Re: [morph-developer] ASF incubation proposal

[Matt B. <gud...@ya...>]

--- Matt Sgarlata
<Mat...@wh...> wrote:

> My email program has inserted line breaks into your
> text, so I will give 
> comments rather than edit...

Okay... I'll respond in kind.

> 
> Matt Benson wrote:
> > BACKGROUND/RATIONALE
> >
> >   As information flows through an application, it
> > undergoes multiple transformations.  While the
> most
> > prevalent examples of this in the J2EE space are
> > well-known (e.g. HTTP request parameters to
> > domain/data transfer objects, DTOs to domain
> objects)
> > the overall problem space is characterized by the
> lack
> > of a simple, well-known, conveniently extensible
> > solution.  At least one JSR (295) describes such a
> > facility as a dependency.  Having identified the
> basic
> > commonalities among the best known application
> > operations requiring object conversion, Morph
> consolid
> > ates these into a single API which, along with
> various
> > bundled implementation classes, seeks to achieve
> the
> > oft-repeated software development goal of making
> "the
> > simple things easy, and the hard things possible"
> with
> > regard to its problem domain.
> >   
> Nice, we need to update the homepage with this (if
> you haven't already 
> done so).

Actually I don't think we ever went through adding me
on the sf project.  ;)  I started with the description
you currently had of Morph and edited.

> > CURRENT STATUS
> >
> > Meritocracy:
> >   The Morph team is eager to invest more deeply in
> the
> > meritocracy approach taken by the ASF.  To date,
> > however, Morph's development team has been
> accumulated
> > by a sort of "meritocracy-on-spec" approach:  Matt
> > Benson was added as a develope
> > r on the basis of his ideas until his actual work
> > proved him an asset to the team.
> >   
> You're missing a word in that last sentence.  Did
> you mean "Matt B was 
> *not* added" or "... *before* his actual work". 
> Sorry, I am fuzzy on my 
> history so I wasn't sure what you were trying to say
> ;)

Actually I meant what I said here.  You moved SVN,
gave me access based on our conversations and my
saying I wanted to hack on Morph, and then I did it,
and you smiled at most of it except for my irrational
preoccupation with the ternary operator.  ;)  That is
like "...*before" his actual work..." but my point was
that I wasn't asked to leave after having started
committing.  :)  I'll experiment with the wording
here.

> > Community:
> >   It is somewhat difficult to gauge the size of
> > Morph's community.  There have been modest but
> > consistent downloads of the project since its
> initial
> > prerelease:  these average 21/month over 28
> months. 
> > The traffic on its user and developer lists is
> > similarly light.  The team acknowledges that this
> > might indicate anything from high code quality to
> > suboptimal promotion.  One possible outcome of
> Morp
> > h's joining the Apache community is that increased
> > cooperation with and buy-in from other ASF
> projects
> > will generate users and possibly developers as
> well.
> >   
> There have been a half dozen users that have
> reported problems, 
> submitted patches, added bug reports, etc. over the
> past couple years.  
> I don't know if you want to mention them or not.

Probably.  I do mention later that user input is
welcomed and acted upon.

> > KNOWN RISKS
> >
> > Orphaned Products:
> >   The Morph developers are part of its user base. 
> The
> > general-purpose, crosscutting nature of this
> project
> > makes it a virtual certainty that a Java developer
> who
> > is familiar with Morph will find uses for the
> library
> > regardless of the particular industry, application
> > tier, or technology implementation he may find
> himself
> > working in/on/with.  For these reasons, the team
> > asserts that the risk of abandonment is low.
> >   
> This would technically be more proper as "... or
> technology 
> implementation *with/in/on which* he may find
> himself working.", if a 
> bit stuffy.

I was thinking of working IN an industry, ON an
application tier, and WITH a technology implementation
by which I was alluding to the use of frameworks and
implying that Morph should be non-intrusive enough to
be relevant in e.g. Spring MVC, Struts, etc.
applications.

> > Inexperience with Open Source:
> >   As has been indicated, one of the initial
> committers
> > has some years of experience as a committer and
> PMC
> > member at the ASF.  Additionally, Morph has always
> > been open-source software, with its evolution
> being
> > directly guided by user input and developer
> consensus
> > in similar fashion to other Apache projects.
> >   
> In fact, the initial list of requirements for the
> project was hashed out 
> on the jakarta-commons-dev email list.

I guess this is as good a section as any to elaborate
on Morph's origins somewhat.

> > Homogenous Developers:
> >   On the plus side, the initial committers are
> united
> > only by their common interest in Morph (and their
> > coincidental first names and middle initials). 
> > However, both hail from the United States, and
> > acknowledge this as a less-than-desirable level of
> > diversity.  As Java Locale support is a key
> strength
> > of Morph's transformation API, wider geographical
> > displacement would be a boon.  The inevitable
> input of
> > the ASF's diverse community could only be of
> positive
> > influence in this regard.
> >   
> "dispersement" might be a better word than
> "displacement".

Noted.

> > Reliance on Salaried Developers:
> >   While both of the core developers use Morph in
> their
> > own paid development jobs, they intend for time to
> > prove their committment to Morph's continued
> success
> > as a library in its own right, and believe it has
> the
> > potential to become THE solution for Java object
> > conversion.
> >   
> I'm confused by the phrase "they intend for time to
> prove their 
> commitment to Morph's continued success... "

I was meaning something like "The core developers use
Morph in their own paid development jobs, but are not
paid to develop Morph per se; so withdrawal of support
is therefore not an issue from this perspective. 
Additionally, Morph's problem domain is such that its
relevance far outstrips the context of a single
project or company, further minimizing the risk of
'itch cessation.'"

> > EXTERNAL DEPENDENCIES
> >
> >   Mandatory runtime dependencies are:
> >
> >   - Apache Jakarta commons-logging
> >   - Composite @ http://composite.sourceforge.net
> > (ASL2)
> >   
> Could we perhaps bundle Composite as a subproject of
> Morph?  I know this 
> might be tricky and/or a sticking point, but
> Composite really does form 
> a good bit of the low-level guts of Morph.

I think we could get away with this after a fashion. 
Composite was originally part of Morph's codebase, and
having no testcases aside from Morph's own, etc., I
would say it has never _fully_ evolved as a separate
project.  If we did this, I would suggest we add the
composite code as PART of the Morph project; it should
be painless to keep it in a different subtree, but it
would be built as part of the same jar and everything.
 This should keep us more in compliance with the terms
of incubation.  Bring it in as part of Morph, then
later we could explore further evolving the code with
its own testcases, etc. to see if it would survive as
an independent entity (and a dependency of Morph
again).  Niall:  Tell me if you think this is pushing
it, and I'll see if I can come up with a satisfactory
explanation for you.  :)

> > REQUIRED RESOURCES
> >
> > Mailing Lists:
> >   (Return to this subject after a sponsor is
> found)
> >
> > Subversion Directory:
> >   (Return to this subject after a sponsor is
> found)
> >
> > Issue Tracking:
> >   (Return to this subject after a sponsor is
> found)
> >   
> We already have this stuff available don't we?

These are the resources that would be used during
incubation--or are you suggesting using the sf lists,
trackers (ugh), etc. while incubating @ ASF?  I don't
know that its ever been done... especially the svn
part.  My inclination would be to go whole-hog ASF
resources as most incubating projects do.  Especially
as if Jakarta agrees to sponsor with the target home
being commons, I'm thinking development discussions
would then take place on commons-dev, which would keep
Morph on the radar of those there who might be
peripherally interested--then find themselves drawn
in!  >:)

> >
> > INITIAL COMMITTERS
> >
> >   - Matt Sgarlata (matthew DOT sgarlata DOT wh02
> AT
> > wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)

By the way, is that your preferred email address?

> >   - Matt Benson (mbenson AT apache DOT org)
> >
> >
> > AFFILIATIONS
> >
> >   Matt Sgarlata is employed by Spider Strategies,
> who
> > have graciously agreed to host Morph's Subversion
> > repository; this is the extent of the claim Spider
> > Strategies makes on the Morph project (i.e. none);
> > Morph has no corporate affiliation.
> >   
> If you like we can add something like "Spider
> Strategies has indicated 
> it's willingness to sign any required documentation
> indicating it holds 
> no claims whatsoever over Morph, its source code, or
> any related 
> electronic information."  I have been told this by
> my boss, who is one 
> of the partners at Spider Strategies and he has sole
> discretion over all 
> software development matters.

Cool, will do.

br,
Matt

> >
> > SPONSORS
> >
> > Champion:  Niall Pemberton
> >
> > Nominated Mentors:  TBD
> >
> > Sponsoring Entity:  TBD
> >
> >
> > March 13, 2007
> >   
> 
>
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