Re: How to evangelize Apache Lab across ASF communities

Sent from my mobile device, please forgive errors and brevity.
On Sep 29, 2011 4:05 PM, "Christian Grobmeier" <grobmeier@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Having said that Labs is already open to any idea from any committer,
> >>> just submit a DOAP and wait 72 hours.
> >>
> >> Last time we discussed I was asking if a "Struts Plugin" could be
> >> developed at the Labs. I have no quote at hand, but I think you
> >> explained this kind of software is not experimental enough.
> >>
> >> Did you change mind?
> >
> > I never said it was not "experimental enough" You gave a specific
> > example with a specific set of objectives which, if I remember
> > correctly, *included* making a release. I said labs is not the right
> > place because you want to do a release.
>
> Quote from email 31.05 (wow, this is a long lasting discussion):
>
> I asked:
>
> "1) I would like to create a Struts2 plugin. It is probably just one or
> two classes and if the Struts people like it, it will probably not
> stay there for too long. Is this a case for the incubator?"
>
> You responded:
>
> "This sounds like a case for the struts project. If they don't want it
> then apache-extras.org is the right home for it (perhaps as a Struts
> PMC sponsored struts-plugins project)."
>
> I asked then, if a personal release would be ok from Labs code. You
> said, yes, that would be ok.
> We have not discussed an official -experimental release at this point of
time.
>
> Later in this mail you wrote:
>
> "Labs is a place for experimentation, not a place for developing
> software that is intended to be used. Your use case sounds more like
> software for use than an experiment."
>
> Which led me to the assumption that a Struts plugin might not be
> experimental enough.
>

Without looking at full context I can't comment fully. my point is Labs is
for experiments and the rules for it are geared towards that. When you say
something is not "experimental enough" it puts the emphasis in the wrong
place. The point is labs is too restrictive for something that is not an
experiment, but this is the case for (arguably) good reason (the topic of
this thread). It's the goals of the collaborator that are important not the
depth of experimentation that make the difference.

>
> If every idea/experiment is welcome at the Labs to support
> inter-project collaboration (oh I love this term somehow),

That is not one of the goals as labs is currently defined. That could be a
case made for that though. However, as was pointed out earlier PMCs can open
up portions of their repositories to other committers. I'd have thought
keeping inter-project experiments inside those project communities would be
a good idea.

>
> But as my stuff is "intended to be used", I have not considered Labs.
> Maybe its all just a big misunderstanding ;-)

Maybe it is. If all you want to do is experiment with Jane from Apache Foo
on plugin bar then Labs is fine, but so would a limited sandbox area in
Apache Goo.

>
> Cheers
>
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