Mailing-List: contact general-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: general@incubator.apache.org
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <83E4EF39-9A03-4B11-9B71-FA4C1AED235B@jaguNET.com>
References: <83E4EF39-9A03-4B11-9B71-FA4C1AED235B@jaguNET.com>
From: Olivier Lamy <olamy@apache.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 23:19:36 +1000
Message-ID: 
 <CAPoyBqQPi5dPmQF_0njcSwLfRmBP5s++VGndDijisiF_=ZkDDw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [VOTE] Usergrid BaaS Stack for Apache Incubator
To: "general@incubator.apache.org" <general@incubator.apache.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

+1

On 23 September 2013 22:44, Jim Jagielski <jim@jagunet.com> wrote:
> After a useful and successful proposal cycle, I would like to propose
> a VOTE on accepting Usergrid, a multi-tenant Backend-as-a-Service
> stack for web & mobile applications based on RESTful APIs, as an Apache
> Incubator podling.
>
> Voting to run for 72+ hours...
>
> Here is a link to the proposal:
>   https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/UsergridProposal
>
> It is also pasted below:
>
> =3D Usergrid Proposal =3D
>
> =3D=3D Abstract =3D=3D
>
> Usergrid is a multi-tenant Backend-as-a-Service stack for web & mobile
> applications, based on RESTful APIs.
>
>
> =3D=3D Proposal =3D=3D
>
> Usergrid is an open-source Backend-as-a-Service (=93BaaS=94 or =93mBaaS=
=94) composed
> of an integrated distributed NoSQL database, application layer and client
> tier with SDKs for developers looking to rapidly build web and/or mobile
> applications. It provides elementary services (user registration &
> management, data storage, file storage, queues) and retrieval features (f=
ull
> text search, geolocation search, joins) to power common app features.
>
> It is a multi-tenant system designed for deployment to public cloud
> environments (such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, etc.) or to run on
> traditional server infrastructures so that anyone can run their own priva=
te
> BaaS deployment.
>
> For architects and back-end teams, it aims to provide a distributed, easi=
ly
> extendable, operationally predictable and highly scalable solution. For
> front-end developers, it aims to simplify the development process by
> enabling them to rapidly build and operate mobile and web applications
> without requiring backend expertise.
>
>
> =3D=3D Background =3D=3D
>
> Developing web or mobile applications obviously necessitates writing and
> maintaining more than just front-end code. Even simple applications can
> implicitly rely on server code being run to store users, perform database
> queries, serve images and video files, etc. Developing and maintaining su=
ch
> backend services requires skills not always available or expected of app
> development teams. Beyond that, the proliferation of apps inside of
> companies leads to the creation of many different, ad-hoc, unequally
> maintained backend solutions created by employees and contractors alike a=
nd
> hosted on a wide variety of environments. This is causing poor resource
> usage, operational issues, as well as security, privacy & compliance
> concerns.
>
> In response to this problem, companies have long tried to standardize the=
ir
> server-side stack or unify them behind an ESB or API strategy.
> Backends-as-a-Service follow a similar approach but their unique
> characteristic is strongly tying  1) a persistence tier (typically a
> database), 2) a server-side application tier delivering a set of common
> services and 3) a set of client-side application interface mechanisms. Fo=
r
> example, a BaaS could package 1) MongoDB with 2) a node.js application th=
at
> offers access through 3) WebSockets. In the case of Usergrid, the trifect=
a
> is 1) Cassandra, 2) Java + Jersey and 3) a RESTful API.
>
> The Backend-as-a-Service approach has steadily gained popularity in the l=
ast
> few years with cloud providers such Parse.com, Stackmob.com and Kinvey.co=
m,
> each operating tens of thousands of apps for tens of thousands of
> developers. The trend has already reached large organizations as well, wi=
th
> global companies such as Korea Telecom internally building a privately-ru=
n
> BaaS platform. But so far, there have been limited options for developers
> that want a non-proprietary, open option for hosting and providing these
> services themselves, or for enterprise and government users who want to
> provide these capabilities from their own data centers, especially on a v=
ery
> large scale.
