Ignite in 2019: Status and Directions

[dmagda]

Igniters,

The Chair rotation discussion [1] triggered many questions such as why
would we rotate the Chair, what happens with the diversity, and overall
community growth. Let's use this thread to discuss the status of the
project and to highlight some areas of improvement in 2020. This will help
all of us, including project PMC and a new Chair, to stay focused on what
matters the most for the community growth and broader adoption of Ignite.
Let me be the first as a current PMC Chair and share the most important
observations.

*Dev Community Diversity*

2019 (now):

Personally, the status quo is changed; many of the community members who
have the luxury to contribute daily no longer work for a single vendor.
Vendors are not trying to take control of the community but, instead,
follow the guidelines and spirit of the open-source/ASF based development.
It's great to see that a lot of knowledge has been shared between us after
this change and this process is ongoing and never-ending. We're proving
that even though Ignite is a complex technology, many can contribute to it
if find support and mentored by more skillful community members.

Next, while those of us who contribute on their best effort (like Saikat or
Roman Shtykh) are still with the community and help to drive changes, many
who were previously active disappear after changing employees. Don't get me
wrong, I'm not blaming anybody personally, there might be many reasons for
that. But would like to stress out that we as a healthy community needs
both who can contribute daily and on a best effort. If your life is
changing, don't abandon the community if Ignite matters something to you,
just slow down but stay or send a good-buy message explaining why you can
no longer be involved. Ignite shouldn't be a pay-check driven community.

2020 (future) - overall, these are the areas I'd like to propose to focus
on:
* Provide greater support and mentorship to newcomers - we need more
experts who can contribute daily or on a best effort. Share the knowledge,
pay good for good, remember that one day in the past you were a newcomer
and you had found support.
* Pay attention to the quality and readability of the code - we need to
spend more time on code refactoring and advanced test coverage. Otherwise,
it's much harder to raise new committers and more time will be spent on
fixes than on improvements.
* Promote the community, encourage skillful developers to join us.

*User Community - Support and Experience*

2019 (now): Ignite user community is in the top 5 most active communities
of the ASF (among 350+ top-level projects). Isn't this great? We need to be
proud of this. It means the project resonates with the needs of many.

What's worrisome is that in *most of the time* the user community finds
support from Ignite experts who work for GridGain. The vendor basically
sponsors this by asking its employees to keep an eye on the user list to
ensure the user community gets its questions answered. This needs to be
improved because the dev community has to stay connected with the user
community for support and feedback. The project is being developed for our
users, remember that, no users no need in Ignite.

2020 (future):

   - Greater support and connection between dev and user communities -
   committers need to be active on the user lists.
   - Help new users to learn about Ignite and start using it - blog,
   present at meetups, conferences and webinars, share with your fellow
   developers. Ignite is your and our project, come out of the building and
   tell of your work proudly.


Sorry for a long story, share your thoughts.

[1]
http://apache-ignite-developers.2346864.n4.nabble.com/DISCUSS-PMC-Chair-rotation-time-td11941.html

-
Denis

[Ivan Pavlukhin]

Denis,

If got it right you wish that there will be more active contributors
(both code patches and help on user list) whose daily job is not only
development of Apache Ignite.

In my mind it will happen naturally when Ignite becomes more
frequently used in fields. As we all understand almost every software
engineer needs paid job. And when we see Apache Ignite included into
technology stack in job descriptions the magic will happen.

Another thing here is easy on-boarding. The contribution procedure
should be easy for a newcomer. Feedback (PR review) should be given
timely. I believe we can improve there a lot. I contributed a little
to several open-source projects in past. And have a really good
memories about contribution to zipkin. I just created an issue and PR
on GitHub, review-merge cycle took about one week, marvelous.

Additionally, code base simplification and technical KB articles can
attract more contributors.

