Volunteers:

Links to Related Material

Current project life cycle document

Proposal

Incubation

·

First Major Release

First Major Release:
Maintenance

Deprecated

End of Life

Should all projects be required to start as a lab prior to being proposed for Incubation?

Proposed/Draft Resolution 5:

No. Projects can either start as a lab or be proposed to the TSC as a project entering Incubation. The TSC however may choose to direct a proposed project to a lab instead.

Under what circumstances can a project be moved back to Incubation? to a lab? (or what are the criteria for a project to be moved back to Incubation? to a lab?)

Proposed/Draft Resolution 4:

Until projects are moved to EOL they can stay in Incubation or Active status for an unlimited amount of time.

How do we deal with a new project coming in that is already a shipping product for a company?

Assuming it would need to pass Dave's proposed Project Readiness

It could be a bad look for a company to donate shipping code and then have it wallow in incubation

does it come in at the current shipping version ?

Proposed/Draft Resolution 8:

All new projects proposed to the TSC are considered to be starting in Incubation status. However, the Incubation exit criteria do not depend on any actual amount of time having been spent in Incubation. Whenever a project meets the Incubation exit criteria it can move to Active status. So, if a project happens to meet the Incubation exit criteria at the time a HIP is submitted to the TSC, the proposer of the project may submit a request to move to Active status at the same time. The project may then effectively move through Incubation immediately at the time it is accepted as a HIP.

The same goes with the first major release.

Issue 2

What are the criteria for a "First Major Release"?

Proposed/Draft Resolution 2:

What are the criteria for a "First Major Release"? How does Dave's proposed Project Readiness fit in? FWIW, I created this set of criteria for the Fabric 1.0 release.

Issue 7

How/when does a project get officially names?

(Early → easier to set up repository, Later → marketing committee can be involved, see mailing list for discussion)

Proposed/Draft Resolution 7:

To start, a proposal should come with a temporary "code name" (e.g. a geographical location) that can be used for the repository with low risk of trademark violation. On approval, the marketing committee will work with the proposers to create a long term name and will do all the necessary checks. The repository name can be changed.

Issue 3

What criteria/steps/policies must releases after the First Major Release adhere to?

Issue 6

Should we have subprojects (and fewer toplevel projects)?

Proposed/Draft Resolution 6.1:

No. Existing projects already have various forms of subprojects which are left under the governance of each project. There is no need for the TSC to get into that micromanagement of the projects and subprojects. Of course, if any conflict were to rise between a project and one or more of its subprojects the issue can be brought up to the TSC for arbitration.

Proposed/Draft Related Resolution 6.2:

Existing projects that were originally started via a HIP but that in practice are not being managed as "top level projects" will be officially rescinded from the top level nomination for house keeping purposes.

Proposed/Draft Related Resolution 6.3:

Projects that are dependent of one of the other projects should be folded under that project. This means Composer becomes Fabric Composer, Explorer becomes Fabric Explorer etc.

Proposed/Draft Related Resolution 6.4:

Subproject status and reporting should be reported through the top level project. For example, Fabric Explorer status would be included in the Fabric quarterly reports..

Issue 1
Proposed/Draft Resolution 1.1:

When a project, whether in Incubation or Active status, has not had any activities for over 6 months, it will be put on notice (via email to the project list) that it is on the path of being moved to "End of Life" (EOL) status. After an additional 6 months have passed, if no activity has taken place, pending TSC approval, the project will effectively be moved to EOL. Software releases and quarterly TSC reports will be considered as signs of "activities".

Proposed/Draft Resolution 1.2:

Project Maintainers may submit to the TSC a request for moving their project to EOL. Pending TSC approval, a notification will be sent out to the project mailing list that the project is being placed on the path to EOL. After 6 months have passed, if no one has objected, pending TSC approval, the project will effectively be moved to EOL.

Discussion Topics/Issues with proposed resolutions that don't seem controversial

Issue 1: When do we know that a project is "done"? What are the end-of-life criteria?

Issue 4: Under what circumstances can a project be moved back to Incubation? to a lab?

Issue 5: Should all projects be required to start as a lab prior to being proposed for Incubation?

Issue 7: How/when does a project get officially names?

Discussion Topics/Issues that need more discussion

Issue 2: What are the criteria for a "First Major Release"?

Issue 3: What criteria/steps/policies must releases after the First Major Release adhere to?

Issue 6: Should we have subprojects (and fewer toplevel projects)?

Issue 8: How do we deal with a new project coming in that is already a shipping product for a company?

Comments

Hart:

I'd like our project lifecycle to satisfy three basic requirements:

Make it easy for people to contribute high quality code that meets our mandate. In other words, if something has technical merit and infrastructure behind it, the path to contribution should be easy.
Make it easy for newcomers to understand the structure of Hyperledger, and how to get involved quickly. This goes hand-in-hand with making it easy for the marketing folks to do their job and avoid confusion from outsiders on Hyperledger.
Make technical governance relatively easy. We don't want to bog down the TSC or other people who are responsible for things with meaningless governance rules.

Some comments on these points:

I think that #1 has been less than optimal recently. We've had a couple of recent projects where most of the discussion has been "should it be an independent project or a repo of another project." I suggested subprojects as a potential compromise for future cases like this, but there are many other possible ways to handle this kind of issue (maybe a project taxonomy, for instance).
On #2, the proliferation of projects has confused outsiders. I can't count the number of times I've been asked how to build "an Ursa blockchain." While I am definitely in favor of project proliferation, we need a way to control the message to the outside. What we have right now is really confusing for newbies.
As for #3, I think I (and a lot of others) were frustrated a bit by some of the recent project discussions. We need to make things clear-cut. While there will always be corner cases that require judgment calls, these should ideally be as few as possible. This goes along with my points on #1.

What do you all think?

Bobbi:

To speak to point # 2, In order to reduce confusion for newcomers, consistent Marketing and learning materials that convey the Hyperledger projects accurately and that are designed to control the message.