>
>
> =3D=3D Rationale =3D=3D
>
> The issue this proposal deals with is implicit in the name.
> Backend-as-a-Service platforms are usually offered solely as proprietary
> cloud services. They are typically closed sourced, hosted on public cloud=
s,
> and require subscription payment. Usergrid opens the playing field, by
> making a fully-featured BaaS platform freely available to all. This inclu=
des
> developers that previously could not afford them, such as mobile
> enthusiasts, small boutiques, and cost-sensitive startups. This also
> includes large companies that benefit from a reference implementation the=
y
> can deploy in trust, or extend to their needs without losing time writing
> less-vetted, less-performant boilerplate functionality.
>
> Usergrid has been open source since 2011 and has grown as an independent
> project, garnering 11 primary committers, 35 total contributors, 260+
> participants on its mailing list, with 3,700+ commits, 200+ external
> contributions, 350+ stars and 100+ forks on Github, not to mention severa=
l
> large scale production deployments at major global companies in the media=
,
> retail, telecommunication and government spaces.
>
> The Apache Software Foundation's "Way", by putting community before the
> code, will help Usergrid establish a vibrant, more diverse community to
> provide these features freely to downstream users. The incubation process
> will help build this community and clear out the cobwebs, while vetting t=
he
> IP to provide a pristine ASLv2 licensed product to users. Under such
> conditions, our hope is that Usergrid will have a brighter future, and
> provide better assurances as an independent organic open source project,
> instead of continuing forward as a project sponsored by a handful of
> companies.
>
>
> =3D=3D Initial Goals =3D=3D
>
> We have no serious codebase concerns at the present moment. Besides vetti=
ng
> the IP by making sure the dependencies are Apache License 2.0 compatible,
> our main initial concern is to grow community and keep adding features to
> make Usergrid as robust as possible. However some logistics based goals
> include:
>
>  * Move the existing code base to Apache
>  * Integrate with the Apache development process
>  * Ensure all dependencies are compliant with Apache License 2.0
>  * Set up open-source docs and website
>  * Incremental development and releases per Apache Guidelines
>
>
> =3D=3D Current Statusi =3D=3D
>
> =3D=3D=3D Meritocracy =3D=3D=3D
> The project team's goals have always been to grow the community by
> encouraging contributors to participate. The project has grown steadily a=
nd
> smoothly from the efforts of the original creator and project founder (Ed
> Anuff) to a small circle of committers (at Apigee), to a distributed,
> multi-vendor community (Apigee and Korea Telecom) that also includes outs=
ide
> committers (Globo and others), as well as non-salaried committers. Togeth=
er
> we discuss the project=92s goals and roadmap openly, making drastic yet
> positive changes to the project's direction based on everyone's input. Ou=
r
> goal is to drive further community diversification in a way that only a
> foundation-sponsored project can achieve, rather than what a vendor-led
> project can accomplish.
>
>
> =3D=3D=3D Community =3D=3D=3D
> We have a public Google Group for support here:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=3Den#!forum/usergrid with over 250 ac=
tive
> participants, 367 threads and new messages every day. Usergrid also has a=
n
> active community on Github issues (with over 200 discussions):
> https://github.com/apigee/usergrid-stack/issues?state=3Dall. Some of thes=
e
> users have contributed their open applications back to the community or h=
ave
> built their own new SDKs for Usergrid found here on Github:
> https://github.com/search?q=3Dusergrid&source=3Dcc.
