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| <h2 id='TOC'><img src="../images/redarrow.gif" />Incubation Process: Table of Contents</h2> |
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| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#The+Process+of+Incubation">The Process of Incubation</a> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#Establishment">Establishment</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Acceptance">Acceptance</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Review">Review</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#TerminationRetirement">Termination or Retirement</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Continuation">Continuation</a></li> |
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| <h2 id='Introduction'><img src="../images/redarrow.gif" />Introduction</h2> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p> |
| This document is an overview of the process. Read it in conjunction with |
| the "<a href="Incubation_Policy.html">Incubation Policy</a>" and the |
| various <a href="../guides/">guides</a>. |
| Also review the |
| <a href="../incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html">Roles and Responsibilities</a> |
| for a description of the various parties involved in the Incubation |
| process. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h2 id='The+Process+of+Incubation'><img src="../images/redarrow.gif" />The Process of Incubation</h2> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>The incubation process covers the establishment of a candidate, |
| acceptance (or rejection) of a candidate leading to the potential |
| establishment of a Podling and associated incubation process, which |
| ultimately leads to the establishment or a new Apache |
| Top-Level-Project (TLP) or sub-project within an existing Apache |
| Project. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| <img alt="incubation-process.png" src="incubation-process.png" /> |
| </p> |
| <h3 id='Establishment'>Establishment</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p> |
| <a href="./images/howtoincubateaproject.png"><img src="./images/howtoincubateaproject-thumb.png" alt="Illustration of the establishment process" /></a> |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The first thing you will want to do is find a |
| <strong><a href="Roles_and_Responsibilities.html#Champion">Champion</a></strong> for your project. |
| One way to do this is to explore the existing |
| <a href="http://www.apache.org/foundation/projects.html">Apache projects</a> to find similar projects. |
| Spend some time reading their project web pages and mailing lists (follow links at each project website). |
| By simply lurking on the project mailing lists (and also the |
| <a href="../guides/lists.html#general+at+incubator.apache.org">Incubator general list</a> |
| and other Incubating project lists) you may get ideas about who you |
| would like to contact directly to help you with your project proposal. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Simply email that person directly (e.g. <code>username@apache.org</code>, |
| see the <a href="http://people.apache.org/committer-index.html">committer list</a> to |
| find the username), |
| describe informally yourselves and your project, |
| and ask kindly if she would be willing to act as your Champion for |
| your project within the Apache incubator. Remember that all |
| Apache Committers and Members are volunteers with limited |
| spare time, but you will hopefully find that the person is |
| honoured by your request to be a Champion and sees a potential |
| for your project as a future Apache project. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Once you have found an eligible person who is willing to act as Champion, |
| you can use this person to |
| help you determine if and how your proposal can fit within the ASF, |
| and if the "Apache Way" of open development would be right for your |
| project. |
| This might happen over a series of emails, telephone calls or |
| online chat sessions, and should cover any practical concerns such as |
| project infrastructure (e.g. mailing lists, web, source code repositories, |
| issue tracker, wiki) but also the implications of |
| licensing, governance and Intellectual Property management. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| If you and your Champion are convinced that your candidate project |
| would fit with the "Apache Way", your Champion can help you to get it |
| established. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The establishment of a candidate involves the preparation of a |
| Project Proposal (consistent with the candidate description |
| detailed below) endorsed by a <strong>Champion</strong>. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| A <strong>Candidate</strong> project description should be submitted to the <a href="../guides/lists.html">relevant |
| mailing list(s)</a> of a <strong>Sponsor</strong>. The Sponsor is usually the |
| <a href="/">Incubator (IPMC)</a>, (<a href="/guides/lists.html">general@incubator.apache.org</a>), |
| assuming your project would aspire to |
| become a top-level project (TLP). In the special case of your project aspiring to become |
| a sub-project of an existing Apache top-level project |
