Hi Benjamin, I've added bigbluehat to the contributors group, feel free to post your proposal there.
John On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 9:46 AM Benjamin Young <byo...@bigbluehat.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > I have been working with the AnnotatorJS.org community to move our > community to the ASF. We have in the past been a BDFL-led group, but that > has proved unsustainable and resulted in many forks and lost opportunity. > > Recently, many community members gathered at the http://iannotate.org/ > conference and subsequent hackathon and discussed the future of the > project. We again concluded that the ASF held the most promise for a > governance style that could support our growing community and assure that > collaboration continue into the future. > > Our Incubator Proposal is current here (also below in markdown): > https://github.com/openannotation/annotator/wiki/Apache-Incubation-Proposal > > I would be happy to move the proposal to the incubator wiki-my user name > there is `bigbluehat`. > > Our current mailing list has a running vote/discussion around this > proposal and our move to the ASF: > https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/annotator-dev/2016-May/001615.html > > Lastly, we have a Champion (Daniel Gruno), but are still in need of > Mentors. > > Thank you for considering this proposal! > Benjamin - bigblue...@apache.org > > > > Apache Annotator Proposal: > #### Abstract > > A short descriptive summary of the project. A short paragraph, ideally > one sentence in length. > > Annotation enabling code for browsers, servers, and humans. > > #### Proposal > > A lengthier description of the proposal. > > The Annotator community seeks to build a foundational set of libraries > under a liberal license providing the pieces necessary for developers to > add annotation to their projects. > > #### Background > > Provides context for those unfamiliar with the problem space and history. > > Annotator.js was originally created by Open Knowledge (formerly The Open > Knowledge Foundation) to provide annotation over works by Shakespeare. > Since that time, Annotator has found its way into a wide range of > browser-based annotation systems such as Hypothes.is, LacunaStories.com, > and various academic, publishing, and scientific research projects. > > Sadly, this increased usage has primarily happened in forks of the main > code or through copy-left licensed plugins that prevent their use by many > community members. > > However, the community remains interested in combined collaboration and > interested in a foundational future for annotation--both in browsers as > well as servers and desktop/mobile applications. > > #### Rationale > > > Explains why this project needs to exist and why should it be adopted by > Apache. > > Annotation is often implemented in projects in ad hoc ways with developers > often re-solving problems well known to the Annotator community. The > Annotator community works to provide knowledge and code to help developers > more quickly implement or improve annotation within their projects. > > We believe bringing the Annotator community into the Apache Software > Foundation will allow for wider recognition of the annotation problem > space, help more developers find their way to solving this shared problem, > provide increased cohesion for our own somewhat fractured community, and > increase the use of commonly shared code within a wide range of projects. > > #### Initial Goals > > * create a collaborative space for the existing Annotator contributors and > community > * further ignite interest and activity around annotation > * build foundational libraries for annotation > * implement code to support the Web Annotation Data Model, Protocol, and > other annotation related specifications > * potentially re-license Annotator under the Apache License 2.0 > * Annotator is currently licensed under a combination of the MIT & GPL > * consolidate (where possible) community activity around building add-ons, > annotation storage providers, and use-case specific feature sets > * grow interest and activity in annotation > > #### Current Status > > ##### Meritocracy > > Apache is a meritocracy. > > The project is in transition from a primarily BDFL-based model to one with > a more diverse set of committers. There are 36 total known commiters to > Annotator. 3 commiters having done the bulk of the coding and decision > making. 2 of those commiters acting as project leadership. > > However, the community is much larger and more diverse when the various > forks and plugin authors are considered. > > We intend to invite and include participants from a wide array of > annotation problem spaces to collaborate in this new shared space. > > ##### Community > > Apache is interested only in communities. > > Community calls had been being done every 3-6 months with reports of the > calls outcome being posted to the mailing list and the annotatorjs.org > website. > > Most activity within the project happens on the mailing list. There is > also a relatively inactive #annotator channel on irc.freenode.net. The > website is primarily for promotion and includes promotion of community > plugins and showcases projects using Annotator. Documentation is published > on readthedocs.org and linked to from the website. > > There are many Annotator and W3C Annotation Data Model related projects > found on GitHub. Our objective would be to invite these communities to join > this collaborative community with the hope of greater stability and > community longevity. > > ##### Core Developers > > Apache is composed of individuals. > > The 3 primary committers to the project are Nick Stenning of The > Hypothesis