Re: [technology-pmc] COSMOS Project review

[David Whiteman <David_Whiteman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wayne,

Thank you for the detailed feedback.
 Several of the issues you touch on regarding our downloads page and
milestone naming are temporary glitches due to miscommunication with our
build team.  We previously had those items correct, and are taking
steps to restore them.  

Regarding a blog, we do all of our communication
on our wiki (which sort of serves as a blog) and via the cosmos-dev email
list and newsgroup.  Do you feel a blog is essential for each project?
 I don't think anyone has even mentioned this to us before as a suggestion.

I was wondering if you were aware that
we are having both a graduation and release review.  Considering the
graduation aspect of it, does this change the feedback that you would like
to give us, or did you already have that in mind when you composed your
comments?

Thanks,
David
---
David Whiteman | IBM Tivoli Autonomic Computing
Eclipse COSMOS project committer | http://www.eclipse.org/cosmos/
dlwhiteman@xxxxxxxxxx | 919-254-8224 | T/L 444-8224

technology-pmc-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 10/31/2008
12:02:05 PM:

> Technology PMC,
> 
> I've done my review of the COSMOS project. It is my assessment that
the 
> project is progressing well. While I'd like to see more community
> development, it does seem that the project already has a very diverse
> group of committers, along with some commercial adoption. As I note
> below, most of the commits are coming from IBM employees, but a steady
> flow is also being registered by SAS and CA.
> 
> The project seems to be doing the right sort of things to help newcomers
> familiarize themselves with the project. The website provides good
help 
> and the developers appear to be responsive in the newsgroup. I'd like
to 
> see more blogging along with more explicit outreach.
> 
> I am a little concerned about how the project is labeling their 
> releases. Their current naming scheme does not seem to conform to
the 
> conventions that are being followed by most other projects. Though
it 
> could just be that I don't understand what they're doing.
> 
> I have captured my research along with some of my thoughts below.
> 
> Wayne
> 
> --
> 
> Some activity on the newsgroup. There are some links in the newsgroup
to 
> several articles and press releases that indicate that COSMOS is getting
> some adoption. All open bug reports appear to come from committers
or, 
> at least, from the project committers' colleagues. 147 downloads (as
of 
> today) of the COSMOS SDK. I'm not sure what we can derive from this
as 
> the downloads amount to a few here and there over a period of four
> months. I believe that it is fair to say that the community is 
> relatively small.
> 
> The project does provide good documentation. Some parts seems more
> extensive than others. Similarly, some parts seem more refined than
> others. The point is that the project does seem to be providing the
> information prospective adopters require.
> 
> The committers appear to come from a diverse group of companies. Most
of 
> the commits are by IBM employees, but some recent activity has also
been 
> recorded from CA and SAS. It'd be nice to see more diversity in the
> actual commits.
> 
> Mailing list is quite active. Meeting minutes are posted. Development
> does appear to be very transparent and open.
> 
> Project plan [1] is not yet in the standard format. Plan includes
a 
> section with a "needs to be updated" section that should
probably be 
> updated.
> 
> The IP Log [2] appears complete.
> 
> I don't understand the strategy that the project is using to label
> releases.  The current downloads are labeled "1.0.0",
but releases are 
> named "Iteration 12", "Iteration 13", and "Iteration
14". Where does the 
> 1.0.0 come from. They mustn't have released a 1.0.0 as they are still
in 
> incubation. I believe that candidate builds should be labeled as such.
> Our convention is to name milestones M1, M2, ..., so I expect to see
> releases labeled "1.0.0M1", etc.
> 
> The downloads page [3] contains a invalid link to "build types"
[4] 
> which I expect describes the different kinds of builds. This broken
link 
> needs to be fixed. The download page doesn't format well on my system
> (Ubuntu 7.10 + Firefox 2).
> 
> Does the COSMOS project have a blog? I can't find it.
> 
> I get a broken link (500, could be temporary) off the home page from
the 
> link from "CA, IBM First to Demonstrate CMDB Federation, 
> Interoperability" [5]. That needs to be fixed.
> 
> [1] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Cosmos_Release_Plan
> [2] http://www.eclipse.org/projects/ip_log.php?projectid=technology.cosmos
> [3] http://www.eclipse.org/cosmos/downloads/
> [4] http://www.eclipse.org/cosmos/downloads/build_types.html[\
> [5] 
> http://article.wn.com/view/2008/09/08/
> CA_IBM_First_to_Demonstrate_CMDB_Federation_Interoperability/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> technology-pmc mailing list
> technology-pmc@xxxxxxxxxxx
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/technology-pmc