people are added
> (or removed) from the PMC? I'd really like for someone to nail down
> a concrete page (maybe on the wiki) of:
> I. What ASF incubation is
> II. What it gives us
> III. What it requires
> IV. What we must change

Skippy posted a pretty good list of links that answer all of these.

--
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean
you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
Edward R. Murrow

[Rich Bowen]

'The primary manifestation of this benefit is having solid legal
ground to defend against intellectual property and other claims.'

And the Habari blogging platform is so important,, so significant and
so massive that we anticipate a lot of legal claims and corporate law
suits that could somehow threaten the project's existence.

Just for the record, how many law suits have been files against the
habari project thus far ?

Just for the record, how many law suits do you think it would take before you lost your savings? One would do it for me.

Perhaps you misunderstand how law suits work. They don't need to be justified, or even sane. Anybody can file a legal claim about any product, at any time, claiming that it caused loss of income, or gave them heartburn.

It's not about threatening the project's existence. It's about personal liability for those claims. At the moment, we, the committers, are personally liable for those claims.

Yeah, this happens.

'If accepted into incubation, Habari shall become Apache Habari. '

Dislike. Strongly dislike.

Meh. Nobody cares about this. Did you see the article about Hadoop in the Washington Post last month? A few people on the Public Relations Committee got their panties in a wad about "it should be Apache Hadoop." Everyone else told them to get a life, and got back to things that matter.

So, sure, officially, it would be "Apache Habari", much like "Microsoft Excel" or "Adobe Acrobat", but everyone will continue to refer to the product however they choose to, and it's really not a big deal. Seems a very minor thing to get uptight about.

--

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

H. L. Mencken

[Arthus Erea]

I think those are poor examples to prove your point. For one, those
are both products of the respective companies. I'm not sure we want to
be the product of Apache.

Microsoft Excel is inextricably tied to Microsoft. Sentiments towards
Microsoft affect sentiments towards Excel.

I'm not sure we want to take on the liability of sentiments towards
Apache negatively affecting us.

[Sean T Evans]

Andy C wrote:
>
> 'The primary manifestation of this benefit is having solid legal
> ground to defend against intellectual property and other claims.'
>
> And the Habari blogging platform is so important,, so significant and
> so massive that we anticipate a lot of legal claims and corporate law
> suits that could somehow threaten the project's existence.
>

It would only take one. Lawyers are expensive.

[Andy C]

If Habari continues to preserve its current legal status, who would be
liable for any law suit lodged tomorrow - Owen, you, me, Matt, all of
us, who ?

Seriously, who ?

[Rich Bowen]

Not a simple question, but the simple answer is, whoever someone chose
to name in a lawsuit. The most visible folks are probably the four of
us that started it, but other people become more (and less) visible
over time, so that list could go from one person to the entire
committer pool to the person who gave bad advice on the users@ list.

--
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
Oscar Levant

[Scott Merrill]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Andy C <andy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just when Habari should have been capitalising on the 0.6 release
> after 15 months of (perceived) inactivity from potential users and
> sparking interest from potential contributors for 0.7 with a focus on
> theming (and taxonomy), we now find ourselves discussing ASF
> incubation.

I don't think discussing -- and even applying for -- incubation is
necessarily contrary to continued advocacy of our current product; nor
does it mean all development will cease for the duration of such
discussions. We can mull over the ramifications of incubation while
still working on taxonomy issues, and continuing to make incremental
improvements to the 0.6 release.

> Surely this would be more appropriate as we approach 0.9 RC3 ?
>
> If we ever do.

No small part of the delay in releasing 0.6 was on-going discussion
about what constitutes a new release. We kind of flounder through this
every time. Incubation in the ASF would help us better define our
release policies and procedures.

Yes, we absolutely could define our release policies better right now,
without the ASF. I think another benefit to ASF incubation would be a
relatively neutral third party who could say "Hey guys, it's been
awhile. Do you have a new release ready?" We sometimes lose the forest
for the trees, and an Incubation sponsor might help us reclaim some
better perspective.

Or maybe not.

Cheers,
Scott

[Rich Bowen]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 21:02, Andy C wrote:

> Just when Habari should have been capitalising on the 0.6 release
> after 15 months of (perceived) inactivity from potential users and
> sparking interest from potential contributors for 0.7 with a focus on
> theming (and taxonomy), we now find ourselves discussing ASF
> incubation.

I'm unclear why these things are mutually exclusive. We are capable of
having multiple conversations at once.

--
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few
of us left.
Oscar Levant

[ringmaster]

Below is a pasting of a discussion thread taken from the Habari
private message list a while back. Sean (Morydd) had assembled it
from his archives of that list.

For the sake of privacy, he has tried to eliminate all names and
replace them with letters, using consistent letters for the same
individual. Obviously due to what is said, and the fact that our
writing voices are known within the community, this isn't a guarantee
of anonymity. Posts are numbered, and where a reply is to a post other
than the one previous, he has labeled that. Hopefully it's easy enough
to follow.