>
> Expanding and nurturing the Usergrid community is our primary concern and
> one of the main reasons for the decision to apply for incubation.  Usergr=
id
> has been developed openly on Github for many years and has enjoyed active
> developer participation by a committers from all over the globe.  However=
,
> due to the disparate nature and wide variety of the Github repos that
> comprise the Usergrid project (the Usergrid-stack, 8 separate SDKs, the
> Admin Portal, and various samples), it has been challenging to grow a
> unified community.  Bringing the entire project under the umbrella of Apa=
che
> will promote a unification of the Usergrid community and enable all
> developers to collaborate on the project.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Core Developers =3D=3D=3D
> The core developers include Apache Committers, PMC Members, and Members o=
f
> the ASF. The developers, some of whom have have been involved with the
> Apache Incubator and Apache Lucene as PMC members, are active mentors and
> have participated in and contributed to several projects: i.e. Apache,
> Lucene, Cassandra, Hibernate, Directory, Wicket, Commons, Roller, MINA,
> Karaf, Felix, Cloud Stack, HCatalog, and Commons projects. Many of them a=
re
> also active in Open-source beyond code, and have positions on the committ=
ees
> or organization such as OSCON.
>
>
> =3D=3D=3D Alignment =3D=3D=3D
> The initial code base leverages several Apache Software Foundation produc=
ts.
> Usergrid leverages Apache Cassandra for its scalable data store, and uses
> Maven for its build system. Almost half of Usergrid's dependencies are
> Apache dependencies:
>
>  * Apache Cassandra
>  * Apache Tomcat
>  * Apache Commons
>  * Apache ZooKeeper
>  * Apache Shiro
>  * Apache Amber
>  * Apache Thrift
>  * Apache ActiveMQ
>  * Apache HttpClient
>  * Apache Lucene
>  * Apache JClouds
>
> Besides these direct alignments, Usergrid also complements Apache Cordova
> and could provide several advantages to the mobile application developer
> community they serve.
>
>
> =3D=3D Known Risks =3D=3D
>
> =3D=3D=3D Orphaned products =3D=3D=3D
> There are now at least two vendors running Usergrid in product. Apigee is=
 an
> established startup with a large, diversified customer roster and Korea
> Telecom is a major, national telecommunications company. The continuity o=
f
> Usergrid, as an open-source, vendor-independent product are in the intere=
st
> of all parties. Beyond the vendors, Globo.com and many others large
> companies have been relying on Usergrid for critical applications and as
> such they are committed to contributing to the effort.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Inexperience with Open Source =3D=3D=3D
> The Usergrid project has been open source and under the ALv2 for 2 years =
on
> Github and many of its contributors came with previous open-source
> experience, (as referenced above), including active members of these
> communities:
>
>  * Apache
>  * Cassandra (& Hector)
>  * Lucene
>  * Hibernate
>  * CouchDB
>  * PhoneGap
>  * jQuery
>
> Development in this open forum has resulted in a growing community of
> contributors, and the Usergrid project is now ready and eager to embrace =
and
> learn from Apache's wealth of experience. Usergrid would like to embrace =
an
> even greater culture of open participation as witnessed on so many Apache
> projects.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Homogenous Developers =3D=3D=3D
> The core development team for Usergrid is a geographically and
> technologically diverse group. Apigee=92s team is itself distributed, wit=
h
> contributors based in each timezone in the continental US. Additional
> regular contributors have joined us from India, Asia, Oceania, South
> America, the Middle East and Europe. While roughly half of our core
> developers come from a Java background, the other half is comprised of iO=
S,
> Ruby, and JavaScript developers.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Reliance on Salaried Developers =3D=3D=3D
> Most of the principal developers are paid by their employers to contribut=
e,
> but not all. Throughout the life of the project, we=92ve seen passionate,
> personal commitment from all parties, as evidenced by our commit
> distribution on weekends
> (https://github.com/apigee/usergrid-stack/graphs/punch-card). We also
> believe, given the growing interest in mobile API services and the range =
of
> individuals and corporations that are eager to participate, that
> non-salaried contributions will grow. We know the "The Apache Way" will h=
elp
> us further accelerate this process.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Relationships with Other Apache Products =3D=3D=3D
> There's much potential for collaboration with Apache Cordova and, of cour=
se,
> the Cassandra community because of the underlying foundations of Usergrid=
's
> scalability. In the future there may be more interactions with any of the
> communities that Usergrid has direct dependencies to.
