Re: [morph-developer] ASF incubation proposal take 2

[Niall P. <nia...@gm...>]

I don't have a problem with bringing in Composite and Morph together -
seems straight forward - two sf projects developed by the same people
with the same IP(?). I think if the intention is to do that then its
best to be clear about it right from the start. Whether any of the
incubator folks would have issues with it I have no idea since I'm a
newbie at the Apache Incubator game.

Niall

On 3/13/07, Matt Benson <gud...@ya...> wrote:
> Second draft after Matt S's input:
> -------------------------------------
>
> Morph defines a comprehensive API for performing
> object-to-object conversions in Java.
>
> PROPOSAL
>
>
> 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
> consolidates 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.
>
> CURRENT STATUS
>
> Meritocracy:
>   The Morph team is eager to invest more fully 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 originally given
> commit rights solely on the basis of his ideas; only
> later did his work vindicate that decision.  [If
> sponsored by Jakarta:  This is a similar approach
> to that taken in the Jakarta community:  a community
> member simply announces his desire to work on a
> component, then proceeds with the community's
> blessing.]
>
> Community:
>   It is difficult to gauge the exact 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,
> but several bug fixes and enhancements have resulted
> from the input of Morph's users.  An additional
> possible benefit of
> Morph's joining the Apache community is that increased
> cooperation with and buy-in from other ASF projects
> may increase its user and/or developer communities.
>
> Core Developers:
>   Matt Sgarlata is Morph's founding architect and
> developer.  He has been a member of the Jakarta and
> Struts user communities for some years.  Matt Benson
> is a member of the Apache Ant PMC and a Jakarta
> committer, so is familiar with (and fond of) the
> consensus and transparency encouraged in ASF
> development.
>
> Alignment:
>   Morph currently contains interoperability code for
> commons-beanutils, commons-chain, and Velocity.
> Because it is Morph's secondary purpose to provide
> implementations of common conversions, code that
> facilitates Morph's use with well-known libraries in
> easily anticipated ways is considered in-scope.  As
> has already been implied, it is expected that
> citizenship at the ASF would facilitate cooperation
> with existing projects to mutal benefit.  Finally,
> precedent demonstrating the desirability of such a
> project at Apache exists in the form of Jakarta
> commons-convert (this component ultimately failed to
> achieve maturity).  Morph's original design
> specifications are actually the generic
> subset of those drafted on the commons-dev mailing
> list as a next-generation implementation of this
> project.
>
>
> KNOWN RISKS
>
> Orphaned Products:
>   The Morph developers are part of its user base.
> Object conversion may be relevant to any of various
> components of a basic Java application.  The risk of
> "itch cessation" is therefore minimized; Morph should
> continue to be an applicable technology at low risk
> for being abandoned by its developers.
>
> Inexperience with Open Source:
>   As previously 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.
>
> 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-optimal level of
> diversity.  As Java Locale support is a key strength
> of Morph's transformation API, wider geographical
> dispersal would be a boon.  The inevitable input of
> the ASF's diverse community could only be of positive
> influence in this regard.
>
> Reliance on Salaried Developers:
>   The core developers use Morph in their own paid
> development jobs, but are not paid to develop Morph
> per se.  Withdrawal of support is not an issue from
> this perspective.
>
> No Ties to Other Apache Products:
>   As described in the Alignment section, this library
> already has ties to many Apache products.
> Additionally, Morph's codebase is already licensed
> under the Apache Software License v2.0.
>
> A Fascination with the Apache Brand:
>   While "Apache" undeniably marks a project as a force
> to be reckoned with, the Morph team is more impressed
> by the ASF's organization, procedure, community,
> transparency, and camaraderie than anything else.
> Morph's developers share a high opinion of Apache
> software in general, and believe that Morph is of
> sufficient quality and purity that it simply "belongs"
> at the ASF.
>
>
> DOCUMENTATION
>
>   More information about Morph is available at
> http://morph.sourceforge.net .
>
>
> INITIAL SOURCE
>
>   The initial code base is at
> svn://development.spiderstrategies.com/morph .
>
>
> EXTERNAL DEPENDENCIES
>
>   Mandatory runtime dependencies are:
>
>   - Apache Jakarta commons-logging
>   - Composite @ http://composite.sourceforge.net
> (ASL2) ????? Fold in if Niall thinks it's OK
>
>   Additionally Morph has the following compile-time
> dependencies:
>
>   - Apache Jakarta commons-beanutils
>   - Apache Jakarta commons-chain
>   - Apache Velocity
>   - J2EE Servlet API
>   - Spring Framework (ASL2)
>
>   Finally, Morph's test bed currently relies on Apache
> Jakarta commons-lang, and will soon include code that
> depends on the public domain ANTLR 2 parser
> generator.
>
>
> 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)
>
>
> INITIAL COMMITTERS
>
>   - Matt Sgarlata (matthew DOT sgarlata DOT wh02 AT
> wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)
>   - Matt Benson (mbenson AT apache DOT org)
>
>
> AFFILIATIONS
>
>   Morph has no corporate affiliations.  Matt Sgarlata
> is employed by Spider Strategies, who have graciously
> agreed to host Morph's Subversion repository (due to
> ongoing problems experienced with Sourceforge.net
> infrastructure); this is the extent of the claim
> Spider Strategies makes on the Morph project
> (i.e. none).  The current source code correctly lists
> the copyright holder as "the original author or
> authors."  In case the intellectual property
> provenanceis still unclear (due to Spider Strategies'
> physical possession of the code repository), the
> company has indicated its willingness to sign any
> required documentation indicating that it holds no
> claims whatsoever over Morph, its source code, or any
> related electronic information.
>
>
> SPONSORS
>
> Champion:  Niall Pemberton
>
> Nominated Mentors:  TBD
>
> Sponsoring Entity:  TBD
>
>
> March 13, 2007
>
>
>
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