The PMC elected to release this discussion to the public mailing list,
so that those old points could be reviewed.

Owen

-----------------------------

[Post: 1] [Author A]
I had an epiphany this morning. As long as we're discussing moving SVN
to somewhere else (yeah, I know, I'm getting in on the conversation
rather late) is it perhaps time to talk about entering the ASF
incubator? This would give us SVN, bug tracking, mailing list, web
hosting ... as well as all the community, legal, infrastructure, and
governance benefits of the ASF. On the negative side, of course, it
gives us all that stuff. It's not something to be leapt into casually.
I would, of course, be the "champion" of the project.

Please don't casually +1 this if you don't understand what I'm talking
about. It's not a small thing.

===
[Post 2] [Author B]
Can you give us more information on what this would mean long-term for
Habari, both the code and the Community. Are we trading one set of
rules (Google's) for another (Apache's). It sounds like they're giving
a lot to the project. What are we expected to give back to their
community?

===
[Post 3] [Author A]
We've discussed in a sort of "wouldn't it be neat some day" kind of
way, since the beginning of the project, being part of The Apache
Software Foundation. But it hasn't been done very explicitly on the
public list. This hasn't been so much about hiding the fact that we're
thinking about it, as about my own personal desire to not have folks
think that I'm railroading it through. But, for the most part, I've
had positive reactions to the notion.

What we get from the community is the stuff I've outlined above. And,
yes, there are quite a lot of rules. And in particular, EVERYTHING
that we release must be ASL2. We can't release bits of it under other
licenses, or dual licenses, or any combination thereof.

What we're expected to give back to the ASF is to be part of the
community. Exactly what that means will vary greatly from one
individual to another, and from one project to another. Some projects
are highly involved in the foundation as a whole, such as the HTTP
Server project, but this tends to be because we've been there since
the beginning.

I think it's safe to say that we gain an awful lot, and the cost is
low. However, the incubation process tends to be somewhat lengthy.
What we have going in our favor is that we've been ASL since day one,
and we have a full record of all of our commits from the beginning, so
there should be absolutely no surprises in the legal "can we release
this code" department. The other aspect of incubation is the health of
the community, and the diversity of the community, where "diversity"
is defined as "no one company comprises half of the committer base".
We're good on these counts, I think.

One objection that we're sure to hear is "we've already got one."
Roller is a Java-based blogging package that is already an ASF
project. Officially, though, "we've already got one" isn't a valid
objection. Diversity of projects in the same problem space benefits
everyone. But we'll hear the objection.

Participation in the ASF community is an evolutionary thing. Over time
a project begins to participate in ApacheCon, or become members and so
participate in governance. This takes time.

===
[Post 4] [Author C]
Would we have to remove the Blueprint CSS Framework and jQuery? (since
both are MIT licensed)

Of course, we could ask for a special license, but what are the
chances of that happening?

I like the idea, but as you said [A], the process is lengthy.

Which softwares would be put to our disposal? (e.g: tracker, mailing
list, forums?)

===
[Post 5] [Author A]
> > Would we have to remove the Blueprint CSS Framework and jQuery? (since both are MIT licensed)

I don't actually know. I think that MIT licensed stuff is compatible.
I'd have to ask.

> > Of course, we could ask for a special license, but what are the chances of that happening?

Zero. It will never happen. It's not even worth the time to ask.

> > I like the idea, but as you said [A], the process is lengthy.
> >
> > Which softwares would be put to our disposal? (e.g: tracker, mailing list, forums?)

There are two different bug trackers - bugzilla and jira mailing lists
are, I believe, run on ezmlm. forums are not something that are used
in any of the ASF projects I'm aware of. The wiki is svnwiki, I think.
Anyways, it's svn-backed.

===
[Post 6] [Author B]
One of the things that I saw was that projects in the incubator are
not supposed to release without clearance from the Incubator PMC. How
does this affect us?

===
[Post 7] [Author A]
This used to be a significant hurdle. These days, it's just a rubber
stamp. You say, we want to do a release. The PMC says ok, and you do
the release.
Given how long it takes us to do a release anyways, I can't imagine
that this would be a significant stumbling block.

===
[Post 8 in reply to Post 3] [Author D]
> > We've discussed in a sort of "wouldn't it be neat some day" kind of way, since the beginning of the project, being part of The Apache Software Foundation. But it hasn't been done very explicitly on the public list. This hasn't been so much about hiding the fact that we're thinking about it, as about my own personal desire to not have folks think that I'm railroading it through. But, for the most part, I've had positive reactions to the notion.

I think it's worth moving this conversation to -dev and -users, so
that we can solicit the community's opinion of the issue. I remember
that Doug Stewart once expressed concern about ASF membership, but his
opinion seemed poorly informed. I'd like to get other folks'
opinions.

