Jot Notes - Joining the Apache Kalumet Incubator

[Karaf and Kalumet mix]

Since Kalumet has just been accepted into the Apache Incubator, I get an inside view of a new project from the beginnings.  Winter is approaching, so I've done up a quasi-Christmas list of things to know when joining a new open source Apache project.  The list is still fairly limited as I was hoping to get something out of a planned programming session with a Karaf friend.  But turns out mixing Karaf with Kalumet (and apparently a bit of LMFAO according to the pic) can be a little dangerous (expecially if you are from certain countries as you'll find out if you read below).  There will probably be more in depth topics later.  If you're already confused, reading my previous post may clear that up.  If you intend to keep reading you should join in on the fun we had by listening to the YouTube video at the bottom of this post.

• JIRA - Like many thousands of other software projects, Apache uses JIRA, a software tool for tracking issues and project management.  JIRA can connect bugs directly to subversion source code with native CVS (Concurrent Versions System) integration.  Find more about JIRA here (or Godzilla for short?)
• Mailing Lists - This JIRA issue was made to manage the creation of the following mailing lists for Kalumet:
• User - General questions about Kalumet usage, use cases, etc.  Where users may ask questions.
• Dev - Discussion about Kalumet development. This mailing list is used by all Kalumet committers. It's where the discussions, proposal, road-map, and votes stand.
• Private - For Kalumet's PMCs.
• Commits - Notification for all Kalumet's SVN commits.
• Incubator Repository - This is where the Incubator projects (like Kalumet) live.  The ASF uses SVN and GIT (GNU Integrated Tools) as their distributed revision control system.
• Quarterly board report - An automated system emails board meeting dates/info to the development mailing list each month in advance, to allow for review time.  The report for Kalumet forms part of the Incubator PMC report.  This is because Kalumet is a podling (referring to the codebase and community while being 'incubated').  The reports are appended to the Incubator Wiki page each month.  Last month's quarterly board report is located under http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/October2011.  Mentors should review reports for their project(s) and sign off on them on the Incubator wiki page. Signing off on a report shows that Mentors are following the project.  Projects that are not signed may raise alarms for the Incubator PMC.
• New Committer - Since I've been voted in, my name on the Apache committers index moved from "Unlisted CLA" to "SVN-Committer" with my username, full name, and project (Incubator).  Then the PMC Chair filled out a ASF new request forum (or any ASF member if the chair was unavailable) on my behalf.  Different types of elections are held on either the public mailing list or private mailing list.  Once my request was received, a community member with root access created my account, adding permissions like relevant source code modules (which enables me to commit).  Since this is volunteer work, this sometimes takes time.  After accounts are created, they are managed by the Apache infrastructure team.  root@apache then sent me an email with various information and mentions that the community mailing list among others are available if I am interested.
• LDAP Managed Services - The root email mentioned above sends committers the location and login information of these services:
  • Shell (people.apache.org) - Committers can SSH to this location with their Apache username and password like this: ssh userName@people.apache.org 
  • SVN (svn.apache.org) - SVN stands for Subversion
  LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is represented through LDIF (LDAP Data Integerchange Format) files.  You can use LDIFDE (a command line tool) to import/export information in Active Directory.  Apache uses something called Apache Directory though I'm more familar with the ADAM (Active Directory Application Mode) which is now renamed AD LDS (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services).  If you look under http://monitoring.apache.org/status, you'll see the below under LDAPS
  
  • cn=ldapmonitor,ou=users,ou=services,dc=apache,dc=org
  This would be written in the Schema (contained in a LDIF file) as a DN (distinguished name) which is a unique identifier for the directory.  DC stands for the domain component so basically you we split up the domain apache.org into two components (dc=apache, dc=org).  OU stands for the organizational unit, or user group.  As you can tell from the above DN, you can be part of more then one OU.  CN stands for the common name, which refers to the individual object which you can query, so in this case there is a ldapmonitor object whose attributes would be defined in the schema.  Active Directory has a directory like structure (who would have guessed?) so when looking in the AD LDS or ADAM for example, the ldapmonitor CN/object could be looked at like a folder and the attributes defined in the schema could be looked at like the files inside.
• Email - Committers get a @apache.org email address.  According to the root email I received, mail servers are updated every hour which enables new members to receive emails from their Apache email address.  I cannot receive email directly from the server, at least one forwarding email address has to be set up.  This can be changed by logging into https://id.apache.org/details/userName.  Committers can link apache.org emails to their gmail account by following these steps.
• Names - One thing I've noticed is a very small number of Apache members do not have real names attached to their profile. A PMC member informed me that in some countries it is illegal to partake in this type of activity so they leave their name out for privacy/legal purposes. As you would imagine, those people working in open source that are in hiding do not talk about it often online, but I've scowered the internet and posted a few related articles which I've linked below:
• Guardian.uk.co - When using open source makes you an enemy of the state. From the link it says "the US copyright lobby has long argued against open source software - now Indonesia's in the firing line for encouraging the idea in government departments".
• Janimo from Cluj Napoca, Romania - Public tender of about 3mil EUR explicitly disqualifies 'GPL and similar' software.  A blog post about the situation from Romania.
• Marek Mahut from OpenSource.com - Open Source Software is Illigal?  This talks about the Slovak Republic and the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• OSOR.EU - RO Interoperability Requirements Force Ministry to Block Open Source.  Talks about the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs.  There are lots of other romanian links about it here.
• SOIT - New Copyright Law Later this Year.  And here is google translate.
• Kalumet is pretty DOAP (Description of a Project) - The DOAP file is a XML file containing a RDF Schema defining the project.

This is me, take it or leave it NL.