Project, Randall Leeds of Medal, and Aron Carroll of Dropbox, > Inc. Nick Stenning is the original creator of Annotator. Randall Leeds is > an Apache CouchDB committer. Aron has been a frequent contributor. All > three have been members of The Hypothes.is Project in past years. > > Other currently active community members include: > > * Andrew Magliozzi of FinalsClub.org > * Andrew drives the scheduling of community calls, is active on the > mailing list, and encourages progress within the project and community > * Benjamin Young of Wiley (also formerly of The Hypothes.is Project) > * an Apache CouchDB commiter > * co-editor of the Web Annotation Data Model > * Oliver Sauter of WordBrain > * active advocate for Annotator and the growth of the annotation > community > > Other committers have contributed significant amounts of code, content, or > issues and discussions, but are currently (in the last 3-6 months) less > active on the project. However, at recent annotation related conferences > the scale of the plugin, fork, and ancillary project activity was shown to > be much higher than what was apparent from activity on the main Annotator > mailing list--in part due to community fracturing...something we hope to > fix with joining the ASF. > > A full list of Annotator contributors can be seen here: > https://github.com/openannotation/annotator/graphs/contributors > > ##### Alignment > > Describe why Apache is a good match for the proposal. > > The Annotator community believes that the Apache Software Foundation > promotes and enforces the sort of community that will best serve the future > of the project. It is also believed that Annotator can serve the ASF by > providing its tools to bring annotation into various Apache projects and > eventually to the apache.org site, project documentation, and other tools > within the ASF. > > The priority is on increasing community involvement, defining--via the > Apache Way--how we will code and collaborate going forward, and upon > creating the best possible annotation solution born out of that > collaboration. > > #### Known Risks > > An exercise in self-knowledge. Risks don't mean that a project is > unacceptable. If they are recognized and noted then they can be addressed > during incubation. > > ##### Orphaned products > > A public commitment to future development. > > The majority of the core committers were formerly from The Hypothes.is > Project which used an earlier version of Annotator within it's annotation > web service and BSD-licensed `h` annotation software. However, Hypothesis > and most other organizations and projects using Annotator have forked the > main code base or created unique plugins which only exist within their > projects and have not been contributed upstream. > > The fracturing of the community and previous single-entity contribution > has greatly prohibited collaboration and growth of the community. > Concurrently, interest and growth of annotation projects from a wide > constituents has grown--though around a much wider array of code and > projects. The hope is that the creation of a collaborative space built for > discussion and sharing of these tools would provide the opportunity to > reach a common core to be shared among the many diverse players. > > As such, the Annotator project has begun the process of becoming an Apache > project to establish a development and community process that encourages > diversity and cross-organization collaboration. > > ##### Inexperience with Open Source > > Annotator was established as an Open Source project in 2011 with it's > first, v0.0.1 release being made on January 1st of that year: > https://github.com/openannotation/annotator/releases/tag/v0.0.1 > > The project has continued since that time as an open source project > developed on GitHub. The community has grown in diversity since that time > and was moved into a separate "openannotation" GitHub organization (from > the original "okfn" GitHub organization) in 2014 in an effort to increase > community involvement and diversity. > > Each of the core committers have worked on and created open source > software for themselves or various organizations for the greater than 5 > years. Two of the contributors mentioned above also have greater than 5 > years contributor experience at the ASF and are both now core committers to > a top-level project (Apache CouchDB). > > ##### Homogeneous Developers > > Healthy projects need a mix of developers. Open development requires a > commitment to encouraging a diverse mixture. This includes the art of > working as part of a geographically scattered group in a distributed > environment. > > Active community members as well as plugin and compatible annotation > storage system builders are from a diverse, though scattered, range of > organizations and individually driven projects. > > The Annotator community is seeking to combine its efforts into a core > group of committers to more accurately encourage a shared foundation as > well as continue the growth in diversity of the community. > > Geographically, the Annotator community is widely distributed from > Germany, Hungary, the East and West coasts of the US, and Australia. > > Additionally, the wide range of annotation related projects that may be > considered as input for this projects code explorations range in size, > contributor diversity, and growth. > > ##### Reliance on Salaried Developers > > A project dominated by salaried developers who are interested in the > code only whilst they are employed to do so risks its long term health. > > In the past, contributors to Annotator project were solely from The > Hypothes.is Project and their activity was driven primarily by the needs of > that project. However, the diversity of interested participants has greatly > increased. There is an additional hope of creating an aggregated community > from various projects (including Annotator, Hypothesis' `h` code, and > various related libraries and plugins) as well as exploring the creation of > new tools--not only for the browser--to further widen the interest and > activity around annotation. > > ##### Relationships with Other Apache Projects > > Apache projects should be open to collaboration with other open source > projects both within Apache and without. Candidates should be willing to > reach outside their own little bubbles. > > The Annotator community also provides an annotation storage system > ("annotator-store") built upon ElasticSearch. There are compatible > implementations of that API built on various storage systems (including > Apache CouchDB), and the community would encourage the creation of other > compatible storage systems built upon other Apache storage projects. > > Additionally, Annotator is a JavaScript library which could serve any of > the various CMS projects within Apache. > > The roadmap for Annotator also includes compatibility with the Web > Annotation Data Model which is a JSON-LD serialization of an RDF-based data > model for annotation. The growing number of RDF-focused Apache projects > could take advantage of and contribute to the creation of these features. > > The W3C Annotation Working Group is also creating multiple related > deliverables around Web Annotation including an Linked Data Platfrom-based > Protocol specification, a note about selector systems, and future notes for > various serialization and integration opportunities for the Web Annotation > Data Model. Apache Marmotta is one project within the ASF which has native > support for LDP and may have an interest in collaborating around > implementation of the Web Annotation Protocol. > > Lastly, Apache UIMA can currently generates Open Annotation Data Model > annotations as an output of it's Natural Language Processing system. These > annotations could be displayed via code written within this new Apache > project--which could further leverage user interaction with those NLP-based > annotation (such as confirmation, rejection, or modification of the > annotations made by Apache UIMA's NLP process). There are other NLP > projects within the ASF which could similarly benefit from these > explorations and code generated here. > > ##### A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand > > Concerns have been raised in the past that some projects appear to have > been proposed just to generate positive publicity for the proposers. This > is the right place to convince everyone that is not the case. > > The Annotator community acknowledges the value and recognition that the > Apache brand would bring to the Annotator project. However, the primary > interest is in the community building process and long-term stability that > the Apache Software Foundation provides for its projects. > > We do hope for increased recognition of and contribution to an array of > annotation code projects built within this community. However, we primarily > hope for community aggregation driven by building a core set of tools for > our shared set of needs which are now scattered across various annotation > endeavors. > > Integrating those developers into this new community and adding them as > contributors is seen as a much higher priority then increasing awareness > through branding. > > #### Documentation > > References to further reading material. > > Websites: > * http://annotatorjs.org/ > * http://w3.org/annotation/ > > Documentation: > * http://docs.annotatorjs.org/en/v1.2.x/ > * http://docs.annotatorjs.org/en/latest/ > * http://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/ > * http://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-protocol/ > > Mailing List: > * https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/annotator-dev/ > * https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-annotation/ > > Code: > * https://github.com/openannotation/annotator > * https://github.com/openannotation/annotator-store > * https://github.com/azaroth42/MangoServer > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-text-quote > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-text-position > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-fragment > > Annotator plugin index: > * http://annotatorjs.org/plugins/index.html > > #### Initial Source > > Describes the origin of the proposed code base. If the initial code > arrives from more than one source, this is the right place to outline the > different histories. > > The original Annotator code base was created by Nick Stenning while at the > Open Knowledge Foundation. The code has been in development since before > 2011 with the first public release (v0.0.1) happening on January 1st, 2011 > on GitHub. > > The example annotation storage system (which works with Annotator's stock > Store plugin) had it's first release in February 21, 2011 and was > originally built for Apache CouchDB. The contributor list of > annotator-store is similar, but the license is simply the MIT (rather than > MIT & GPL). The stated copyright is 2010-2012 Open Knowledge Foundation. > > Additionally, there is a growing list of forks, plugins, and related > tooling created by the community in various places--often embedded within > larger projects. The Annotator Plugins index has reference to some such > possible inputs to this project's code. The W3C specifications are also > being implemented and the growing number of projects available around those > specifications would also be considered as possible inputs. Most > specifically, Randal Leeds (also a contributor to Annotator) has built a > set of libraries focus on implementing the W3C selectors. These libraries > could serve as an initial foundation for a core library for browsers or > JavaScript-base server code. > > #### Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan > > Complex proposals (typically involving multiple code bases) may find it > useful to draw up an initial plan for the submission of the code here. > Demonstrate that the proposal is practical. > > Our primary goal is to aggregate communities that center around > annotation. We intend to focus our initial work on a JavaScript-based > library built from Randall Leeds `dom-anchor-*` libraries (single owner > copyright; MIT licensed) and potentially reusing code from Annotator (mixed > owner copyright; MIT & GPL dual-licensed). > > The Annotator community has a stated copyright owner of "The Annotator > Community." All contributions are believed to have been made "in kind" and > the copyright owned by the various contributors. The three primary > committers have stated a willingness to donate their contributions to the > Apache Software Foundation and the minimal parts with copyright owned by > others will likely be rewritten. Though we also hope to engage these > individuals to join the combined efforts being made at the ASF. > > The `annotator-store` project is under a clearer, single BSD license. The > copyright holder is stated to be the Open Knowledge Foundation with the > years 2010-2012. It is likely that this code will only be used for > reference or via library inclusion and not directly developed upon within > the ASF. > > An earlier process was undertaken to collect re-licensing permission from > known contributors via the existing mailing list and GitHub issues--using a > model similar to Twitter's when it relicensed Bootstrap. General agreement > was reached, but no decisive actions were taken as many contributors of > smaller amounts of code were no longer reachable. > > We hope to engage the various plugin and fork authors along with similar > annotation projects to engage future work under a shared license and > developed within The Apache Way. The contribution of specific code to this > project or its future deliverables will be handled individually by the > community over the course of the project. > > One core goal of bringing the community to the ASF is to avoid this > confused licensing situation in the future. > > #### External Dependencies > > Annotator depends on the following JavaScript modules from NPM: > > * backbone-extend-standalone - MIT > * browserify-shim - MIT > * clean-css - MIT > * enhance-css - MIT > * es6-promise - MIT > * insert-css - MIT > * jquery - MIT > * through - MIT / Apache License 2.0 > * xpath-range - MIT + GPL-3.0+ Dual License > > annotator-store depends on the following Python modules: > > * elasticsearch - Apache License 2.0 > * PyJWT - MIT > * iso8601 - MIT > * six - MIT > > MongoServer (a Web Annotation Platform implementation) is a single owner > project currently licensed under the Apache License 2.0. > > Randall Leeds `dom-anchor-*` libraries are all licensed under the MIT and > include these dependencies: > > * dom-anchor-fragment - MIT > * no dependencies > * dom-anchor-text-position - MIT > * node-iterator-shim - MIT > * dom-seek - MIT > * dom-anchor-text-quote - MIT > * dom-anchor-text-position - MIT > * diff-match-patch - Apache License 2.0 > > #### Required Resources > > ##### Mailing Lists > > * private@ > * dev@ > * commits@ > > Note: the Annotator community currently uses a single list hosted by Open > Knowledge at: > https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/annotator-dev > > ##### Git Repository > > * https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-annotator.git > > Note: the Annotator community hosts its code on GitHub as part of the > "openannotation" organization. Randall Leeds also uses GitHub for his > `dom-anchor-*` libraries as does Rob Sanderson for his Web Annotation > Protocol implementation. These are all potential code inputs to be > considered for reuse or continuation by this community. > > * http://github.com/openannotation/annotator > * http://github.com/openannotation/annotator-store > * https://github.com/azaroth42/MangoServer > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-text-quote > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-text-position > * https://github.com/tilgovi/dom-anchor-fragment > > ##### Issue Tracking > > The Annotator community would prefer to continue using GitHub Issues if > that is a possibility. > > ##### Other Resources > > * static website hosting for annotatorjs.org > > #### Initial Commiters > > * Nick Stenning <n...@whiteink.com> > * Randall Leeds <rand...@apache.org> > * Benjamin Young <bigblue...@apache.org> > * Oliver Sauter <o...@worldbrain.io> > * Andrew Magliozzi <andrew10...@gmail.com> > * Aron Carroll <he...@aroncarroll.com> > * Mariano Giagante <mariano.giaga...@gmail.com> > * Luke Murphy <luk...@riseup.net> > > #### Affiliations > > * Nick Stenning of The Hypothes.is Project > * Randall Leeds of Medal > * Benjamin Young of Wiley > * Oliver Sauter of WorldBrain.io > * Aron Carroll of Dropbox, Inc. > * Andrew Magliozzi of AdmitHub.com > * Mariano Giagante of WorldBrain.io > * Luke Murphy of WorldBrain.io > > #### Sponsors > > ##### Champion > > [Daniel Gruno](http://people.apache.org/phonebook.html?uid=humbedooh) aka > `humbedooh` > > ##### Nominated Mentors > > TBD > > ##### Sponsoring Entity > > The Sponsor is the organizational unit within Apache taking > responsibility for this proposal. The sponsoring entity can be: the Apache > Board, the Incubator, another Apache project > > The Incubator >