> > What we get from the community is the stuff I've outlined above. And, yes, there are quite a lot of rules. And in particular, EVERYTHING that we release must be ASL2. We can't release bits of it under other licenses, or dual licenses, or any combination thereof.

We currently use MIT licensed code from other projects. This will
need clarification. I am not keen on reinventing all of these
libraries.

> > One objection that we're sure to hear is "we've already got one." Roller is a Java-based blogging package that is already an ASF project. Officially, though, "we've already got one" isn't a valid objection. Diversity of projects in the same problem space benefits everyone. But we'll hear the objection.

Roller seems to target a different user than Habari. I'm not overly
worried about this complaint.

> > Participation in the ASF community is an evolutionary thing. Over time a project begins to participate in ApacheCon, or become members and so participate in governance. This takes time.

In a general sense, I'm +1 on the idea of applying for incubation. I
think it will help provide a greater sense of legitimacy to our
project with those people who still see us as a reaction to WordPress.
Moreover, participation the ASF will (or should) demonstrate that our
"cabal" is not a private clique, nor that we are subject to the same
long-term governance problems that other projects face.

I am worried about the licensing issue, particularly; and I'm
marginally concerned about whether or not we can ever actually
graduate from incubation.

Are we obligated to use ASF-provided resources? Certainly we'd want
their SVN and mailing lists; but do we need to use their wiki? Could
we continue to use the MediaWiki installation on habariproject.org?
Does the ASF provide us with adequate web and database capacity such
that we could run our own forum?

I think it's worth moving this conversation to -dev and -users, so
that we can solicit the community's opinion of the issue. I remember
that Doug Stewart once expressed concern about ASF membership, but his
opinion seemed poorly informed. I'd like to get other folks'
opinions.

We currently use MIT licensed code from other projects. This will
need clarification. I am not keen on reinventing all of these
libraries.

===
[Post 9] [Author A]
> > I think it's worth moving this conversation to -dev and -users, so that we can solicit the community's opinion of the issue. I remember that Doug Stewart once expressed concern about ASF membership, but his opinion seemed poorly informed. I'd like to get other folks' opinions.

+1, I think. And, we do absolutely need the buy-in of the community
before this could work.

> > I am worried about the licensing issue, particularly; and I'm marginally concerned about whether or not we can ever actually graduate from incubation.

Things do eventually graduate. The first stuff that went through had a
very hard time of it, but from what I'm told, the kinks have been
worked out and things are much more smooth than they once were.

> > Are we obligated to use ASF-provided resources? Certainly we'd want their SVN and mailing lists; but do we need to use their wiki? Could we continue to use the MediaWiki installation on habariproject.org? Does the ASF provide us with adequate web and database capacity such that we could run our own forum?

We are obliged to use ASF resources, unless there is a compelling
reason to use some resource that the ASF does not provide. There is
generally resistance to projects running their own infra off of the
ASF hardware, but I'm not sure 1) the reasons given for this or 2) the
resolutions to those situations. I have not kept up on the incubator
mailing list for the last year or so. These are questions that we
would need to ask prior to committing to this course of action.

===
[Post 10] [Author B]
I propose a vote on presenting this to -user and -dev (probably most
sensible to announce it on both, but ask that discussion be on one or
the other.) I think if the PMC doesn't have enough support to carry
it, there's no point in presenting it to the community at large.
However this is much too large a decision to not get feedback sooner
rather than later.

For the record, I'm +1 on moving the discussion to -user/-dev.If
desired, I'll write up a summary of what we've discussed so far and
submit a draft to this list for presentation to the public lists.

===
[Post 11] [Author D]
I'm +1 on taking this discussion to the public lists.

===
[Post 12] [Author E]
+1 as well on taking it to the list, as well as [B] writing something
up for presentation.

===
[Post 13] [Author F]
+1 to bringing it to the list, also. From what I've read, I think
there are quite a few good reasons to join, and I'm having a hard time
seeing any reasons -not- to join.

===
[Post 14 in reply to post 10] [Author G]
I too am +1 for taking this to discussion groups, though I'd suggest
one list or the other, so the discussion doesn't get fractioned. I
think moving it to a list would allow for better understanding of the
process for everyone, as new questions others might not think to ask
are brought up.

===
[Post 15] [Author A]
It belongs on the -dev list, not on the -users list.

===
[Post 16 in reply to Post 14] [Author H]
Go ahead and say something on the public lists if you like, but I
thought I would mention now that while I'm not actively against it,
I'm currently leery of the result of Apache incubation.

Should I hold my thoughts until this hits the public list, or do you
want to hear them now so I can be persuaded to agree with the rest of
the PMC?

===
[Post 17] [Author D]
Spill the beans, [H].

