Three stages:
* candidate: proposed by a sponsor (https://incubator.apache.org/guides/proposal.html), then acceptance is voted upon
* podling: maturing project under the responsibility of one or more mentors
* project: can be top-level or sub-project of an existing top-level
Podlings can be terminated if the mentors and incubator comittee consider there's unresolvable structural issues.
Podlings have constraints that full fledged projects don't have:
* Can't have a toplevel website foo.apache.org, but only incubator.apache.org/foo spaces
* Forced to release through an incubator specific space
* All PR from the podling is reviewed for proper Apache branding use
* All communication and websites of the podling have to mention a disclaimer that they are in incubation phase
* ASF won't conduct any announcement for podling releases
*Minimum* requirement for a podling to graduate (mentors and committee can add more if necessary):
* Legal
* All code ASL'ed
* The code base must contain only ASL or ASL-compatible dependencies
* License grant complete
* CLAs on file.
* Check of project name for trademark issues
* Meritocracy / Community
* Demonstrate an active and diverse development community
* The project is not highly dependent on any single contributor (there are at least 3 legally independent committers and there is no single company or entity that is vital to the success of the project)
* The above implies that new committers are admitted according to ASF practices
* ASF style voting has been adopted and is standard practice
* Demonstrate ability to tolerate and resolve conflict within the community.
* Release plans are developed and excuted in public by the community.
* (requirement on minimum number of such releases?)
* Note: incubator projects are not permitted to issue an official Release. Test snapshots (however good the quality) and Release plans are OK.
* Engagement by the incubated community with the other ASF communities, particularly infrastructure@ (this reflects my personal bias that projects should pay an nfrastructure "tax").
* Incubator PMC has voted for graduation
* Destination PMC, or ASF Board for a TLP, has voted for final acceptance
* Alignment / Synergy
* Use of other ASF subprojects
* Develop synergistic relationship with other ASF subprojects
* Infrastructure
* SVN module has been created
* Mailing list(s) have been created
* Mailing lists are being archived
* Issue tracker has been created
* Project website has been created and complies with the Apache Project Branding Requirements
* Project ready to comply with ASF mirroring guidelines
* Project is integrated with GUMP if appropriate
* Releases are PGP signed by a member of the community
* Developers tied into ASF PGP web of trust
Mentors are tracking the podlings against the requirements to be able to produce reports.
Regular reviews are conducted (at least quaterly) on a podling to see if progress is made.
At each review the committee decides if a podling is terminated, continued or graduated.
If mentor or podling disagree with an assessment then they can appeal to the ASF board (decision of the board is then final).
