This was extracted (@ 2026-01-21 23:10) from a list of minutes
which have been approved by the Board.
Please Note
The Board typically approves the minutes of the previous meeting at the
beginning of every Board meeting; therefore, the list below does not
normally contain details from the minutes of the most recent Board meeting.
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WARNING: these pages may omit some original contents of the minutes.
Apache Otava (incubating), a command-line tool, written in Python, detects
and alerts about statistically significant changes in performance test
results (more generally, time-series data) stored in CSV files or a number
of supported databases.
A typical use-case of Otava is as follows:
1. A set of performance tests is scheduled repeatedly, such as after each
commit is pushed.
2. The resulting metrics of the test runs are stored in a time series
database (Graphite) or appended to CSV files.
3. Otava is launched by a Jenkins/Cron job (or an operator) to analyze the
recorded metrics regularly.
4. Otava notifies about significant changes in recorded metrics by
outputting text reports or sending Slack notifications.
5. Otava is capable of finding even small, but persistent shifts in metric
values, despite noise in data. It adapts automatically to the level of
noise in data and tries to notify only about persistent, statistically
significant changes, be it in the system under test or in the environment.
Otava has been incubating since 2024-11-27. Otava entered Incubation as
Hunter.
### Three most important unfinished issues to address before graduating:
1. Upgrade to support the latest versions of Python, including upgrading to
the latest signal-processing-algorithms library.
2. Do more releases, so that it is a routine, repeatable process.
3. Grow the community and ultimately vote to admit new committers and PPMC
members. Do more publicity around the releases and the project in general.
This is an item where we certainly hope to see new contributors.
### Are there any issues that the IPMC or ASF Board need to be aware of?
No.
### How has the community developed since the last report?
In our previous report we already shared our successfully completing the
first release as an Apache Incubator process. This first release was mostly
focused on a) bringing together various github forks under the a unified
ASF upstream project, and b) releasing one release with the new project
name, and following the ASF process, but one that did not in itself contain
a lot of new features or changes beyond (a).
With such an inaugural release out of the way, we have seen over the past 4
months a handful of patches that make more substantive changes to the
codebase. We still have a couple foundational tasks remaining that are
holding us back from accepting new code contributors and contributions
without any friction, but the door is at least more open than it was before
the July release (0.6.1).
The remaining foundational tasks are:
1. Doing another release, 0.7.x, that is still focused on backward
compatibility with our past, and merely introduces small fixes in the
functionality itself, as well as the release process. Re-rehearsing the
actions related to releasing, and related collaboration among the project
committers seems a significant part of the process of becoming a fully
graduated ASF project.
2. Cutting the dependency on an external implementation of the "E-Divisive
means" algorithm, which is the very heart of what Otava does. This is the
so called "signal-processing-algorithms" pip module released by MongoDB
under the Apache 2.0 License, but not donated to ASF. We have come to the
conclusion we need this very core functionality to be part of our own code
base and version control, and since we didn't manage to get the MongoDB
team's attention, we decided to rewrite an independent implementation.
3. Upgrading from the unsupported python versions 3.8 and 3.9 to the most
recent versions.
1 above is already undergoing voting, and 2 is in review and approved,
waiting to be merged.
The 0.7.x release also brings back an additional distribution format:
docker images.
For the rewrite of the E-Divisive algorithm we are glad to report we found
a completely new contributor to the project, with sufficient mathematical
education to take on this somewhat daunting task. In the process of
re-implementing the algorithm directly from its academic publication, the
contributor managed to discover a bug/omission in the implementation we
have been using for almost a decade now. The effect of this discovery is
that the new implementation will find change points that the original
algorithm tends to miss, in situations where there are 2 or more changes
close to each other.
The fact that the new implementation of the E-divisive algorithm was done
by a completely new contributor, that did not look at the MongoDB
implementation before creating the new implementation, means that our new
implementation ought to qualify as a properly independent, clean room
implementation. While this was not a strict requirement for this task, now
that this is the outcome, we wish to record it in the board minutes.
Altogether we have during our first year as an ASF incubator now received
code contributions from 3 founding project members and 3 new contributors
and one of the project mentors. In addition to these 7 there have been
several more that contributed either a bug report or participated in an
email thread, or voting for a release. One of these was a developer from
the Tarantool open source database, that started using Otava as part of
their Continuous Benchmarking. As discussed in this update, we believe
there are more interested contributors that are still held back by our old
python version and untangling a major legacy dependency.