===
[Post 18] [Author H]
I'll preface this with the thought that bringing Habari under the ASF
umbrella has been in my thoughts since we started the project, and
I've always considered it a good idea. Also, as I said before, I'm
not against the idea, but I think we really need to clarify some
issues before we go through the effort. It may be simply an issue of
me not understanding how Apache will be involved, but I think it's
important to know the answer to those questions before continuing, if
not for our own peace of mind, then to be able to answer questions
when our community poses them to us when this goes public.

The original suggestion in this thread was that since we are
considering abandoning Google Code for something that works with our
project better, we ought to consider Apache incubation so that we can
make use of those resources. This is a good idea, but it leaves me
asking whether we would be joining Apache for the tools they offer or
for the community/license/support.

Looking at the infrastructure available as an Apache podling, I must
say that I'm not impressed by the tools. We like to say that we're
using the cutting edge technology for a reason, and I do see some
reason to stick with solid development tools, but I don't see anything
special in what the ASF offers in this regard. For example, to what
extent will we be able to integrate our site with our subversion
repositories? How will the repos on ASF servers be affected by our
desire for -contribs section in the main repository? What tools will
be be forced to use because they are the ASF-provided ones, and will
we be caught in a situation like we already are in Google Code, where
the public, unregistered/unauthenticate community is limited in
participation? To what extent will our branding and promotion
(including the habariproject.org site) be affected by what Apache
requires? Will the ASF infrastructure allow us to follow through on
the unique user-support ideas that we've discussed?

I'm already disenchanted with what few notions I've read concerning
the involvement of the ASF in the project. The incubator PMC needs to
approve releases? Rubber stamp or not, it seems to me that Habari is
not their project (they've earned no merit in our community) to be
making even rubber-stamp decisions about our software. I suppose that
this is a process to prevent projects from being released with the
Apache name on them without approval, but I gotta say, I don't really
like the sound of "Apache Habari" either, which is a branding
requirement.

There are a couple of other simple technical quibbles. First, we
never really formalized our voting procedure for issues; what requires
a vote, and what is required to pass a vote. I think it's actually
better that we *don't* do this if we want to incubate, because I
foresee conflict with how we would prefer to vote and the Apache model
of voting (at least in the area of number of required votes). As with
building our software from the ground up where we've had the
opportunity to eschew the chaff of legacy considerations, we also see
how a voting system might be enacted and what might best fit our
community, rather than what Apache provides. That's not to say that
Apache isn't good or doesn't work, just that if we don't go the ASF
incubator route, that enables us to have the opportunity to take the
best parts of it and own it, rather than take on a process that has
governed Apache for a while and could be difficult to react to change.

Also, I think that our project is not quite technically mature enough
to start with incubation. We're focusing much of our effort now on
creating a working system. Adjusting our priorities to fit any needs
that ASF incubation might require would be a distraction to that goal
right now. One of the great benefits of ASF incubation would
presumably be greater exposure to people who could help complete the
software, which might offset that, but that brings me to my next point
about having the correct people for our project.

We've been very inclusive, I think, but only of people who understand
the value of our project and are willing to continue those concepts
with their contributions. So far, this has worked out well for us. I
wonder if we're missing out on a larger community, one that might be
available to us by Apache incubation, but I find I don't really care
about that right now -- I like the way things are, I like the
direction we've been heading, I like the rate at which our membership/
community has been growing without Apache, and I think that going
through the incubation process isn't going to be as beneficial to us
as we originally thought when we started out, perhaps not even enough
to be worth doing it.

I've been operating under an assumption that having the Apache name
attached to our project would be a positive thing, and I still think
that the Apache name imparts prestige, but in really thinking about
why we would want to do this I can't come up with any other reason
that I find appealing. Looking through the incubator documentation
online, I see that most of it is about Apache bringing in projects
that it wants to include, and not about why a project might want to be
a part of Apache - the real benefits to a project. So why is it
really that would we do this?

Anyway, I can probably be convinced out of any of this fairly easily,
but I didn't see anyone making many significant concern known before
going to the public lists with this, and I think that if enough of our
own committers really consider what this means, what's entailed, and
what benefits we expect to get out of it, we may be able to save
ourselves some trouble figuring out that we don't want this later down
the line. Or I may be totally nuts, but I still think it's important
to think about this rather than say +1 to an idea that sounds good on
the surface.

===
[Post 19] [Author D]
> > The original suggestion in this thread was that since we are considering abandoning Google Code for something that works with our project better, we ought to consider Apache incubation so that we can make use of those resources. This is a good idea, but it leaves me asking whether we would be joining Apache for the tools they offer or for the community/license/support.

Licensing and legal support are non-trivial. I like the idea of an
organization with sufficiently more experience than we have being
stewards of the legal status of our project.

> > To what extent will our branding and promotion (including the habariproject.org site) be affected by what Apache requires?