чт, 24 окт. 2019 г. в 21:08, Denis Magda <[hidden email]>:

>
> Igniters,
>
> The Chair rotation discussion [1] triggered many questions such as why
> would we rotate the Chair, what happens with the diversity, and overall
> community growth. Let's use this thread to discuss the status of the
> project and to highlight some areas of improvement in 2020. This will help
> all of us, including project PMC and a new Chair, to stay focused on what
> matters the most for the community growth and broader adoption of Ignite.
> Let me be the first as a current PMC Chair and share the most important
> observations.
>
> *Dev Community Diversity*
>
> 2019 (now):
>
> Personally, the status quo is changed; many of the community members who
> have the luxury to contribute daily no longer work for a single vendor.
> Vendors are not trying to take control of the community but, instead,
> follow the guidelines and spirit of the open-source/ASF based development.
> It's great to see that a lot of knowledge has been shared between us after
> this change and this process is ongoing and never-ending. We're proving
> that even though Ignite is a complex technology, many can contribute to it
> if find support and mentored by more skillful community members.
>
> Next, while those of us who contribute on their best effort (like Saikat or
> Roman Shtykh) are still with the community and help to drive changes, many
> who were previously active disappear after changing employees. Don't get me
> wrong, I'm not blaming anybody personally, there might be many reasons for
> that. But would like to stress out that we as a healthy community needs
> both who can contribute daily and on a best effort. If your life is
> changing, don't abandon the community if Ignite matters something to you,
> just slow down but stay or send a good-buy message explaining why you can
> no longer be involved. Ignite shouldn't be a pay-check driven community.
>
> 2020 (future) - overall, these are the areas I'd like to propose to focus
> on:
> * Provide greater support and mentorship to newcomers - we need more
> experts who can contribute daily or on a best effort. Share the knowledge,
> pay good for good, remember that one day in the past you were a newcomer
> and you had found support.
> * Pay attention to the quality and readability of the code - we need to
> spend more time on code refactoring and advanced test coverage. Otherwise,
> it's much harder to raise new committers and more time will be spent on
> fixes than on improvements.
> * Promote the community, encourage skillful developers to join us.
>
> *User Community - Support and Experience*
>
> 2019 (now): Ignite user community is in the top 5 most active communities
> of the ASF (among 350+ top-level projects). Isn't this great? We need to be
> proud of this. It means the project resonates with the needs of many.
>
> What's worrisome is that in *most of the time* the user community finds
> support from Ignite experts who work for GridGain. The vendor basically
> sponsors this by asking its employees to keep an eye on the user list to
> ensure the user community gets its questions answered. This needs to be
> improved because the dev community has to stay connected with the user
> community for support and feedback. The project is being developed for our
> users, remember that, no users no need in Ignite.
>
> 2020 (future):
>
>    - Greater support and connection between dev and user communities -
>    committers need to be active on the user lists.
>    - Help new users to learn about Ignite and start using it - blog,
>    present at meetups, conferences and webinars, share with your fellow
>    developers. Ignite is your and our project, come out of the building and
>    tell of your work proudly.
>
>
> Sorry for a long story, share your thoughts.
>
> [1]
> http://apache-ignite-developers.2346864.n4.nabble.com/DISCUSS-PMC-Chair-rotation-time-td11941.html
>
> -
> Denis

--
Best regards,
Ivan Pavlukhin

[Dmitry Pavlov]

Denis, thank you for so detailed description. I agree everywhere.

I need to do just one minor note, just to draw the line between OK and Not
OK. Pay check driving-community is perfectly OK when an employer sponsors
developers to contribute particular feature or fix.

The only one sensitive thing is driving project direction, in this field we
should be attentive and careful to avoid mixing employer interests and
community interests. Usually it is not an issue, since all parties and
entities are interested in development of the project. And, we have to keep
an eye, that the PMC is only one entity which drives project direction.

