Barracuda - Community Roadmap
barracuda.gif (11357 bytes)Its been almost seven months since 1.0.2 release, and the community has undergone some changes in that time. Most specifically, Lutris no longer sponsers Enhydra.org, although ObjectWeb has take up that baton. Given the turbulence associated with this transition, the Barracuda community has laid out a vision for where we'd like to go from here.

The following email from Christian Cryder on May 6, 2002 summarizes the direction we intend to take, and was adopted after community review and approval.


Hi folks,

Ok, discussion has largely died down, so now we probably need to decide what to do. For starters, I'll toss out some suggestions and people can comment or re-propose accordingly.

1. Given the general helpfulness of the ObjectWeb folks, I'd like to propose that we stay at ObjectWeb for right now (ie. continue on at b.e.org). I don't think this really hurts us in any way, and its certainly the path of least resistance.

2. At the same time, I think we also need to start working on a Barracuda "portal" (for lack of a better word) that is hosted on our own box at http://barracudamvc.org. The basic idea here is that this should become the preferred entry point for all things Barracuda; for the time being, much of it will simply point back to the b.e.org site (where cvs will continue, at least for the time being). But as things progress more and more may be hosted on this box (specifically, things like automated daily builds, test runs, etc). That way, if we ever have to leave ObjectWeb, nothing really changes for Barracuda developers...they just continue to go through the existing url.

TODO: we still need a box and someone to host this. We can discuss the various options that exist for this in a separate email, but for now, we might all want to go talk to our bosses and see if someone in the community could donate some hardware/bandwidth for this effort. When we get a box, I'd recommend putting Tim Dysinger in charge of adminning the site, as a) he's had experience with this type of thing and b) he's volunteered to do so.

3. Regarding the EPL, I think for now we're going to have to live with it. Basically, its no worse than what we've dealt with in the past, and as long as Lutris' intentions are pure, we may not ever have any problems with it. We do know that there aren't any patents pending on Barracuda, so the XMLC dependencies are the only real issues that need to be addressed fairly soon, I think. Here's what I'd suggest:

a) we actively work to remove XMLC dependencies by creating a new DOM loader and renderer. This won't mean that Barracuda developers can't continue to use XMLC, just that they don't HAVE to. This would ensure that if patent issues ever emerge in regards to XMLC, Barracuda developers wouldn't be boxed in.

b) I'd propose that all new code donations be submitted under LGPL. This probably won't apply to bug fixes on EPL code, but for sure, everything that is either a rewrite or all new code could be relicensed. This would start us down the road to a more standard licensing model (LGPL).

c) several folks have expressed an interest in making a org.barracudamvc.* package that essentially _wraps_ the barracuda classes. This would effectively reduce the EPL to a mere binary dependancy, and would make it easier to migrate to pure LGPL, as enhancements and bug fixes could then be placed in the LGPL'd packages. Eventually, the EPL'd stuff would disappear altogether.

4. Regarding mailing lists; we could either a) keep on using the SF lists, b) go back to using the b.e.org lists or c) set up our own lists on the barracudamvc site. I'm actually in favor of c, with either a or b as an interim measure until we get barracudamvc set up. The reason I'd like to move the mailing lists off of e.org is so that if we ever have to leave there, we wouldn't have to worry about losing the archives or resubscribing everyone to yet another mailing list (again).

5. I'd like to see us get a new 1.0.3 release of Barracuda out sometime this week. This would mostly represent a snapshot of the current cvs tree, which is quite stable and represents a significant improvement over the 1.0.2 release from October.

I think that about covers it for now. Those are my suggestions, based on my personal preferences. Obviously, other people might feel differently, so please feel free to suggest alternatives. What I'd like to do, however, is to move forward and vote on what the community wants to do so that we can get on with the business of developing the framework. We can't do all of these things immediately, of course, but I'd like to get some consensus on the basic direction at least.

Coments and feedback welcome.

Christian


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