Good question. The Incubation documents say we need to use the URL
http://incubator.apache.org/habari, and store our website in SVN.

It's not entirely clear whether we can use the Incubator site for
development-specific info, while still using habariproject.org for our
"public" interface to end users.

> > I'm already disenchanted with what few notions I've read concerning the involvement of the ASF in the project. The incubator PMC needs to approve releases? Rubber stamp or not, it seems to me that Habari is not their project (they've earned no merit in our community) to be making even rubber-stamp decisions about our software. I suppose that this is a process to prevent projects from being released with the Apache name on them without approval, but I gotta say, I don't really like the sound of "Apache Habari" either, which is a branding requirement.

I don't object to the Incubation group approving our releases during
incubation. It's a reasonable measure of due-diligence and oversight
for a project of (originally) unknown quality.

Apache Habari does not have a lot of ring to it, though.

> > I've been operating under an assumption that having the Apache name attached to our project would be a positive thing, and I still think that the Apache name imparts prestige, but in really thinking about why we would want to do this I can't come up with any other reason that I find appealing. Looking through the incubator documentation online, I see that most of it is about Apache bringing in projects that it wants to include, and not about why a project might want to be a part of Apache - the real benefits to a project. So why is it really that would we do this?

We've managed to bootstrap our project pretty well, and I think we
have a good foundation upon which to build. We don't, strictly
speaking, need to go through the Apache Incubator.

I still think it's a good idea to consider, though. It shields the
project legally from code contributions which we ought not accept. It
provides some formal body of stability for governance, which we
currently lack. If we all have a major falling out, the project could
languish.

Is that sufficient to justify incubation? I honestly don't know.

===
[Post 20] [Author H]
> > Licensing and legal support are non-trivial. I like the idea of an organization with sufficiently more experience than we have being stewards of the legal status of our project.

I agree that these are non-trivial, and find it astonishing that there
isn't an organization devoted to that aspect of free software in the
general sense without trying to push their own licensing agenda.

> > I don't object to the Incubation group approving our releases during incubation. It's a reasonable measure of due-diligence and oversight for a project of (originally) unknown quality.

I would feel fine about that if that was the case, but whether it's
how I imagine it or not, I do imagine a guy standing at the door of
our project checking the stamps on all the boxes going out without
actually looking in the room (or box) to see what's going on. What's
the point?

> > I still think it's a good idea to consider, though. It shields the project legally from code contributions which we ought not accept. It provides some formal body of stability for governance, which we currently lack. If we all have a major falling out, the project could languish.

> > Is that sufficient to justify incubation? I honestly don't know.

That's the question I've been asking myself about this process. Is
there some way we can better address Habari's needs than throwing in
with Apache? I think we should consider/research that, too, if
possible.

===
[Post 21] [Author A]
> > I agree that these are non-trivial, and find it astonishing that there isn't an organization devoted to that aspect of free software in the general sense without trying to push their own licensing agenda.

This is a simple matter of pragmatism. When you have a standard
license, your law people learn how to deal with it. When you have 20
licenses, they don't.

> > I would feel fine about that if that was the case, but whether it's how I imagine it or not, I do imagine a guy standing at the door of our project checking the stamps on all the boxes going out without actually looking in the room (or box) to see what's going on. What's the point?

I'm not able to figure out the correlation between your box analogy
and approving releases. The folks who would be approving a release
would be following all the mailing lists on the project.

What I'm hearing you, and perhaps other, say, contains a lot of "us
and them" language. If we were to enter the incubator, it would all be
"us".

> > That's the question I've been asking myself about this process. Is there some way we can better address Habari's needs than throwing in with Apache? I think we should consider/research that, too, if possible.

Well, clearly I'm very biased -- I think that the ASF is a great
place, full of great people. It gives us more direct access to experts
in a variety of fields, like HTTP, Atom, SVN, and a variety of other
things, and it gives us their attention. And being part of Apache
gives us a degree of respect that we don't have now.

I suppose, however, that I might should stay out of the conversation,
given that I'm 1) extremely biased, and 2) haven't exactly been an
active participant, and so have a lot less to gain/lose by such a
move.

===
[Post 22] [Author H]
> > This is a simple matter of pragmatism. When you have a standard license, your law people learn how to deal with it. When you have 20 licenses, they don't.

If the case is that we require ASL on every piece of source, then
being a part of Apache will not happen. jQuery is not ASL, and
rewriting it or using some other solution defeats the purpose of
having selected it over those other solutions in the first place. This
is the case with the few non-ASL libraries that we have. Given the
quantity of libraries we've already written from scratch to comply
with the ASL, I find it likely that these are not already ASL-licensed
libraries for good reason.

> > I'm not able to figure out the correlation between your box analogy and approving releases. The folks who would be approving a release would be following all the mailing lists on the project.

If it's a rubber stamp process, then what's the point?

