# ASF Podling Proposal for PouchDB ## Abstract
PouchDB is an open-source JavaScript database inspired by [Apache CouchDB] (http://couchdb.apache.org/) that is designed to build offline-capable web applications. ## Proposal PouchDB is an open-source JavaScript database inspired by [Apache CouchDB] (http://couchdb.apache.org/) that is designed to run well within the browser. PouchDB was created to help web developers build applications that work as well offline as they do online. ### Background Established in 2010, PouchDB has been designed as both a first-class document database for use in a web browser as well as a first-class data replication peer to Apache CouchDB. PouchDB’s JavaScript API closely mirrors CouchDB’s REST API and CouchDB’s peer-to-peer data synchronisation protocol allows web developers to build database driven applications that work when the web browser is offline. The replication protocol handles seamless data reconciliation when one or more peers reconnect after being offline. Peers can be other web browser by replicating via WebRTC, or one or more CouchDB instances. ### Rationale PouchDB has always been a sister project to Apache CouchDB. Since its inception, it has changed lead maintainers three times, all of which were informally running the project on its GitHub repository. With ever increasing popularity and reliance by mission-critical projects, PouchDB is looking for an open source foundation to join and has selected the ASF to be close to CouchDB. ### Initial Goals PouchDB aims to benefit from the ASF’s mature and transparent project- and community-management policies. ### Current Status #### Meritocracy PouchDB has always, if informally, rewarded contributors that have a persistent contribution history with commit access to the project directly. Over its 15- year history, core and occasional contributors have come and gone, while an active set of PouchDB practitioners has always looked after the project itself. #### Community PouchDB comes with an existing and robust developer and user community. By establishing transparent community guidelines, we hope to grow this community even further. #### Core Developers PouchDB is currently maintained by a handful of experienced developers that have a long history in open source. The current interim project lead is an ASF member and PMC Chair for Apache CouchDB. All developers are at least also end- users of Apache CouchDB, while some of them have also been active contributors on CouchDB. #### Alignment PouchDB is an established project that looks for long-term stability and the ASF provides nothing but. PouchDB is used in various mission-critical projects and would like to benefit from ASF stewardship as a means of making it easier to be relied on long-term. PouchDB is also Apache 2 licensed already. ### Known Risks PouchDB’s main risk is stagnation through developer abandonment. In its history PouchDB had high- medium and low-velocity timespans, but it has always attracted enough developers (both volunteer and for-pay) to stay afloat. Most recently, PouchDB is at medium-velocity. Again, the PouchDB project hopes that by formalising project management structures, a long-term stability and dependability can be achieved. #### Project Name PouchDB is a tongue-in-cheek pun on its sister project CouchDB. The current holder of the project domain (pouchdb.com) and previous project lead Dale Harvey is on board with transferring any naming rights to the ASF. #### Orphaned Products The current PouchDB maintainers already consist of representatives from various distinct organisations with strong technical and financial incentives to keep PouchDB actively maintained. It is unlikely that a significant number would up and leave the project. #### Inexperience with Open Source PouchDB is an existing open source project and its maintainers consist mostly of very experienced developers, including some with over 15 years in active open source development and one ASF Member and committer since 2008. For other maintainers, PouchDB was their first open source projects and they have since contributed to various other projects as well based on their good experience with PouchDB. #### Length of Incubation The project aims to graduate within 6–12 months based on the experience of the Apache CouchDB incubation in 2008 and general maturity of the project itself. #### Homogenous Developers The current PouchDB maintainers consist of people from around the world, collaborating across all timezones. #### Reliance on Salaried Developers There is also a healthy mix of maintainers some of which are paid to work on PouchDB part time, but everyone also contributes in their spare time. #### Relationships with Other Apache Products PouchDB has been developed as a sister-project to Apache CouchDB. Both projects are inextricably linked in the sense that every PouchDB user is at least also a CouchDB user. The reverse is not necessarily true, but in a recent CouchDB developer survey, 80% of participants stated to use PouchDB with CouchDB. The question of whether PouchDB should join CouchDB as as sub-project has been raised and it has been decided to not pursue this option. Both projects have significant technical differences (CouchDB is written in Erlang and PouchDB is written in JavaScript) so that a joint stewardship would raise more problems than it solves. Both the PouchDB and CouchDB maintainers agree on this point. Where needed (APIs, sync protocol), the two teams have worked together tightly and productively in the past. We don’t see a need to formalise this relationship to achieve future success. #### A Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand As mentioned before, PouchDB