[redhat-ccm-list] Community update

[Richard Li]

Dear Community,

Over the past few months, we have been listening to a lot of public and private feedback about our development process, our software, and the community. Some of these improvements to date include:

+ Simplification of the installation / configuration process with the current builds
+ General release of all documentation to the community
+ PostgreSQL support in 5.2.1

Many in the community have commented on the closed nature of the development process. After much discussion, we have decided that we need to do a fundamental shift in the CCM product direction, and hopefully for the better.
 
Significantly:

+ The ObjectWeb consortium (www.objectweb.org) has agreed to host the CCM code and community
+ We are relicensing all the code under the LGPL
+ CCM 6.1, the latest version of CCM, will be made available for general public release
+ The mailing lists will migrate to the ObjectWeb servers
+ Red Hat will no longer be the cathedral of CCM development; instead, Red Hat individuals work work with other CCM developers to push the software going forward. The CCM engineering team will no longer be dedicated to CCM development.
+ Red Hat will not be marketing CCM as a separate product line

We hope that this approach will encourage a broader developer and community base. Initially, we will be administering the site, but we hope to add external community contributors as quickly as possible.

There is a lot of work to do here, and it won't happen all at once. We're in the process of figuring out a new name for CCM (there is an existing OpenCCM project on ObjectWeb); we have to set up a project web site; and so forth. I expect that the above steps (ObjectWeb, LGPL, 6.1, etc) will take the better part of a month, but we will be moving as rapidly as possible.

Thanks,
Richard