>> > > What I'm hearing you, and perhaps other, say, contains a lot of "us and them" language. If we were to enter the incubator, it would all be "us".

From http://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html : "All
releases by podlings must be approved by the TODO: link IPMC. The
conventional process is for the podling to flow the usual Apache
process (including TODO: link release vote) and then call for a IPMC
VOTE on the TODO: link general incubator list."

It seems to me that the Habari PMC is not who decides whether our own
software is released in this situation. And as I've said, it seems
counter-intuitive to hand release controls over to anyone who has not
demonstrated the merit of them that the ASF espouses.

> > One more remark. Incubation isn't about technical maturity. It's about two things: 1) health of the community - ie, can the community sustain itself. I think we're very solid on this. 2) legality of release. We've been ASL2 from day one, and we have a complete commit/contribution history, so we've got this one solid too.

I was not talking about whether our code is good enough to be accepted
for incubation. Rather, I was talking about whether our continued,
human-limited development efforts are better directed at completing
the software than working on adhering to Apache requirements.

There are also hints in the incubation documentation that a certain
number of releases might be a qualifier for acceptance, though they're
added somewhat as a question in a footnote in the regretfully
incomplete incubator documentation.

===
[Post 23] [Author A]
> > If the case is that we require ASL on every piece of source, then being a part of Apache will not happen. jQuery is not ASL, and rewriting it or using some other solution defeats the purpose of having selected it over those other solutions in the first place. This is the case with the few non-ASL libraries that we have. Given the quantity of libraries we've already written from scratch to comply with the ASL, I find it likely that these are not already ASL-licensed libraries for good reason.

I'm reasonably certain that many, many ASF projects use third-party
libraries which are not ASL licensed.

> > If it's a rubber stamp process, then what's the point?

I'm not sure if you're being intentionally argumentative to make a
point here. Perhaps I can rephrase.

The IPMC will not unreasonably refuse to allow a release. So perhaps
"rubber stamp" was a loaded phrase that I should not have used.
Better?

> > From http://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html : "All releases by podlings must be approved by the TODO: link IPMC. The conventional process is for the podling to flow the usual Apache process (including TODO: link release vote) and then call for a IPMC VOTE on the TODO: link general incubator list."

> > It seems to me that the Habari PMC is not who decides whether our own software is released in this situation. And as I've said, it seems counter-intuitive to hand release controls over to anyone who has not demonstrated the merit of them that the ASF espouses.

This is perhaps the most reasonable objection to the Incubator that
I've ever heard. I have no response to it, other than that the ASF
uses the Incubator to shield itself from accepting projects which
would expose it (the ASF) to legal risks, and so this is a reasonable
precaution. From the perspective of us, Habari, we would be enduring a
temporary inconvenience in exchange for a number of very real
benefits. If those benefits are deemed to not be worth the sacrifices,
then, by all means, let's pursue a different road.

> > There are also hints in the incubation documentation that a certain number of releases might be a qualifier for acceptance, though they're added somewhat as a question in a footnote in the regretfully incomplete incubator documentation.

I've not encountered that as an enforced requirement, but, as I said,
I haven't been following the incubator mailing lists very closely for
the last year or so.

===
[Post 24] [Author H]
> > The IPMC will not unreasonably refuse to allow a release. So perhaps "rubber stamp" was a loaded phrase that I should not have used. Better?

To phrase a better question: What conditions would cause the IPMC to
permit or refuse a release? It seems difficult to me that they could
audit the code for "Apacheness" yet not be as involved as a Habari
PMC, and so I am unable to reason out these conditions.

> > From the perspective of us, Habari, we would be enduring a temporary inconvenience in exchange for a number of very real benefits. If those benefits are deemed to not be worth the sacrifices, then, by all means, let's pursue a different road.

I remain unsure that the benefits are worth the sacrifices.

It's frustrating that I could find little in the incubator
documentation about why a project would want to go through the
process, and what changes it means a project will undergo. Surely
someone has had to convince some other PMC member that it was a good
idea for their project, or am I the only boneheaded holdout in all of
Apache incubator history?

Is it possible to get a review before entering incubation? Maybe talk
with someone from the IPMC about these concerns?

===
[Post 25] [Author A]
> > Is it possible to get a review before entering incubation? Maybe talk with someone from the IPMC about these concerns?

Not only possible but expected, I believe. I can arrange such a
conversation if you like.

===
[Post 26 in reply to Post 18] [Author A]
> > Also, I think that our project is not quite technically mature enough to start with incubation.

One more remark. Incubation isn't about technical maturity. It's about
two things: 1) health of the community - ie, can the community sustain
itself. I think we're very solid on this. 2) legality of release.
We've been ASL2 from day one, and we have a complete commit/
contribution history, so we've got this one solid too.

===
[Post 27 in reply to Post 16] [Author A]
> > Should I hold my thoughts until this hits the public list, or do you want to hear them now so I can be persuaded to agree with the rest of the PMC?