is looking for an open source foundation that helps with long-term project stability and dependability. Both the OpenJS Foundation and the ASF have been evaluated. In the end, the PouchDB developers prefer the close proximity to Apache CouchDB. The maintainers believe that people having to make decision about whether to bet on a PouchDB/CouchDB development stack or not will have an easier time integrating both projects from a single foundation. If the ASF won’t have PouchDB, we are happy to reconsider alternatives. ### Documentation Project website: https://pouchdb.com/ Including blog with release announcements: https://pouchdb.com/blog GitHub Project: https://github.com/pouchdb/pouchdb ### Initial Source The initial source tree lives at https://github.com/pouchdb/pouchdb ### Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan The PouchDB maintainers have yet to decide if they want to migrate the existing repository to the ASF GitHub organisation or if they want to submit a pristine copy, but either way, submitting the source code is a few git commands away. The pouchdb.com domain currently held by Dale Harvey is being transferred to Neighbourhoodie Software which also holds the couchdb.com/net/org domains in escrow for the Apache CouchDB project. ASF Member and CouchDB PMC Chair Jan Lehnardt is a shareholder and chief executive at Neighbourhoodie and they are trusted to hold and manage those domains in escrow until such time a transition is needed. The website publishing toolchain can be easily adapted to the ASF- provided web publishing mechanisms. #### External Dependencies PouchDB depends directly on the following other projects. An automated licensing scan has revealed the following set of licenses in the dependency tree Runtime dependencies: three dependencies with to-be-sorted-out licenses - argsarray (WTFPL), trivially replaced with a compatible version. - fetch-cookie (Unlicense, public-domain), could be fine, but check with ASF. - readable-stream (incorrectly labelled BSD license), newer versions are MIT licensed, we should upgrade. Development dependencies: if applicable, we’ll need to go through those and see what can be done about them - argparse@2.0.1: Python-2.0 - chai-as-promised@5.3.0: WTFPL - configstore@0.3.2: Invalid SPDX expression "BSD" - cookie@0.1.2: Invalid license metadata - cssmin@0.4.3: Invalid license metadata - escape-html@1.0.1: Invalid license metadata - esprima-fb@15001.1.0-dev-harmony-fb: Invalid license metadata - estraverse@1.9.3: Invalid license metadata - event-stream@0.5.3: Invalid license metadata - fetch-cookie@2.2.0: Unlicense - jsonify@0.0.1: Invalid SPDX expression "Public Domain" - JSONStream@0.10.0: Invalid license metadata - log-driver@1.2.5: Invalid license metadata - mime@1.2.11: Invalid license metadata - ms@0.7.0: Invalid license metadata - ms@0.6.2: Invalid license metadata - pako@1.0.11: (MIT AND Zlib) - path-to-regexp@0.1.3: Invalid license metadata - ps-tree@0.0.3: Invalid license metadata - qs@2.3.3: Invalid license metadata - random-uuid-v4@0.0.8: Unlicense - semver@2.3.2: Invalid SPDX expression "BSD" - sntp@1.0.9: Invalid license metadata - source-map@0.2.0: Invalid license metadata - truncate-utf8-bytes@1.0.2: WTFPL - tslib@2.6.3: 0BSD - tweetnacl@0.14.5: Unlicense - update-notifier@0.1.10: Invalid license metadata These are produced with the `licensee` tool, invocations for runtime dependencies: ``` licensee --corrections --errors-only --production ``` and for development dependencies: ``` licensee --corrections --errors-only ``` With the following licenses being permitted - Apache-2.0 - MIT - BSD-2-Clause - BSD-3-Clause - ISC - BSD #### Cryptography PouchDB does not directly include cryptography code, but makes use of in-browser TLS. A PouchDB plugin crypto-pouch exists that does record-level encryption, but it is currently not part of the PouchDB code base. If md5 hashing is considered cryptography, PouchDB, like CouchDB, makes use of that, just note that md5 hashing is not used for security relevant operations. ### Required Resources #### Mailing lists * d...@pouchdb.incubator.apache.org * priv...@pouchdb.incubator.apache.org * comm...@pouchdb.incubator.apache.org #### Subversion Directory n/a #### Git Repositories * https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-pouchdb.git * https://github.com/apache/incubator-pouchdb.git #### Issue Tracking GitHub Issues #### Other Resources PouchDB makes significant use of GitHub Actions for CI. For 2024, we have used 214,556 total minutes across 53,831 job runs. This can be migrated to another setup if need be but it’d be great if this carefully crafted setup could remain in place. ### Initial Committers Alba Herrerías Ramírez albaherreriasdev at gmail dot com Alex Anderson alexanderandersonofandover at gmail dot com Diana Belle garbados at apache dot org (CLA) Diana Barsan twisteddiana at gmail dot com Gareth Bowen gareth at bowenwebdesign dot co dot nz Jan Lehnardt jan at apache dot org (CLA) James Coglan james at neighbourhood dot ie Johannes Schmidt schmidt at tf-fabrik dot de Steven-John Lange sourcer85 at gmail dot com ### Sponsors Alba Herrerías Ramírez Neighbourhoodie Software Alex Anderson independent, formerly Medic Diana Belle independent Diana Barsan Medic Gareth Bowen independent, formerly Medic Jan Lehnardt Neighbourhoodie Software James Coglan Neighbourhoodie Software Johannes Schmidt Mozilla / independent Steven-John Lange HZData GmbH / independent #### Champion Jan Lehnardt, CouchDB PMC Chair. #### Nominated Mentors PJ Fanning (fanningpj at apache dot org) Jean-Baptiste Onofré (jb at nanthrax dot net) #### Sponsoring Entity The Incubator --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
