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The purpose for the "incubation thing" is to have a well known and repeatable process for creating software in the Pentaho open source environment. We want to take advantage of the transparency, openness and early and often features of the open source development model and add some process check points. The process should allow us to effectively communicate where the product is in its life cycleinfancy, how much interest there is, how fast is it moving and what tasks are required to keep it moving forward.

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• Provide a mechanism for transparent collaboration between geographically dispersed participants throughout all phases
• Allow each process "incubation thing" to specify entry and exit criteria for each phase in a way that makes sense for that process"incubation thing".
• The phases of the process "incubation thing" must be easily understandable with specific entry and exit criteria
• A Process "incubation thing" must be well supported in order to remain active
• The status, activity, traction etc. of the each process "incubation thing" must be readily available and easy to understand
• Must be able to set the visibility of "incubation thing"s Internal Only, Partner Only, Fully OpenAn "incubation thing" can be private or public. Pentaho uses the "incubation thing" process internally for management services and strategic partnership opportunities.
• The visibility can change during the process"incubation thing".   For example - Conception and Seeding are internalcan be restricted, then "opened" to the community for the rest of the processProcess "incubation thing"
• "incubation thing" can be terminated in any phase due to lack of interest or progress
• There may be different end games: results in new Pentaho open source project, new independent open source project, work gets folded into the Pentaho product, it becomes part of a non Pentaho open source project, it gets trashed, etc. 

The

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"incubation thing"

The following diagram illustrated the steps in a typical development "incubation thing". The bullet points under each phase is only to illustrate the things that could happen during that phase in a typical process. They are not meant to be the rules that absolutely define each phase. Each "incubation thing" that follows this process will define the entry/exit criteria for each step. This should make the process work for the "incubation thing" and not try to shoehorn every "incubation thing" into the same exact steps.

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Initiating a new "incubation thing"

It is not Pentaho's goal to have lots and lots of "incubation thing"s in process just for the sake of looking like some kind of mini SourceForge.  Each process hosting projects.  We do not want to be a mini-SourceForge. Each "incubation thing" that gets started requires Pentaho resources and will have to show a compelling value proposition for Pentaho and the community.   To ensure that each new an "incubation thing" will fit into the Pentaho road map, a sponsor from Product Management is required.  This restriction may change in the future depending on the project's goal. For now, we want to be sure we are not wasting resources.The request for Pentaho to host is successful, a high level of commitment through sponsorship is required. 

New "incubation thing"s can come from many different places.  The common scenarios are:

• Pentaho Product Management (PM) initiates and sponsors the "incubation thing" of a feature or product that is on the Pentaho road map.
• A third party company has a product that fits into the Pentaho suite and wants to contribute it to Pentaho.
• A community member as an idea for a feature, discusses it in the "incubation thing" forum (to be created) and generated enough interest and support to request an "incubation thing"

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• be created.
• The CTO office wants to productize a prototype.

Anyone from the community, Pentaho employees, customers or partners, can sponsor an "incubation thing" as long as they agree to the commitment.

Initiating a new "incubation thing"

Finding a Sponsor 

An "incubation thing" sponsor is responsible for moderating discussions, reporting status and moving the "incubation thing" forward. Anyone from the community, Pentaho employees, customers or partners, can sponsor an "incubation thing" as long as they agree to the commitment.  Although anyone can be a sponsor, ere are some typical examples. 

The sponsor will usually be someone from Pentaho Product Management (PM) for projects that are part of the product road map.  For

Typical scenarios for initiating "incubation thing"s and finding sponsorship include:

In some cases, the sponsor is the person with the idea for the incubation

The "incubation thing" forum (to be created) is the place to get the discussion going and find people willing to support a new initiative.

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where the community can initiate discussions, gauge interest and find sponsorship.

Initiating a new "incubation thing"

The project sponsor contacts Community Connection (communityconnection@pentaho.org) with the following information: (This could be a form)

• Identity of the Project Sponsor. Their responsibilities include:
  • Communicate status to Community
  • Coordinate meetings with working group
  • Request resources from Community as needed to support initiative

• A mission-statement like description of the initiative. Examples:
  • Create a thin client, HTML based, slicer/dicer for Mondrian that will replace JPivot.
• A name (code name maybe) for the initiative to be used as an easy way to talk about the "incubation thing"
• A list of interested members. There is currently no restriction or requirement for a certain number of participants. It is important to have at least 3 people willing to put their names on the project as members. This group will be referred to as the working group.
• The "incubation thing" forum and thread(s) discussing this idea if applicable.
• Any special requirements.

When the above requirements are met, Pentaho Community will create a new "incubation thing" and coordinate setting up resources required. The "incubation thing" will start in the conception phase and have a collaboration space consisting of:

• Entry in the "Conception Phase" listing in the "incubation thing" space on pentaho.org
• Forum within the "incubation thing" forum space
• Wiki page for documentation, requirements, meeting notes etc

Someone decides that
Before requesting a new "incubation thing" be initiated, the following criteria must be met.  The "incubation thing" forum is the place where stakeholders can collaborate on answering these requirements.

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