My 2 cents as an outsider, for what it's worth. I have contributed code to VFS and we use VFS in Accumulo. I and several others have asked for a 2.1 release, or at least a plan/roadmap so that we know what has to happen before a release can occur. I even offered to help in any way possible[1]. The answer I received was that a release manager was assigned, but no other information. Since then I have seen a bunch of other commons projects being released. I figure that maybe they are dependencies and need to be released first before a VFS release.
Personally, I would like to remove the VFS objects from Accumulo when VFS 2.1 is released. I know that we are also running into VFS-487, which I spent some time updating the patch and verifying the tests work. I would like to update the HDFS dependency to the latest before the 2.1 release (VFS-530), but I don't know when that is going to happen. I would also like to take advantage of some of the fixes in 2.1, like VFS-500. I understand this is a volunteer organization and everyone is busy. However, from my perspective, you have turned down an offer to help. FWIW, I have thought about taking VFS 2.1-SNAPSHOT, applying the patches I want, and creating a release for use on my project (not Accumulo). [1] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/commons-dev/201406.mbox/%3c423905266.3540581.1402347208157.javamail.r...@comcast.net%3E - Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Gregory" <garydgreg...@gmail.com> To: "Commons Developers List" <dev@commons.apache.org> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2014 7:42:35 AM Subject: RE: [ALL] Do we need help? It feels overwhelming sometimes sure, but for me I just realize that this is just a self inflicted feeling. We are all volunteers here with no contractual or "hard" expectations. We could do better at managing expectations for certain and recruiting new blood, yes. But that takes time away from fun development tasks... I usually ask for patches as soon as someone asks for a fix or feature. At least that should make it more obvious to users and the community that you get out of Commons what you put in to some extent. Gary <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Benedikt Ritter <brit...@apache.org> </div><div>Date:11/29/2014 05:53 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Commons Developers List <dev@commons.apache.org> </div><div>Cc: </div><div>Subject: [ALL] Do we need help? </div><div> </div>Hi all, currently I feel really overwhelmed by the stuff I'd like to do at commons and the little time I can spend for it. Here is an (incomplete) list of the things I'd like to work on: - get a new release of the build plugin out of the door for auto creating README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md - Work on [VALIDATOR] and get a new release out of the door - Work on [DBUTILS] and get a new release out of the door - Push [lang] 3.4 out of the door - Have a look at [compress] 2.0 - Backport important fixes from [collections] 4.0 to 3.x and create a last service update - work on [text] - help releasing [imaging] 1.0 - Improve docs on how to get involved at commons - Organize a logo contest for commons - ... many more I wonder how you feel about this. I have the feeling that a lot of people ask us to fix stuff and release components but we don't really catch up with this. This will give people the feeling that we are slow or we simply don't care. Whenever I see someone posting on JIRA "can you please fix this, we need this in out application" and nobody is reacting, I feel tempted to jump right in, even if I don't know the component (which adds another entry to the list above). I don't see a way how we can improve this. My feeling is, that we need more committers. But then I have the comments of people I've talked to in my ear: "to old school", "to difficult to get involved", "to slow development process", "to unwelcoming community". So what do we do? Do we need help? I'm excited to hear your thoughts :-) Best regards, Benedikt -- http://people.apache.org/~britter/ http://www.systemoutprintln.de/ http://twitter.com/BenediktRitter http://github.com/britter