Sincerely,
Dmitriy Pavlov

пт, 25 окт. 2019 г. в 12:05, Ivan Pavlukhin <[hidden email]>:

> Denis,
>
> If got it right you wish that there will be more active contributors
> (both code patches and help on user list) whose daily job is not only
> development of Apache Ignite.
>
> In my mind it will happen naturally when Ignite becomes more
> frequently used in fields. As we all understand almost every software
> engineer needs paid job. And when we see Apache Ignite included into
> technology stack in job descriptions the magic will happen.
>
> Another thing here is easy on-boarding. The contribution procedure
> should be easy for a newcomer. Feedback (PR review) should be given
> timely. I believe we can improve there a lot. I contributed a little
> to several open-source projects in past. And have a really good
> memories about contribution to zipkin. I just created an issue and PR
> on GitHub, review-merge cycle took about one week, marvelous.
>
> Additionally, code base simplification and technical KB articles can
> attract more contributors.
>
> чт, 24 окт. 2019 г. в 21:08, Denis Magda <[hidden email]>:
> >
> > Igniters,
> >
> > The Chair rotation discussion [1] triggered many questions such as why
> > would we rotate the Chair, what happens with the diversity, and overall
> > community growth. Let's use this thread to discuss the status of the
> > project and to highlight some areas of improvement in 2020. This will
> help
> > all of us, including project PMC and a new Chair, to stay focused on what
> > matters the most for the community growth and broader adoption of Ignite.
> > Let me be the first as a current PMC Chair and share the most important
> > observations.
> >
> > *Dev Community Diversity*
> >
> > 2019 (now):
> >
> > Personally, the status quo is changed; many of the community members who
> > have the luxury to contribute daily no longer work for a single vendor.
> > Vendors are not trying to take control of the community but, instead,
> > follow the guidelines and spirit of the open-source/ASF based
> development.
> > It's great to see that a lot of knowledge has been shared between us
> after
> > this change and this process is ongoing and never-ending. We're proving
> > that even though Ignite is a complex technology, many can contribute to
> it
> > if find support and mentored by more skillful community members.
> >
> > Next, while those of us who contribute on their best effort (like Saikat
> or
> > Roman Shtykh) are still with the community and help to drive changes,
> many
> > who were previously active disappear after changing employees. Don't get
> me
> > wrong, I'm not blaming anybody personally, there might be many reasons
> for
> > that. But would like to stress out that we as a healthy community needs
> > both who can contribute daily and on a best effort. If your life is
> > changing, don't abandon the community if Ignite matters something to you,
> > just slow down but stay or send a good-buy message explaining why you can
> > no longer be involved. Ignite shouldn't be a pay-check driven community.
> >
> > 2020 (future) - overall, these are the areas I'd like to propose to focus
> > on:
> > * Provide greater support and mentorship to newcomers - we need more
> > experts who can contribute daily or on a best effort. Share the
> knowledge,
> > pay good for good, remember that one day in the past you were a newcomer
> > and you had found support.
> > * Pay attention to the quality and readability of the code - we need to
> > spend more time on code refactoring and advanced test coverage.
> Otherwise,
> > it's much harder to raise new committers and more time will be spent on
> > fixes than on improvements.
> > * Promote the community, encourage skillful developers to join us.
> >
> > *User Community - Support and Experience*
> >
> > 2019 (now): Ignite user community is in the top 5 most active communities
> > of the ASF (among 350+ top-level projects). Isn't this great? We need to
> be
> > proud of this. It means the project resonates with the needs of many.
> >
> > What's worrisome is that in *most of the time* the user community finds
> > support from Ignite experts who work for GridGain. The vendor basically
> > sponsors this by asking its employees to keep an eye on the user list to
> > ensure the user community gets its questions answered. This needs to be
> > improved because the dev community has to stay connected with the user
> > community for support and feedback. The project is being developed for
> our
> > users, remember that, no users no need in Ignite.
> >
> > 2020 (future):
> >
> >    - Greater support and connection between dev and user communities -
> >    committers need to be active on the user lists.
> >    - Help new users to learn about Ignite and start using it - blog,
> >    present at meetups, conferences and webinars, share with your fellow
> >    developers. Ignite is your and our project, come out of the building
> and
> >    tell of your work proudly.
> >
> >
> > Sorry for a long story, share your thoughts.
> >
> > [1]
> >
> http://apache-ignite-developers.2346864.n4.nabble.com/DISCUSS-PMC-Chair-rotation-time-td11941.html
> >
> > -
> > Denis
>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Ivan Pavlukhin
>