Architecture Council/Meetings/Meeting Notes

This page captures meeting notes of the Eclipse Architecture Council. Please add topics for the next call to the backlog, but not during a call!

Standing Agenda

• Update from EMO (Wayne/Gunnar)
• Infrastructure Update (Denis)
• Backlog

Backlog

(Please add agenda items/topics for discussion here.)

• The majority of EPP packages are currently slated to contain incubating components in IDE 2020-06. There is a question about whether the downloadable file name must contain "incubating" or simply mention this in its description.
  • Argument for: our EPP packages are "opinionated" and aimed at end-users, the state of the included projects and technologies is paramount
  • Projects see leaving incubation as a cost without any obvious value

Action Items

• none

Past Meetings

June 11, 2020

• EMO Update
  • Reminding projects that a release review required only once per year; starting to push back on projects requesting too often
  • Working on a better communication strategy
  • Reminder that piggyback are not used anymore

• General discussion about the IP tools
  • Goal: reduced engagement with IP team
  • Clearly Defined is used to just extract license info
  • Tool to automate as much as possible
  • The project handbook needs an update; it doesn't mention the IP tool currently
  • Projects should capture the output of the tool and version it
  • PMCs should help with educating projects

• PMC voting discussion - is it a mandatory thing?
  • IP team needs to know it makes sense
  • PMC can discuss on the CQ, but as soon as someone adds a +1 they jump in and consider it consent, i.e. just one PMC vote is sufficient
  • There are some problems with IPzilla; occasionally +1 does not trigger the process correclty
  • Kai asked if we canagree that if any of the PMC hits OK then it is OK
  • Wayne replied that one member can approve it, if he can do it with confidence then it is OK
  • In the past more formal voting was required; this is no longer required. This change was not communicated properly.
  • With a growing base of projects it becomes harder from PMC to be aware of all codebases
    • we as PMC trust project leads
  • We need the PMC to clarify if it is a "works with"
  • Also, only if the content requires further review a CQ has to be created

• Should the IP run the tool instead of committers?
  • Concern that this is a lot more work for a small team
  • IP team running the tool assumes the IP team understands the project structure and all technologies
  • Thus, it makes more sense that this work has to be done by the projects

• Latency between new released and updates in IP database
  • spring new miner version every few months; still have to create CQs
  • Wayne: we need it **only* on releases; forget intermediate version
  • engage IP team as early as possible

Incubation

• Jonah
  • do we need to incubate every EPP package
  • number of incubating
  • lsp4J
• Gunnr
  • we had incubating problems before
  • feature must be branded with incubating
  • EPP needs to declare that
• Wane
  • why is it still incubating??
• Jonah
  • lsp4J does not have stable APIs
  • we won't have stable APIs
• Gunnar
  • challenge stable APIs
  • projects understand the requirement
  • API is a framework to support adopters
  • we need to clarify the wording -* have a sense for adoption support
  • every project defines its own rules
• Wane
  • PMC can define what stable means
  • Instead: don't screw your adopters
• Jonah
  • get lsp4j to graduate
• Alex
  • what is the benefit of marking as incubating
  • for the end user visible no need to label incubating
• Wane
  • will take to the IP adviser community
• Gunnar
  • incubation could contain IP problems
• Wane
  • leaning process
  • codebase is unstable
  • ideal: lear and after one release graduate
  • used to be some benefits ins trying in incubation
• Dani
  • makes sense to drop incubation
• Gunnar
  • for transparency it may be helpful -* some companies care
  • we need the motivation to move out of incubation
• Jonah
  • reality that is not the case
• Gunnar
  • wrong discussion** we are not Github
  • what is the benefit of incubation
• Dani
  • it is punishing the package
• Wane
  • the package owners have the motivation to push the incubating projects
  • upstream care about it
  • as consumer I want the API to be stable
• Gunnar
  • no need in the download name
  • enough in the about dialog
• Jonah
  • we are changing file names at the moment
  • the filename is `-incubation` is the current state
• Wane
  • don't change the file names
  • fix this by moving them out of incubation
  • keep the file name

Action item

• AC brings proposal on how we want to solve it and send it to IP advisor community

May 14, 2020

• EMO Update
  • Wayne asked one more time for feedback on the IP tool.
  • The IP tool is now part of Dash in GitHub and pull-request are welcome.
    • Jonah contributed Yarn support.
  • There are a few interesting project proposals coming up and mentors wanted.

• Infrastructure Update
  • New firewalls were put in place in early May. They har redundant and part of the program to reduce single-point-of-failures.
  • Thanks to a lot of help we are clear for a long-overdue Gerrit update. The sandbox is running and an upgrade is planned for after the 2020-06 release. Please prepare as Gerrit will come with a new UI/UX.
  • Jonah asked if we are on the latest version of Bugzilla. Denis confirmed we are on the latest official release.
    • There is an edit extension that Denis was unable to get to work in our Bugzilla instance.
  • Setup of a production GitLab instance in Switzerland started.

• Removing Inactive Committers
  • The general feedback is that this should not be automated.
  • However, having a regular reminder to project leads for housekeeping the committers is a good idea.
  • The definition of "active" is blurry. Hence, it always has to be a manual process.

• Mailing List Search
  • Searching the mailing list was possible using Google Custom Search
  • Seems to be broken - Jonah will open a bug (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=563173)

March 12, 2020

• Infrastructure Update
  • New servers ready to go to replace servers that failed last month. ETA next week.
  • Better hardware and 10 GBit technology will make things much better in the backend.

• EMO Update
  • Wayne thanked for feedback to IP tooling received so far. It's helpful. Please provide more feedback if you can.
  • The Next steps are to make a repository available and bring tooling to the Eclipse Dash project and make it available.
  • As of today, CQs for known license sources of 3rd party content is no longer required.

• 3rd-party Mailing Lists
  • Emily made us aware of an ask to send committer nomination emails to mailing lists outside Eclipse.org. While the PMI cannot do it easily, there is a workaround by subscribing the external mailing list to the Eclipse.org mailing list.

• New candidates for Architecture Council Membership (Wayne)
  • We need to recruit/include members that are not yet known and work in Eclipse projects for a very long time already but with no intersection with others.
  • Gunnar proposed a mentorship/outreach program/sessions where one AC member starts a conversation with potential candidates, explains the role of the AC, the work, etc. The goal is to get to know each other and invite new members to the AC.

• Anonymous contributions (Jonah)
  • A GitHub account as a contributor is ok, it can be traced back to an individual.
  • An ECA must be signed in any case. This requires a real email address and this is sufficient.
  • EMO expectation to committers is to monitor and catch/report shenanigans.
  • The handbook wording needs an updated and will be investigated separately.

• Parallel IP (Jonah)
  • Wayne explained that Parallel IP is now the standard way of doing things at Eclipse.
  • The code can go in early but a release needs to wait for a full review.
  • It's important to put release records into PMI as early as possible. The IP team will use the dates to prioritize their work.

January 9, 2020

• Welcome Noopur to the AC
• No other topics so end the meeting early

Archive

Older meeting notes can be found in Architecture Council/Meetings/Archive.