We have not yet approved new committers or PPMC members to the project, as
there was not yet sufficient time and opportunity to demonstrate
significant and sustained contributions to the project. We are optimistic
that we are moving in the right direction where this could be happening in
a near future.
On the topic of committers and PPMC members it is notable that several of
the past contributors that were listed in our project proposal a year ago,
and approved as founding PPMC members, have not actually shown up on the
ASF mailing list during our first year. We will follow up with these
individuals to confirm their desired status with the project, and take
appropriate action based on that outreach. (From a community diversity and
robustness perspective, it should be mentioned that the 3 founding
contributors that have been the most active, still represent 3 different
employers, and to the best of our knowledge, the new contributors are also
employed by 3 net new employers.)
### How has the project developed since the last report?
(See above, it felt meaningful to combine these two answers.)
### How would you assess the podling's maturity?
Please feel free to add your own commentary.
- [X] Initial setup
- [X] Working towards first release
- [ ] Community building
- [ ] Nearing graduation
- [ ] Other:
We are progressing well with the community building, but not yet nearing
graduation.
A self review based on https://s.apache.org/727vc
Code 5/5
Licenses and Copyright: 5/5
Releases: 4/5
Quality: 5/5
Community: 7/7
Consensus: 4/5 (Missing: CS10)
Independence: 2/2
Brand: 4/4
### Date of last release:
2025-07-25
### When were the last committers or PPMC members elected?
None yet.
### Have your mentors been helpful and responsive?
Yes.
### Is the PPMC managing the podling's brand / trademarks?
VP, Brand approved the new project name in February. Our life as an ASF
incubating project really only started after that date.
We are not aware of any trademark issues related to the new project name.
### Signed-off-by:
- [X] (otava) Dave Fisher
Comments: An amazing amount of detail, thanks.
- [X] (otava) Enrico Olivelli
Comments:
- [X] (otava) Lari Hotari
Comments:
- [X] (otava) Mick Semb Wever
Comments:
### IPMC/Shepherd notes:
Apache Otava (incubating) performs statistical analysis of performance
test results stored in CSV files, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, or Graphite
database. It finds change-points and notifies about possible performance
regressions.
A typical use-case of otava is as follows:
* A set of performance tests is scheduled repeatedly, such as after each
commit is pushed.
* The resulting metrics of the test runs are stored in a time series
database (Graphite) or appended to CSV files.
* Otava is launched by a Jenkins/Cron job (or an operator) to analyze the
recorded metrics regularly.
* Otava notifies about significant changes in recorded metrics by
outputting text reports or sending Slack notifications.
* Otava is capable of finding even small, but persistent shifts in metric
values, despite noise in data. It adapts automatically to the level of
noise in data and tries to notify only about persistent, statistically
significant changes, be it in the system under test or in the
environment.
* Otava has been incubating since 2024-11-27. Otava entered Incubation as
Hunter. The project name Otava was approved by VP Brand 2025-02-09.
### Three most important unfinished issues to address before graduating:
1. Upgrade to support the latest versions of Python, including upgrading
to
the latest signal-processing-algorithms library.
2. Do more releases, so that it is a routine, repeatable process.
3. Grow the community and ultimately vote to admit new committers and PPMC
members. Do more publicity around the releases and the project in general.
This is an item where we certainly hope to see new contributors.
### Are there any issues that the IPMC or ASF Board need to be aware of?
No.
### How has the community developed since the last report?
We've seen engagement in the mailing lists and/or PRs from four out of
five of the project's committers since the last report.
Three new contributors have reached out via the mailing list and/or
GitHub, showing interest in the project and starting work on open issues.
### How has the project developed since the last report?
* We have completed our first release.
* Updated our build system to use `uv` instead of `poetry`.
* Changed our configuration management for ease of use.
* Starting the work to migrate to modern python versions.
### How would you assess the podling's maturity?
* [ ] Initial setup
* [ ] Working towards first release
* [X] Community building
* [ ] Nearing graduation
* [ ] Other:
A self review based on https://s.apache.org/727vc
* Code 5/5
* Licenses and Copyright: 5/5
* Releases: 4/5
* Quality: 5/5
* Community: 7/7
* Consensus: 4/5 (Missing: CS10)
* Independence: 2/2
* Brand: 4/4
### Date of last release:
The last release was on July 17, 2025.
### When were the last committers or PPMC members elected?
The major contributors during the past 8 years were listed as PPMC members
in the project application phase. We have not elected any new members after
that.
