Hi Rich, This is the best advice I have seen in a long time for projects facing reduced activity.
It probably belongs in an FAQ to memorialize its wisdom. Best, Craig > On Aug 23, 2021, at 6:29 AM, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote: > > > > On 8/20/21 1:11 PM, Roger Whitcomb wrote: >> Hi all, >> My name is Roger Whitcomb and I’m the current PMC Chair for the Apache Pivot >> project. The Pivot community has been dwindling for a number of years, to >> where I am essentially the only one working / contributing to it for >> probably 5 years now. Recently (well 6 months ago), the necessary 3rd >> (active) PMC member resigned, and so we are left with just two of us who >> have demonstrated any readiness to respond to votes, etc. So, I have been, >> in my quarterly Board reports, raising awareness that we’re in trouble >> because of the lack of sufficient oversight. The responses to my last >> report were to the effect that I should either contact ComDev to see if >> there were ideas / suggestions about rebooting or raising interest in the >> project, OR talk to the Attic folks about moving there. Since I’m still >> actively working on the project, trying to reboot things still seems good, >> even though privately I have serious doubts that this could happen. >> So, why am I contacting you? Well, precisely to get thoughts / ideas / >> suggestions, if there are any, on how to at least raise interest to the >> point of recruiting another PMC member for oversight of the project. >> Secondly, has anyone here been in this position before? If so, what >> happened? Any thoughts about alternatives? I have thought about retiring >> the project to the Attic, but then forking to Github (or similar) to >> continue the work I’m doing. However, that seems like a LOT of work >> (probably including changing names, changing all the packages, etc, etc.) >> and I’m not sure of the legal ramifications, since copyright (I assume) >> would remain with the ASF still. Anyway, I will have a separate conversation >> with Legal about this, I suppose. >> Bottom line: anyone able to give some advice? > > > (Apologies if you have already tried all of these things, but ...) > > The first thing I would recommend is to tell the users list about the > concerns, and describe specific opportunities to contribute. In many (even > most?) projects, the vast majority of users are content to consume, and never > even think about contributing. If you communicate that the project is likely > to be terminated if nobody steps up, you may see a handful of people who are > willing to do so - particularly if they are at companies that rely on the > project. > > Identifying specific tasks that need to be done (including a PMC role) is > always more effective than a general call for help. > > This may also be the time to consider whether your requirements (written or > not) for committer rights have been too high. Perhaps there are people out > there who have contributed, over the years, but were not deemed worthy of > committer rights. Over time, this leads to missing out on potential community > members. Look back over the past few years and see who has sent in patches, > or other non-code contributions, and approach them about their willingness to > participate at a higher level. > > Do you know of any companies/orgs that are relying on the project? I would > encourage you to reach out to someone at those companies and tell them that > the project is facing retirement, if nobody steps up to contribute and lead. > That can also be very effective in finding some managers willing to give some > of their employee time to sustain the project rather than having to retool. > > > -- > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com <mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com> > @rbowen > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org > <mailto:dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org > <mailto:dev-h...@community.apache.org> Craig L Russell c...@apache.org