| (e.g. a plugin for Apache OpenOffice), then that project |
| should be your champion and their <code>dev@</code> mailing list would |
| be where to send the proposal first. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Please see: |
| </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>a <a href="/guides/proposal.html">Guide to Proposal Creation</a></li> |
| <li>existing <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/ProjectProposals">project proposals</a> for examples</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p> |
| Typically a <strong>Candidate</strong> is submitted under a message tagged with [PROPOSAL]. |
| Such a message will normally trigger some discussions on the receiving mailing list(s). |
| Your Champion will be involved in these discussions acting as your advocate. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| As a proposer you should consider the feedback and attempt to gauge a |
| sense of consensus. Do not be put off by extended threads under your |
| initial post that have little or nothing to do with your proposal - |
| however, if you feel that your candidate project is not being |
| addressed, you may want to specifically request a decision on the |
| Candidate by the Sponsor. |
| Sometimes a vote will be announced without |
| you asking for it (perhaps you have done some homework and have a PMC |
| member assisting you though the process), other times you may need to |
| cut through discussions and push your request forward for a decision. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h3 id='Acceptance'>Acceptance</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>The decision to accept a project is taken on a vote by the Sponsor. |
| The format of this vote will depend on the rules of the entity in |
| question. Here again it helps if you have a PMC Member (or board |
| member if the Sponsor is the ASF board) aligned with your project |
| (preferably as your Champion) because you stand a better chance of |
| getting feedback about what is actually happening. The Sponsor will |
| typically take about 7-10 days before announcing a vote result. |
| </p> |
| <p>If that vote is affirmative, the Sponsor (unless the Sponsor is |
| already the Incubator PMC) will propose to the |
| |
| <strong>Incubator PMC</strong>(referencing the voting result e-mail) that your candidate project be |
| accepted by the Incubator as a |
| |
| <strong>Podling</strong>. The Sponsor will assign |
| |
| <strong>Mentors</strong>. |
| The Mentors may include your original Champion. If not, it |
| is expected your Champion will remain involved during the rest of the |
| Incubation process, providing as much assistance as possible. |
| |
| </p> |
| <p>The Mentors are there to protect you, but be warned - Mentors |
| are holding a big stick. The Mentors are members |
| of the Incubator PMC, and report to both the PMC and the Sponsor |
| about your overall health and suitability for eventual inclusion |
| within the Apache Community (or recommendation to terminate). |
| However, the Mentors (with the assistance of the Champion) are also |
| looking after you through the incubation. |
| </p> |
| <p>One of the roles of the Mentors is to keep away the wolves - and in |
| the case of incubation the wolf is the Incubator PMC, the policies, |
| the process, and inevitable bureaucracy and delays. The Mentors can |
| help you by guiding and protecting you from much of this based on |
| their experience in the process and familiarity with the policy and |
| procedures of incubation. In performing their role, the Mentors are |
| representing the Sponsor. |
| </p> |
| <p>Your Sponsor, represented by your Mentors, has specific |
| responsibilities towards you and the Incubator PMC. There are a bunch |
| of administrative and technical actions to take care of. Your Mentors |
| are responsible for ensuring that these things happen quickly and |
| efficiently. Also, your Mentors are going to help you out with the |
| getting in place of the policies and procedures you use for |
| introducing new comitters, decision making, etc. These aspects will |
| be watched closely by the Incubator PMC as they provide a good |
| indication of community dynamics, health and correlation with Apache |
| practices. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h3 id='Review'>Review</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>As your project sorts things out and things stabilize |
| (infrastructure, communications, decision making) you will inevitably |
| come under an assessment by the Incubator PMC concerning the exit of |
| your project from the incubator. Keep in mind that exit can be a good |
| thing and bad thing. Exit via graduation to a top-level project or |
| perhaps a subproject of an existing PMC would typically be viewed as |
| a positive exit. On the other-hand, termination is also an exit |
| condition that may be considered. With an upcoming assessment it is |
| generally a good idea to have your STATUS file right up to-date and |
| to ensure that your Mentor is doing his/her job of evangelizing your |
| project and has good picture of where you are relative to acceptance |
| or the last assessment point. This information will help the |
| Incubator PMC to recommend the best action for your project. |
| </p> |