I'd like to hear them now. I tend to think that opening this
discussion to the peanut gallery before we have consensus here is
likely to be a huge waste of time. Please speak up.

===
[Post 28 in reply to Post 1] [Author J]
+1 on taking discussion to the public lists. I haven't any input on
the whole debate though - I really don't know enough about it to have
an opinion....\

===
[Post 29] [Author K]
Same for me, I don't have enough understanding of it but +1 take it to
public mailing list for discussion.

===
[Post 30] [Author B]
Here is a draft post for -user and -dev. I feel (for reason with any
basis in fact) that most of -dev is also subscribed to -user, so it
would be appropriate to make that list the primary discussion point
for this. Please let me know if there is anything I can add or should
remove from this:

There has been some discussion in the past of applying Habari for
inclusion in the Apache Incubator. As we are currently looking at
moving away from Google Code, now would be an appropriate time to make
that transition. You can read more about the Apache Incubator at
http://incubator.apache.org/

The PMC has discussed this issue, and we believe that we need the
input of the Habari Community as a whole to continue that discussion,
let alone come to a decision. There are advantages and disadvantages
to this move, and it will require some careful examination of the long-
term goals and structure of the Habari Project.

Advantages include having a legal entity "own" the code, to protect
the project; guidance in managing the community, including the
userbase, the developers and the PMC; as well as having the support
and resources of the ASF to draw on as we grow.

Disadvantages include having to shift our existing structure (svn,
issues, ect.) to the ASF system, being formally bound to the Apache
License, and requiring approval from the Incubator PMC to release.

Please read the information on the Apache Incubator page, and ask any
questions you may have so that we are able to come to a well-informed
community consensus on this issue. In the interest of keeping this
discussion centralized, please make any responses to the habari-user
mailing list.

===
[Post 31] [Author D]
The draft looks fine, and nails all the salient points.

I encourage cross-posting this to -dev and -user, just to be safe.
Stipulate that all discussion on -dev of this issue is off-topic and
won't get a reply.

===
[Post 32] [Author A]
> > I encourage cross-posting this to -dev and -user, just to be safe. Stipulate that all discussion on -dev of this issue is off-topic and won't get a reply.

Seems backwards to me - this is a discussion for developers, not for
end-users - but I'll defer. I don't suppose it matters all that much
which list it's on.

===
[Post 33] [Author D]
It seems to me a discussion for the community of interested
participants, whether they're developers or not.

We'll be expecting end users to file bugs on whatever issue tracker we
use. It strikes me as a nice thing to do to permit them to express an
opinion on how that ultimately works.

===
[Post 34] [Author C]
+1 to go public

[ringmaster]

On Apr 15, 9:02 pm, Andy C <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just when Habari should have been capitalising on the 0.6 release
> after 15 months of (perceived) inactivity from potential users and
> sparking interest from potential contributors for 0.7 with a focus on
> theming (and taxonomy), we now find ourselves discussing ASF
> incubation.

I'd be happy to see any of the participants in this discussion trade
in as little as 10% of the time they spend on commentary working
towards those goals too. Sadly, although our community encourages and
rewards that behavior, it seems that people who could take that
initiative instead waste their time in meta-discussion, complaining
about the discussion of other potentially positive goals.

Meanwhile, in spite of insinuations of the case being otherwise,
others have continued work on 0.6.1, and it has progressed to the
point where I believe it can be tested for release. I think the
blockers are all fixed, we just need someone to merge to makaanga and
start the test/release process.

Owen

[Sean T Evans]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

About 24 hours remain on this vote, so I figure it's time for a reminder
and for me to kick in my opinion. I've done some reading, and followed
the discussion and here's where I stand on the issue.

The benefits, as they appear to me consist of hosting infrastructure;
guidance and support from an established organization that we, at least
to some extent, are trying to emulate; legal support; and increased
marketing weight via the Apache name.

None of these are negligible, and the legal support is nearly enough, on
its own, to sway my vote in favor of applying. However, I'm seeing a
significant downside to each of the other aspects, and in the end, those
are decisive to me.

Our current hosting, is insufficient to our needs as a growing project,
and is currently funded via the generosity of a single person. That is
something that should change sooner, rather than later. The ASF offers,
as part of what is provided to incubator projects, hosting for
distributions, bug tracking and wiki, as well as our primary site.
However, it appears that in order to take advantage of this, the URLs of
all of our content would have to change, the mailing lists would move,
and wiki editing would be severely restricted. Potentially, submitting
patches would also require much more oversight. Additionally, we would
not be able to host the -extras repository and bug-tracking on ASF's
servers. Not only would this hinder coordination between portions of
this project, but would seem to further build a wall between "core" and
"extras". We also would likely end up facing many of the same issues in
finding hosting for -extras in the long run.