### Have your mentors been helpful and responsive?
Our mentors have been helpful and responsive.
Nothing is falling through the cracks.
### Is the PPMC managing the podling's brand / trademarks?
This isn't yet an issue, as the new name of the project is quite unknown
yet.
### Signed-off-by:
- [X] (otava) Dave Fisher
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Enrico Olivelli
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Lari Hotari
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Mick Semb Wever
Comments:
### IPMC/Shepherd notes:
Apache Otava (incubating) performs statistical analysis of performance test
results stored in CSV files, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, or Graphite database. It
finds change-points and notifies about possible performance regressions.
A typical use-case of otava is as follows:
* A set of performance tests is scheduled repeatedly, such as after each
commit is pushed.
* The resulting metrics of the test runs are stored in a time series
database (Graphite) or appended to CSV files.
* Otava is launched by a Jenkins/Cron job (or an operator) to analyze the
recorded metrics regularly.
* Otava notifies about significant changes in recorded metrics by
outputting text reports or sending Slack notifications.
* Otava is capable of finding even small, but persistent shifts in metric
values, despite noise in data. It adapts automatically to the level of
noise in data and tries to notify only about persistent, statistically
significant changes, be it in the system under test or in the environment.
Otava has been incubating since 2024-11-27. Otava entered Incubation as
Hunter.
The project name Otava was approved by VP Brand 2025-02-09.
### Three most important unfinished issues to address before graduating:
1. Publish the first release under the new name.
(https://github.com/apache/otava/issues/51) The first release was under
voting as the deadline to submit this report to the Incubator PMC passed.
2. Publish the existence of Apache Otava (Incubating), and our first
release.
3. Nurture a growing community that includes also new
members/contributors that have not used Otava (Hunter) before we joined
Apache Incubator
4. Make more releases. In particular, the first release intentionally is
not that different from what already existed before we became an Incubator
project. It is merely a change of project name and ownership (ASF) and the
license, and a re-union of many forks into a clear upstream project. For
future releases we hope to modernize python version, build tooling, and of
course add new features and integrations.
### Are there any issues that the IPMC or ASF Board need to be aware of?
Nothing is blocking us now.
### How has the community developed since the last report?
We recently accepted the first (documentation) contribution from a user who
does not belong to the pre-ASF group of Otava users and contributors. A
handful of more people submitted issues or sent an email to the mailing
list. This level of attention is already more than we are used to receiving
during the previous 8 years developing this code base.
The interactions we had, were mostly held back by the fact we have not yet
made our first release, and that until then, Otava only supported python
3.8, which is no longer officially supported. We expect interest in the
project to increase after the first release (as ASF incubating project) and
upgrading python version. (The release will include support for python 3.9
and 3.10 and will likely happen within hours after the deadline to submit
this report.
### How has the project developed since the last report?
The last time we submitted a report was in February 2025.
We apologize for twice failing to submit a report. There seems to still be
teething issues with basic project governance tasks and responsibilities.
We know we can do better, there's just a lot to absorb when becoming a
proper ASF project for the first time.
Shortly after our previous report, a new name "Otava" was approved for the
project. Otava is the Finnish name for the "Big Bear" constellation, one of
the largest and brightest star constellations in the Northern night sky.
Otava historically had an important function in navigating, as it was
commonly used to find the North Star, which is at the other end of a
straight line drawn from the right most 2 stars in Otava.
Most work in the project since then was to
* Change the project name across ASF infrastructure
* Change the project name everywhere in code and documentation. This
includes file names, executable names and tar file name.
* Publish a project website at otava.apache.org
* As this report was submitted, our first release was undergoing voting on
the incubator general mailing list.
### How would you assess the podling's maturity?
A self review based on
https://community.apache.org/apache-way/apache-project-maturity-model.html
* Code 3/5
* Licenses and Copyright: 5/5
* Releases: 4/5
* Quality: 5/5
* Community: 7/7
* Consensus: 4/5 (Missing: CS10)
* Independence: 2/2
* Brand: 4/4
### Date of last release:
The first release was happening as this report was submitted
### When were the last committers or PPMC members elected?
So far, the initial committers and PPMC members were those listed in the
initial proposal.
Some of those, haven't actually showed up in the incubator project now that
we are active.
### Have your mentors been helpful and responsive?
Yes!
Submitting this report is a routine we need to get more accustomed to doing.
### Is the PPMC managing the podling's brand / trademarks?
Not an issue yet, as the name is new.
