Re: POI TLP -- constructively

Sounds good to me - thanks for this.

Niall

On 12/18/06, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> I really liked hearing Avik speak up because he's been hurting for
> awhile and not spoken up. It was Nick's first release, cut him some
> slack. POI has been around since 2001, in Apache since 2002. It is
> nearly 2007. Talks of mentoring us or incubating us are a little
> patronizing and insulting (multiple of us our even members of the
> foundation though I forget who). Much of the thread is about bashing us
> and bashing me in particular which I stupidly reacted to partly out of
> fatigue. I appologize for that, I've been very busy launching
> http://buni.org and planning our corporate structure.
>
> It is fair to say that not many POI people participate in Jakarta.
> However, to add perspective we never joined the "Jakarta as it is" -- we
> joined Jakarta as it was...and one day this formed around us. It is
> fair to criticize our build...it is pretty rusty and yucky. I do
> however thing focusing too much on it is a bit well...mean. Nick has
> been doing a great job and a lot of work. (I on the other hand will
> have to merge my patches into SVN before I can even commit them since
> they're off of CVS :-P ). However it was his first release. Moreover,
> Apache's "release policies" have evolved considerably since the last
> official release and none of us have a valid signed key...that needs to
> be rectified (laziness, don't like conventions where all the cool key
> signing parties). We're not the only one's guilty of kinds of neglect.
> Our own Marc Johnson (who cofounded the project) has been extremely
> frustrated at the lack of responsiveness in getting his access/etc in
> order and no one at POI seems to be able to jerk the right chain in
> Apache to make that happen (and I think he requested from this PMC with
> no effect). So much that he's given up!
>
> In any case, legal issues aside (which have to a good degree abated, but
> take yourself back 5 years) I really don't want POI to really merge into
> Jakarta (which is really now the successor to Jakarta Commons) and I
> don't think the majority of the committers do either. On the other
> hand, I really don't think POI by itself can be a TLP as its scope is
> too narrow (historically this was deliberate). I also don't think that
> parts of POI have much of a future as we're moving to an XML formats
> era, but other parts certainly do. Partly because of projects like POI,
> Microsoft is even moving. Once the default is to save in an XML format
> then will anyone really care about POI "as it is" as more than a
> migration tool.
>
> That being said, there is considerable interest in unified APIs for each
> of these verticals (spreadsheets, documents, etc) and considerable life
> in POI with a very active userbase. Many people dealing with data
> formats have asked for common APIs for the various verticals that output
> to the various formats. Moreover, many of us are no longer as single
> minded with regards to Java as we once were (POI ruby for example). And
> achieving API compatibility across these could be interesting.
>
> I therefore propose this:
>
> * Jakarta PMC has the responsibility to not call more votes on
> restructuring POI during the next X months. (Access or otherwise)
>
> * POI committers have responsibility for achieving the proper oversight
> procedures and putting out a new release in the next X months
>
> * POI committers have responsibility for putting together a TLP proposal
> and working out a consensus.
>
> (BTW that pretty much is batting 1000 on this:
> http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta/JakartaPMCRequestTLPBenchmark )
>
> Full disclosure:
>
> I've also submitted a counter proposal to the committers as an
> alternative to leave apache entirely. However thus far most folks seem
> to value POIs association with Apache and the opportunities afforded
> them, even if they find it "difficult to work with" as one person stated
> in response. I suspect TLP status would alleviate some of the mutual
> snags between apache and POI (for one we could get poor Marc his access
> back despite him having sent in his CLA now like 3 times including when
> the project moved to Apache and for two we'd be sending our reports in
> ourselves and thus have to do more proper oversight).
>
> However, PPPPPLLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSSSEEEE let's press the PAUSE button
> until January 3rd so that we can all get very drunk and open presents
> rather than jerk each other's chains in front of a computer on a mailing
> list.
>
> -Andy
> ----
> Andrew C. Oliver
> Buni Luni
> http://buni.org
>
>
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