Tuesday, April 23, 2013 5:05 PMCloudStack Graduation ThoughtsBlog
A month ago, March 20th to be exact, the Apache CloudStack project graduated from the Apache Incubator via a resolution of the Apache Software Foundation's board of directors. While this was an exceptionally important step for the CloudStack community, and it represents a new phase in the project's lifetime, it really means that we're just getting started.
For me, it's been a fun ride with the Apache CloudStack community over the last 12 months. I started participating in the project shortly after they entered the Apache Incubator, on May 8, 2012 to be exact. Since that time, I've grown both in my understanding of the software, as well as my understanding and interest in the community itself. Apache prides itself on being focused on the health of the communities under it's umbrella, and I've found this to be the most powerful aspect of working within Apache communities. The CloudStack community is no exception to that practice. We sometimes make decisions that may seem to make short term effeciency of a particular release or technical matter seem to be a lesser concern, but these are the right decisions to make for the long haul (and the long haul is what matters really). I'd say that it's been more than effective at helping to grow the project's participation. Just look at the graphs of activity for CloudStack pre and post ASF that Sebastian has put together to get a feel for the community growth trends and see what I mean.
I'd like to thank my fellow PMC members and committers for thinking enough of me to ask me to chair the PMC this year. I'd also like to thank the entire community of users, developers, testers and doc writers. We've come a long way since the project entered graduation (more than outsiders may realize). I've certainly learned a ton about FLOSS development and community building from this bunch of folks, and plan to do everything I can to support the project's future success. The collection of CloudStack experts and ASF members that came together around the project has been amazing. I'm also excited that we decided to make the role a "rotating" job that gets revisited annually. We should be able share the work amongst each other over time.
So what's next for the project? Well, for starters our 4.1.0 release is just around the corner, and we're already wrapping up most of the features for the following 4.2.0 release.
Oh, and just in time for the summer season, the CloudStack community is holding it's second annual CloudStack Collaboration Conference in Santa Clara, CA on June 23 through 25. The call for talks was just opened, andearly bird registrations are available for attendees now.
Remember though... this is an Apache project. Decisions happen on the mailing lists, or they didn't happen. If you can't make it to this year's conference, you'll still be welcomed on the lists if you want to help in any way.Feel free to join us!
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