[wtp-dev] Minutes of March 8, 2005 PMC meeting

["Tim Wagner" <twagner@xxxxxxx>]

Attendees:

PMC leads: Tim Wagner [TW]

PMC members: Arthur Ryman [AR], David Williams [DW], Dominique De Vito [DV], Jochen Krause [JK], Naci Dai [ND]

Others: Lawrence Mandel (representing WTP ecosystem) [LM]

 

Minutes:

• Procedural matters – time and administration of PMC conference call
• PMC agreed to continue meeting on a weekly basis to ensure timely review of all WTP matters
• Meeting will commence one hour later (7am PST), starting next week
• Meeting will move to a US conference service: 1-888-722-7907 (alt: 1-816-650-0713), passcode 9262945. Note that there are no local numbers outside the US with the Sprint service (let me know if this is an issue).
• WTP Ecosystem Report from Lawrence Mandel
• WTP help system initial content should be available by next week
• Conference response: generally good, although code clinic was not advertised sufficiently (and far enough in advance); this was a general conference issue, and not specific to WTP’s use of it
• Some general discussion around whether a code clinic was helpful given the prerelease state of WTP (DW), and whether condensing it to fewer hours in the future would be an improvement (JK). Whether code clinics should overlay the conference at all, or whether there simply isn’t enough time for them to be useful was also raised as an issue (ND).
• EclipseCorner looking for contributions from WTP. This would also help communicate to the wider community what WTP has made available so far and possibly help drive adoption. Publishing in broader forums (JDJ, e.g.) would also be helpful, and contributions here are actively solicited; talk to Lawrence if you’re interested.

 

[PMC members only for the remaining portion of the meeting]

• Requirements group reboot [JK]
• Requirements group is currently composed of Jochen and Arthur.
• BEA will appoint someone (either Tim or a WTP dev or pgm) to this group to participate as well.
• Process: Group will reconstitute and meet; mechanism to solicit requirements from WTP consumers and possibly additional members to be its first order of business
• Community is actively encouraged to participate at multiple levels, and committers or consumers of WTP interested in membership should identify themselves to JK or TW
• EclipseCon Debrief
• General consensus that WTP’s presence and message at conference was successful
• Web Services generated interest from the press and several articles [JK]
• WTP not on high download list; needs improved stability to drive adoption and more advertising of available features [ND]
• M3 Release Debrief
• Significant improvements in process and code quality w.r.t. previous milestones, but more work on stability is needed to reach production quality and enable widespread adoption [ND]
• Demos at conference generally went well and succeeded at illustrating new functionality
• Packaging Issues
• Arthur noted that packaging is problematic – too many loose files, too many 3^rd party downloads (14!), etc.
• Licensing issues affecting 3^rd party redistribution rights are being worked through with the EMO, but it will take time.
• WTP investigating the use of Eclipse update sites as a distribution mechanism for milestone releases; will require 4^th component to version numbering (Jeffrey Liu working on this already)
• Two ZIPped bundles proposed: all WTP, and all WTP + Eclipse platform; should ease installation hassles
• Request to maintain some useful editing features (XML, e.g.) as separable from the entirety of WTP [JK]
• “New and Noteworthy” isn’t on the download page [JK].
• Should add link to upper right box in WTP home page.
• Main Eclipse page downloads reference is still to M2, and needs to be updated.
• New Committers
• The PMC reviewed the community voting results and accepted the following WTP committers: Jeffrey Liu, Kathy Chan, Keith Chong, Vijay Bhadriraju, Lawrence Dunnell
• 1.0 Rampdown / GA Process Description
• Between M5 and GA, WTP will be in rampdown mode, and some description of the process and the release criteria is needed [TW].
• Existing documentation for milestone builds and exit criteria to be reviewed [DW, TW] in preparation for this.
• In general, following the platform seems reasonable, and we also need to respect documentation and help file status [ND].
• On a related topic, integration builds will move from Thursday to Tuesday to allow for two days to address problems if the test status is not green [ND].
• API discussion
• Process surrounding the definition and freezing of APIs; see http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/wtp-dev/msg00705.html [AR]. David Williams agreed that the architecture group would play a significant role in reviewing and admitting APIs for WTP as a whole.
• Finalized process should be posted to the website [DV]
• Platform tool to analyze component metadata (“component.xml”) and scan for API violations was described [AR]; we are not yet compliant in many areas.
• Discussed nomenclature surrounding “provisional” APIs; a significant percentage of WTP’s APIs may be in this category for 1.0
• WTP to have standing agenda item until 1.0 GA to review status of component.xml’s / API conformance metrics
• Release-to-release API change process: PMC will adopt some combination of its own policies and the platform’s approach to managing and communicating the change; details TBD.
• Clarifying JST Use of Standards vs. Tooling Technologies
• Discussed use of xdoclet by WTP, since questions were raised about its “non-J2EE standardness” at the EclipseCon project sprint. PMC clarified that tooling of any form – xdoclet, ant, editors, etc. is acceptable for project use, but that *runtime* infrastructure and platforms targeted by JST will be limited to J2EE standards.
• Data Tools Project and Future of WTP RDB Component
• Arthur provided a description of meetings between IBM and Exadel with Sybase over the charters of the WTP RDB component and the newly proposed toplevel Data Tools Project (DTP)
• WTP PMC agreed that 1.0 release, and currently planned requirements for it, will not be affected apart from API definitions in this arena, which require either renaming or provisional status (outcome TBD based on subsequent discussions with Sybase/DTP representatives)
• RDB EMF models will continue to exist, and WTP consumers can continue to rely on them; Sybase is planning to contribute upgraded SQL editing and debugging capabilities as well as technology that expands on the RDB component scope into administration and DB design
• Help System
• Help content was not included in original IBM contribution, but will be made available shortly
• Lawrence Mandel will be technical contact for help build system and tools
• Help system is XML based (DITA), with open source processors on SourceForge
• IBM may be contributing a writer as well; first priority is correcting/augmenting content to match current WTP APIs and architecture; subsequent work would probably include some localization effort, at least for major languages
• Other companies may be able to contribute once infrastructure and content is present

 

Action Items:

• [TW] By 3/15: Identify BEA employee to serve on WTP requirements group
• [TW/JK] By 3/15: Reconstitute requirements group and set date for initial meeting.
• [AI] Bundled M3 releases (see minutes)
• [JK] Add “new and noteworthy” link and correct main Eclipse download page reference to be M3 instead of M2
• [TW] Draft language for endgame / rampdown based on David’s milestone release document; will circulate to PMC when ready.
• [TW] Pending community feedback on Arthur’s API adoption process, post it to the website.
• [TW] Update website to clarify that tool (not runtime) technologies are admissible in JST and unrelated to the JCP requirement
• [AR] Manage ongoing conversation with Sybase surrounding the RDB/DTP merge/migration.