>
> =3D=3D=3D A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand =3D=3D=3D
> Although we are aware of the strength of the Apache brand, we are primari=
ly
> interested in the transforming power of the Apache Way to help guide
> Usergrid towards a more diversified and meritocratic community. To that e=
nd,
> the brand's primary benefit for us is to help to attract more participant=
s
> and diversify the community. Having several committers, PMC participants,
> and members of Apache as developers on Usergrid, there's little infatuati=
on
> with the brand, and the Usergrid community is actively conscious of this =
not
> being a driver for joining the Apache community.
>
>
> =3D=3D Documentation =3D=3D
>
> Information on Usergrid can be found at:
> https://developers.apigee.com/app-services.
>
>
> =3D=3D Initial Source =3D=3D
>
> All initial sources can be found here: https://github/usergrid
>
>
> =3D=3D Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan =3D=3D
>
> The IP transfer for Usergrid is trivial due to it's single source and
> existing ASLv2 licensing.
>
>
> =3D=3D External Dependencies =3D=3D
>
> Most dependencies are Apache compatible licenses (Category A). A small se=
t
> of Category B licenses, like the CDDL exists. For more details please see
> Dependency Licenses.
>
>
> =3D=3D Cryptography =3D=3D
>
> Not relevant to Usergrid since all code dealing with cryptography already
> comes from the JDK or from dependencies on  Apache Software.
>
>
> =3D=3D Required Resources =3D=3D
>
> =3D=3D=3D Mailing lists =3D=3D=3D
>  * private@usergrid.incubator.apache.org (moderated)
>  * dev@usergrid.incubator.apache.org
>  * commits@usergrid.incubator.apache.org
>
> =3D=3D=3D Subversion Directory =3D=3D=3D
> We prefer to use Git as our source control system:
> git://git.apache.org/usergrid/. If possible, we would like to keep
> leveraging the extremely useful github facilities for workflow using a
> process much like that employed by the Apache Cordova project (documented
> here http://wiki.apache.org/cordova/ContributorWorkflow).
>
> =3D=3D=3D Issue Tracking =3D=3D=3D
> JIRA Usergrid (USERGRID)
>
> =3D=3D=3D Other Resources =3D=3D=3D
> None.
>
>
> =3D=3D Initial Committers =3D=3D
>
>  * Alberto Leal <albertonb@gmail.com> (Globo.com)
>  * Alex Karasulu <akarasulu@apache.org> (Apigee)
>  * Dave Johnson <snoopdave@apache.org> (Apigee)
>  * Ed Anuff <ed@anuff.com> (Apigee)
>  * Nate McCall <zznate.m@gmail.com> (The Last Pickle)
>  * Rod Simpson <rod@rodsimpson.com> (Apigee)
>  * Scott Ganyo <scottganyo@apache.org> (Apigee)
>  * Shaozhuang Liu <stliu@hibernate.org>
>  * Sungju Jin <sungju@softwaregeeks.org> (Korea Telecom)
>  * Tim Anglade <timanglade@gmail.com> (Apigee)
>  * Todd Nine <todd.nine@gmail.com> (Apigee)
>  * Jim Jagielski <jim@apache.org> (RedHat)
>
>
> =3D=3D Affiliations =3D=3D
>
>  * Apigee
>  * Korea Telecom
>  * Globo.com
>  * The Last Pickle
>
>
> =3D=3D Sponsors =3D=3D
>
> =3D=3D=3D Champion =3D=3D=3D
> Jim Jagielski <jim@apache.org>
>
> =3D=3D=3D Nominated Mentors =3D=3D=3D
>  * Alex Karasulu <akarasulu@apache.org>
>  * Dave Johnson <snoopdave@apache.org>
>
> =3D=3D=3D Sponsoring Entity =3D=3D=3D
> Incubator PMC
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>


--=20
Olivier Lamy
Ecetera: http://ecetera.com.au
http://twitter.com/olamy | http://linkedin.com/in/olamy

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org