### Signed-off-by:
- [X] (otava) Dave Fisher
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Enrico Olivelli
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Lari Hotari
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Mick Semb Wever
Comments:
### IPMC/Shepherd notes:
Apache Otava (incubating) performs statistical analysis of performance test
results stored in CSV files, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, or Graphite database. It
finds change-points and notifies about possible performance regressions.
A typical use-case of otava is as follows:
* A set of performance tests is scheduled repeatedly, such as after each
commit is pushed.
* The resulting metrics of the test runs are stored in a time series
database (Graphite) or appended to CSV files.
* Otava is launched by a Jenkins/Cron job (or an operator) to analyze the
recorded metrics regularly.
* Otava notifies about significant changes in recorded metrics by
outputting text reports or sending Slack notifications.
* Otava is capable of finding even small, but persistent shifts in metric
values, despite noise in data. It adapts automatically to the level of
noise in data and tries to notify only about persistent, statistically
significant changes, be it in the system under test or in the environment.
Otava has been incubating since 2024-11-27. Otava entered Incubation as
Hunter.
The project name Otava was approved by VP Brand 2025-02-09.
### Three most important unfinished issues to address before graduating:
1. Publish the first release under the new name.
(https://github.com/apache/otava/issues/51) The first release was under
voting as the deadline to submit this report to the Incubator PMC passed.
2. Publish the existence of Apache Otava (Incubating), and our first
release.
3. Nurture a growing community that includes also new
members/contributors that have not used Otava (Hunter) before we joined
Apache Incubator
4. Make more releases. In particular, the first release intentionally is
not that different from what already existed before we became an Incubator
project. It is merely a change of project name and ownership (ASF) and the
license, and a re-union of many forks into a clear upstream project. For
future releases we hope to modernize python version, build tooling, and of
course add new features and integrations.
### Are there any issues that the IPMC or ASF Board need to be aware of?
Nothing is blocking us now.
### How has the community developed since the last report?
We recently accepted the first (documentation) contribution from a user who
does not belong to the pre-ASF group of Otava users and contributors. A
handful of more people submitted issues or sent an email to the mailing
list. This level of attention is already more than we are used to receiving
during the previous 8 years developing this code base.
The interactions we had, were mostly held back by the fact we have not yet
made our first release, and that until then, Otava only supported python
3.8, which is no longer officially supported. We expect interest in the
project to increase after the first release (as ASF incubating project) and
upgrading python version. (The release will include support for python 3.9
and 3.10 and will likely happen within hours after the deadline to submit
this report.
### How has the project developed since the last report?
The last time we submitted a report was in February 2025.
We apologize for twice failing to submit a report. There seems to still be
teething issues with basic project governance tasks and responsibilities.
We know we can do better, there's just a lot to absorb when becoming a
proper ASF project for the first time.
Shortly after our previous report, a new name "Otava" was approved for the
project. Otava is the Finnish name for the "Big Bear" constellation, one of
the largest and brightest star constellations in the Northern night sky.
Otava historically had an important function in navigating, as it was
commonly used to find the North Star, which is at the other end of a
straight line drawn from the right most 2 stars in Otava.
Most work in the project since then was to
* Change the project name across ASF infrastructure
* Change the project name everywhere in code and documentation. This
includes file names, executable names and tar file name.
* Publish a project website at otava.apache.org
* As this report was submitted, our first release was undergoing voting on
the incubator general mailing list.
### How would you assess the podling's maturity?
A self review based on
https://community.apache.org/apache-way/apache-project-maturity-model.html
* Code 3/5
* Licenses and Copyright: 5/5
* Releases: 4/5
* Quality: 5/5
* Community: 7/7
* Consensus: 4/5 (Missing: CS10)
* Independence: 2/2
* Brand: 4/4
### Date of last release:
The first release was happening as this report was submitted
### When were the last committers or PPMC members elected?
So far, the initial committers and PPMC members were those listed in the
initial proposal.
Some of those, haven't actually showed up in the incubator project now that
we are active.
### Have your mentors been helpful and responsive?
Yes!
Submitting this report is a routine we need to get more accustomed to doing.
### Is the PPMC managing the podling's brand / trademarks?
Not an issue yet, as the name is new.
### Signed-off-by:
- [X] (otava) Dave Fisher
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Enrico Olivelli
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Lari Hotari
Comments:
- [ ] (otava) Mick Semb Wever
Comments:
### IPMC/Shepherd notes: