After a brief discussion¹ I would like to call a VOTE to accept Zipkin into the
Apache Incubator.
The full proposal is available on the wiki² and is pasted below in text form as
well.
This vote will run at least 72 hours. Please VOTE as follows:
[ ] +1 Accept Zipkin into the Apache Incubator
[ ] +0 No opinion
[ ] -1 Do not accept Zipkin into the Apache Incubator because…
regards,
Mick
[1]
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/54798a5059db1d5716ed9910a15c92945509a25ec3b7ccb6b1215c53@%3Cgeneral.incubator.apache.org%3E
[2] https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/ZipkinProposal
= Abstract =
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system. It helps gather timing data needed to
troubleshoot latency problems in microservice architectures. It manages both
the collection and lookup of this data. Zipkin’s design is based on the Google
Dapper paper.
= Proposal =
Zipkin provides a defined data model and payload type for distributed trace
data collection. It also provides an UI and http api for querying the data. Its
server implements this api and includes abstractions for storage and transport
of trace payloads. The combination of these parts avoid lock-in to a specific
tracing backend. For example, Zipkin includes integration with different open
source storage mechanisms like Apache Cassandra and Elasticsearch. It also
includes bridges to convert collected data and forward it to service offerings
such as Amazon X-Ray and Google Stackdriver. Ecosystem offering extend this
portability further.
While primarily focused on the system, Zipkin also includes tracing libraries which applications
use to report timing information. Zipkin's core organization includes tracer libraries written in
Java, Javascript, Go, PHP and Ruby. These libraries use the formats mentioned above to report data,
as well "B3" which is a header format needed to send trace identifiers along with
production requests. Many Zipkin libraries can also send data directly to other services such as
Amazon X-Ray and Google Stackdriver, skipping any Zipkin infrastructure. There are also more Zipkin
tracing libraries outside the core organization than inside it. This is due to the
"OpenZipkin" culture of promoting ecosystem work.
= Background =
Zipkin began in 2012 at Twitter during a time they were investigating performance problems
underlying the "fail whale" seen by users. The name Zipkin is from the Turkish word for
harpoon: the harpoon that will kill the failures! Incidentally, Zipkin was not the first tracing
system, it had roots in a former system at Twitter named BigBrotherBird. It is due to
BigBrotherBird that the de-facto tracing headers we still use today include the prefix
"X-B3".
In 2015, a community of users noticed the project was not healthy in so far as
it hadn't progressed and often didn't accept pull requests, and the Cassandra
backend was stuck on an unmaintained library. For example, the Apache Incubator
H-Trace project started in some ways as a reaction to the inability to
customize the code. The root cause of this was Twitter moving to internal
storage (Manhattan) and also the project not being managed as a product. By mid
2015, the community regrouped as OpenZipkin and the codebase moved from Twitter
to an org also named OpenZipkin. This led to fast progress on concerns
including initially a server rewrite and Docker based deployment.
In 2018, the second version of the data model completed, and along the way,
many new libraries became standard, including javascript, golang and PHP. The
community is dramatically larger than 2015, and Zipkin remains the most popular
tracing system despite heavy competition.
= Rationale =
Zipkin is a de-facto distributed tracing system, which is more important as
architectures become more fine grained due to popularity of microservice or
even serverless architectures. Applications transition to use more complex
communication including asynchronous code and service mesh, increasing the need
for tools that visualize the behavior of requests as they map across an
architecture.
Zipkin's server is focused only on distributed tracing. It is meant to be used
alongside existing logging and metrics systems. Generally, the community
optimizes brown field concerns such as interop over breaking changes such as
experimental features. The combination of code and community make Zipkin a safe
and easier choice for various sites to introduce or grow their observability
practice.
= Initial Goals =
The initial goals are to mature OpenZipkin's community process. For example,
while OpenZipkin has a good collaborative process, it lacks formality around
project management functions defined in the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).
We also seek out help with brand abuse which is becoming common practice in the
competitive landscape, yet demotivates volunteers. Towards volunteers, help
with on boarding summer of code and funding for those who cannot afford to get
to conferences on their own would be nice. Finally, we occasionally have
organizations who are constrained to only work with foundation projects: ASF is
often mentioned, and being in the ASF removes this collaboration roadblock.
Zipkin will not move all existing code into Apache. In fact, most Zipkin
ecosystem exists outside our org! The goal is to start with the data formats
and server code. Possibly the java client-side libraries can move initially as
well, depending on community feedback.
= Current Status =
== Meritocracy ==
Zipkin is an active community of contributors who are encouraged to become
committers. A Zipkin committer understands the importance of seeking community
feedback, and the gravity of brown field concerns. Committers express diverse
interest by contributing beyond their sites immediate needs and acknowledging
features require diverse need before being merged into the core repositories. A
camaraderie between committers and not yet committers exists and is re-inforced
with face to face meetups where possible. We expect this to continue and build
with incubation and ideally acceptance into the Apache Software Foundation
(ASF).
Zipkin encourages involvement from its community members, and the issues are open and
available to any developers who wish to contribute to the project. The Zipkin team
currently seeks help and asks for suggestions utilizing zipkin-user and zipkin-dev Google
groups and Gitter chat on https://gitter.im/openzipkin/zipkin. While all contributions
are reviewed, generally a "rule of three" policy on diverse need must be met
before a feature is considered standard.
== Community ==
Zipkin has a highly active and growing community of users and developers. The
community is currently fostered on chat https://gitter.im/openzipkin/zipkin and
issues in their respective GitHub repositories, notably the main server:
https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin
There are well over 1000 users in the chat room and hundreds who contributed
code to code in the main OpenZipkin GitHub org. Interest metrics have grown
dramatically: For example, in three years and a month from when Zipkin began
until the time OpenZipkin formed, its main repository accumulated 2400 GitHub
stars. In the same time after, it accumulated over 6700. Other metrics such as
blog count and community meetings have similarly gone way up. We expect further
growth as more learn about Zipkin and can engage with Zipkin through the
guidance of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).
== Core Developers ==
The core contributors are a diverse group comprised of both unaffiliated
developers and those hailing from small to large companies. They are scattered
geographically, and some are highly experienced industry as well as open source
developers. Though their backgrounds may be diverse, the contributors are
united in their belief in community driven software development.
More detailed information on the core developers and contributors in general
can be found under the section on homogeneous developers.
== Alignment ==
Zipkin adoption is growing, and it is no longer feasible for it to remain as an
isolated project. Apache is experienced in dealing with software that is very
widely accepted and has a growing audience. The proposers believe that the
Zipkin team can benefit from the ASF's experience and its broad array of users
and developers.
Zipkin supports several Apache projects and options exist for integration with
others. Apache CXF, Apache Camel, Apache Incubator SkyWalking and Apache
Incubator HTrace all utilize Zipkin APIs in their core repositories. Many more
do via community extensions. Apache Maven is primarily use by Zipkin, and can
be used by projects who build upon Zipkin projects.
== Known Risks ==
=== Orphaned products ===
Zipkin is already being utilized at multiple companies that are actively
participating in improving the code. The thriving community centered around
Zipkin has seen steady growth, and the project is gaining traction with
developers. The risks of the code being abandoned are minimal.
=== Inexperience with Open Source ===
Zipkin rebooted its community in July 2015 and grown there for over three
years. Additionally, many of the committers have extensive experience with
other open source projects. Zipkin fosters a collaborative and community-driven
environment.
In the interest of openly sharing technology and attracting more community
members, several of our developers also regularly attend conferences in North
America and Europe to give talks about Zipkin. Zipkin meetups are also planned
every few months for developers and community members to come together in
person and discuss ideas.
=== Homogenous Developers ===
At the time of the writing, OpenZipkin's core 12 developers all work at
different companies around the globe. Most operate their own tracing sites, but
some no longer operate sites at all: staying for the community we've built. Our
ASF champion, Mick Semb Wever, is both a committer and an experienced ASF
member.
The Zipkin developers thrive upon the diversity of the community. The Zipkin
gitter channel is always active, and the developers often collaborate on fixes
and changes in the code. They are always happy to answer users' questions as
well.
Zipkin is interested in continuing to expand and strengthen its network of
developers and community members through the ASF.
=== Reliance on Salaried Developers ===
Zipkin has one full time salaried developer, Adrian Cole. Though some of the
developers are paid by their employer to contribute to Zipkin, many Zipkin
developers contribute code and documentation on their own time and have done so
for a lengthy period. Given the current stream of development requests and the
committers' sense of ownership of the Zipkin code, this arrangement is expected
to continue with Zipkin' induction into the ASF.
=== Relationships with Other Apache Products ===
Zipkin, Apache Incubator Skywalking and Apache Incubator HTrace address
similiar use cases. Most similarities are between Zipkin and HTrace: Zipkin
hopes to help serve the community formerly served by HTrace, but understands
the data services focus of HTrace may require different tooling. SkyWalking
addresses more feature surface than Zipkin. For example, metrics collection is
not a goal of Zipkin, yet it is a goal of SkyWalking. SkyWalking accepts Zipkin
formats and can be used as a replacement server. SkyWalking PPMC member, Sheng
Wu, has been a routine member of Zipkin design discussions and has offered to
help Zipkin through ASF process.
While Zipkin does not directly rely upon any Apache project, zipkin supports
several Apache projects. Apache CXF, Apache Camel, Apache Incubator SkyWalking,
Apache Incubator Dubbo, Apache Incubator ServiceComb and Apache Incubator
HTrace all utilize Zipkin APIs in their core repositories. Many more do via
community extensions. Apache Maven is primarily use by Zipkin, and can be used
by projects who build upon Zipkin projects.
=== A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand ===
Zipkin recognizes the fortitude of the Apache brand, but the motivation for
becoming an Apache project is to strengthen and expand the Zipkin community and
its user base. While the Zipkin community has seen steady growth over the past
several years, association with the ASF is expected to expedite this pattern of
growth. Development is expected to continue on Zipkin under the Apache license
whether or not it is supported by the ASF.
== Documentation ==
The Zipkin project documentation is publicly available at the following sites:
* https://zipkin.io: project overview
* http://zipkin.io/zipkin-api/#/: swagger specification
* https://github.com/openzipkin/b3-propagation: header formats
* https://zipkin.io/zipkin/: Javadocs for the Zipkin server
== Initial Source ==
The initial source is located on GitHub in the following repositories:
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/zipkin.git
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/zipkin-dependencies.git
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/zipkin-api.git
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/b3-propagation.git
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/docker-zipkin.git
* git://github.com/OpenZipkin/docker-zipkin-dependencies.git
* git://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin-reporter-java
* git://github.com/openzipkin/brave
* git://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin-aws
* git://github.com/openzipkin/docker-zipkin-aws
* git://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin-azure
* git://github.com/openzipkin/docker-zipkin-azure
* git://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin-gcp
* git://github.com/openzipkin/docker-zipkin-gcp
* git://github.com/openzipkin/brave-cassandra
* git://github.com/openzipkin/docker-jre-full
* git://github.com/openzipkin/brave-karaf
Depending on community progress, other repositories may be moved as well
== Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan ==
Zipkin's initial source is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/blob/master/LICENSE
All source code is copyrighted to 'The OpenZipkin Authors', to which the
existing core community(members list in Initial Committers) has the rights to
re-assign to the ASF.
== External Dependencies ==
This is a listing of Maven coordinates for all of the external dependencies
Zipkin uses. All of the dependencies are in Sonatype and their licenses should
be accessible.
== Cryptography ==
Zipkin contains no cryptographic algorithms.
= Required Resources =
== Mailing Lists ==
* Zipkin-dev: for development discussions
* Zipkin-user: for community discussions
* Zipkin-private: for PPMC discussions
* Zipkin-commits: for code changes
== Git Repositories ==
The Zipkin team is experienced in git and requests to transfer GitHub
repositories(list in Initial Source) to Apache.
== Issue Tracking ==
The community would like to continue using GitHub Issues.
= Initial Committers =
* Zoltán Nagy
* Adrian Cole, Pivotal
* Bas van Beek
* Brian Devins
* Eirik Sletteberg
* Jeanneret Pierre-Hugues
* Jordi Polo Carres
* José Carlos Chávez
* Kristof Adriaenssens
* Lance Linder
* Mick Semb Wever,
* Tommy Ludwig
= Champion =
* Michael Semb Wever, m...@apache.org
= Mentors =
* Michael Semb Wever, m...@apache.org
* Andriy Redko, r...@apache.org
* John D. Ament, johndam...@apache.org
* Willem Ning Jiang, ningji...@apache.org
= Sponsoring Entity =
We are requesting the Apache Incubator to sponsor this project.
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