| <p>Conclusion of a review process will be a recommendation (to the |
| Sponsor) of one of the following: |
| </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>termination;</li> |
| <li>continuation under incubation with recommendations; or</li> |
| <li>graduation into Apache.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Note that whilst this is a recommendation, it carries a lot of |
| weight. A Sponsor will only over-ride the recommendation of the |
| Incubator in exceptional circumstances, and even then it is likely |
| that the issue in question would be escalated to the ASF board for |
| their consideration. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h3 id='TerminationRetirement'>Termination or Retirement</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>There are two ways for a project to cease incubation: Termination |
| or Retirement. |
| |
| If you receive a recommendation for termination then you have a |
| problem. Chances are that there are either legal or structural |
| problems with your project that in the opinion of the Incubator PMC |
| are not resolvable within a reasonable time frame. A termination |
| decision is basically time to close down the project. However, you do |
| have the right to appeal a termination decision with the Board of |
| Directors and/or your Sponsor. You should be aware that several |
| Members of the Board are also Members of the Incubator PMC and as |
| such, an appeal is unlikely to be successful. |
| |
| Retirement is typically an internal decisions by PPMC. A retired project |
| is a project which has been closed down by the PPMC or by the IPMC for |
| various reasons. It is not longer developed at the Apache Incubator and |
| does not have any other duties. |
| |
| Retirement can also be suggested by IPMC on the grounds of lack |
| of releases for more than a year. However, since unlike termination, |
| retirement is a voluntary process, the suggestion will have to be |
| discussed and voted upon. |
| |
| It's important to view this process as being the retirement of the podling |
| community, not the code. It should not be implied that the code is not for |
| use - just that it has no community. The source code of a retired project |
| is available in ASF repository, when the copyright requirements are fullfilled. |
| This is indicated through the incubator status page. For more details on |
| Retirement please see our <strong><a href="../guides/retirement.html">Guide to Retirement</a></strong> |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h3 id='Continuation'>Continuation</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>A recommendation by the Incubator PMC for continuation of incubation |
| shall include development recommendations. The Incubator PMC has a |
| responsibility to ensure that the recommended actions are tangible |
| and quantifiable. For example, an assessment could be that your |
| project has not established a sufficient community to be viable, in |
| which case the Incubator PMC is obliged to state specific targets |
| that they consider as viable. This does not necessarily mean that if |
| you meet this target by the next review that you are out of |
| incubation - but it does give you concrete achievements that you can |
| cite. Your Mentor is also specifically accountable to you for |
| ensuring that the recommendations for continuation are usable, |
| substantive and tangible. If this is not the case, you have every |
| right to appeal an Incubator decision to the Apache Board. However, |
| if your Mentor is doing a good job, neither of these scenarios should |
| arise. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <h3 id='Graduation'>Graduation</h3> |
| <div class="section-content"> |
| <p>For Podlings that aim to establish sub-projects or products within |
| existing communities you are almost home-free. The main issues you |
| need to deal with now is migration of your code into the target |
| project, something you should be confident in doing based on the |
| contacts and understanding you gained during initial establishment |
| and incubation. |
| </p> |
| <p>For projects aiming to be a Top-Level-Project (TLP), you have an |
| additional obstacle, namely the ASF Board. While the ASF Board might |
| be your Sponsor, this does not mean they have formally accepted you |
| as a TLP. To establish a TLP you need to draft a board motion that |
| identifies the project scope, mission and charter. You can submit the |
| motion to the Board using the board at apache dot org email address. |
| Well-prepared projects will have already developed contacts with |
| members of the Board so this should not be a surprise agenda item. |
| Keep in mind that the Board can approve your motion as supplied, |
| amend it, or reject it. If you are rejected then you need to sort |
| this out with the Incubator PMC and allies you have developed during |
| the incubation process. In other words, for a TLP objective the |
| Incubator PMC okay is only half of the story. |
| </p> |
| <p>However, in practice, assuming you are building contacts with members |
| in Apache, the Incubator PMC, and the ASF Board, the transition from |
| Podling to TLP should be a smooth and painless process. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
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