Hi gang!
Some Stats ---------- Taking a look at
http://incubator.apache.org/projects/
we have 12 projects under incubation (listed as 13 but geronimo info needs updating). Of these, 6 projects, namely
AltRMI FtpServer Lenya Depot WSRP4J XMLBeans
have been incubating for 6 months or more. Of these, 3 projects, namely
AltRMI FtpServer Lenya
have been incubating for a year or more. Of the 5 projects which have successfully incubated so far, the incubation time was
6 months (JaxMe) 6 months (jUDDI) 2 weeks (MerlinDeveloper) +/-5 months? (Tapestry) 7 months (Geronimo)
For these projects, especially Tapestry (first sub-project ever incubated) and Geronimo (first TLP ever incubated), a significant time was probably spent figuring out process as we went along, so these numbers deserve some downward adjustment to compare them with a project that would enter incubation today. Geronimo also had some high-profile legal blah blah to sort out.
Some opinion
------------
Some parts of incubation can take a long time, ie for projects like SpamAssassin tracking down a hundred people and getting CLAs is a daunting task.
Other parts of incubation, like verifying license headers and compatibility, can be done quite quickly, and it worries me when they're not done after 6 months.
The parts of incubation that are about learning the ropes around apache and getting CVS migrated, should IMHO not take more than 6 months. Not that it won't take more time to learn everything there is to know, but for a project to learn enough to be able to be responsible for itself is somewhere around 6 months. Possibly less if we're talking about a subproject, since then people are absorbed into a bigger community of experienced people anyway.
Leading to the following bold statement:
Incubation need not take more than 6 months, and probably less if
destined to become a sub-project. There are more exceptions to this
rule than can be imagined, but they are basically either
"legal" reasons or "community" reasons.So barring pending legal issues, a project that's been in incubation for more than 6 months is a little worrysome.
Suggestions
-----------
None yet. I do think we need to worry a little about incubation "taking forever". Let's not get too comfortable with these things dragging on for months. Incubation is "process", and what we should all be doing is "development".
All IMHO :-D. WDYT?
cheers,
- Leo
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