The legal support is, in my mind, the most valuable aspect of what the
ASF offers. In our current state, if someone decided to take an SCO like
tack and claimed that our code was stolen, and had the resources to
pursue it, it would take very little time to undo the work that we have
done. This, of course, is alarmist, worst-case-scenario thinking, but as
we grow, the ownership of our code and its protection will become
increasingly important. The value of having people who know how to
provide that protection is huge. Additionally, as the cost of running
servers and organizing activities, promotions, and events mounts, having
a formal structure in place for accepting, tracking and spending
donations becomes more vital as well. Regardless of the outcome of this
vote, this is something I think requires serious attention in the very
near future.

The support of the Apache community is something that I think would be
valuable, but I'm not convinced that it's something we can't be part of
in other ways that allow us more independence. We already have contacts
within that community, and I think that we could benefit from more
two-way conversation with them. Hopefully members of that community will
help us answer questions about the meritocracy model as they come up
regardless of our status as an incubator project or otherwise.

Finally there is the idea of increased support just from the Apache name
and the marketing that they already have in place. At this stage in our
development, I don't think we need that kind of push yet, but with the
goal of becoming a TLP, when we reach the stage of a 1.0 release, it
could be very valuable. However, attaching the Apache name to Habari,
doesn't benefit us significantly outside the developer community, I
suspect. Those who are familiar with Apache as the server may find it
confusing (and automatically assume that Habari will only run on
Apache), and those who are not familiar with Apache won't perceive any
additional value from that name.

I think may of the things the ASF has to offer an incubator project, and
later a TLP are significant and valuable. But I'm not convinced that the
costs outweigh the benefits at this stage. However, I think this
discussion has pointed out some important areas that we need to examine
as we move forward.

Long story short, I'm voting -1.

- --
Sean T. Evans
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[Blake Johnson]

I find Sean's comments to be very thoughtful. Among his many points, I
think that unless we get approval for some kind solution which allows
us to host -extras within the project, incubation will just make our
product harder to install for most people.

-1

--Blake

[Arthus Erea]

Sean did a good job of articulating many of my objections.

Overall, incubation seems to be characterized by a lack of control.
This is characterized by a lack of control over a) hosting, b) -
extras, c) bug tracking, and d) the wiki.

As a non-binding community member, I vote -1.

[Ali B.]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Blake Johnson <blakejo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I find Sean's comments to be very thoughtful.

[snip]

Indeed.

-1

[rick c]

+0 to apply to become an Apache incubator project.

Even with reading I've done, I still don't feel I know enough.

Server issues would decrease dramatically, and we could concentrate on
Habari, not infrastructure. We would still need to maintain separate
space for -extras and a publicly editable wiki, if I understand things
correctly.

I'm not totally clear of what the status of a plugin/theme repository
would be. Perhaps it could be part of the blog, which the wiki says we
could still maintain (http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/
ASF_Incubation). Since the plugins/themes wouldn't be an official part
of Habari, it seems they wouldn't be a problem, especially since we
would be linking to them from the repository, not hosting them, but
again, that is unclear.

The public relations aspect of being under the Apache umbrella don't
mean a lot to me. I know what the Apache web server is. If I hear the
word 'Apache', generally the server is what I first think of. Some of
the names of other Apache projects I vaguely recognize, but that's it.
Maybe I'm sheltered or illiterate, but to me, that says something
about the power of the name amongst the general populace.

The legal framework we would gain is a huge plus, both for the
protection it could give in the as yet farfetched event of a lawsuit,
and as a way to reasonably deal with finances as the project grows.
The downside is, any framework will bring restrictions. Most notably
here is the need for CLAs from all contributers. I have no problem
with that for myself, but what of users who file a bug report and a
patch to fix it? As I understand it, they would also have to agree to
a CLA. In the worst case scenario, someone who has contributed many
patches to Habari may not do so. Would we have to remove any of their
code that already exists in Habari?

Another positive effect of becoming an Apache incubator project is the
opportunity for 'professional development' (for want of a better
phrase) it brings. We would learn, and experience how mature software
projects are run. Many current members of the PMC are all too familiar
with working on such software projects already. Many of us are not. In
the long run, Habari the software, and those of us who work on it,
would benefit. But the 'community' of which the Habari software is
supposed to be a part would change. I'm not sure that change would be
for the better.

Rick

[Randy Walker]

I'm going to vote -0.5 because I don't fully understand everything but
some of the arguments against it strike a chord with me.

~Randy

[Christian Mohn (h0bbel)]

I'm landing on a solid +0 - Something about it doesn't quite sit right with
me, but still I see the benefits. I'll let the people with stronger opinions
on this decide.

-----Original Message-----
From: habari...@googlegroups.com [mailto:habari...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Randy Walker
Sent: 22. april 2009 08:41
To: habari...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [habari-users] Re: The ASF question, again.