What Leo saw at Apache, 3. The project nobody shuts down
In 2019, retiring a dead Apache project waited on someone finding the time. Leo heard the same stall from 12 project leads and suggested a standing signal. In May 2023 the board made every report name the project's state, 'Considering moving to the Attic' included.
Every organisation has work that has quietly stopped and nobody has called it. At Apache, a project that has stopped is moved to the Attic: archived, its users told, its name kept. We gave Leo the board's 2019 minutes, with each project chair as a person of their own. Twelve of them, and the Attic's own chair, described the same thing.
The Apache Software Foundation had no part in this
We used the foundation's board minutes because they are public. The ASF did not take part, and nothing here is the ASF's view of Leo. Every quote below links back to the minutes it came from.
The claims, and where to check them
| Claim | Where to check it |
|---|---|
| In 2019, retiring a dormant project waited on someone finding time to raise it; for one project, two quarters passed before the chair did it | The 2019 board minutes (archive) |
| In 2020 a board member filed a retirement himself after "No response from anyone on the project" | Minutes, 15 Apr 2020 |
| In 2021 a retirement stalled because "nobody volunteered to cut the release" | Minutes, 17 Mar 2021 |
| In May 2023 the board made every report state the project's condition, from a fixed list that includes "Considering moving to the Attic" | Minutes, 17 May 2023 |
The work as it was
Moving a project to the Attic starts with someone proposing it. In 2019 that someone often did not come. For one project, "In May and Aug no PMC member had found time to do it, so in Aug it fell to the chair." Others sat in the same place, quarter after quarter: no releases, few people, reports missed, and no one whose job it was to say so.
What Leo saw
Across twelve chairs' reports, Leo saw one stall: "Retiring a dormant project waits on someone finding time to raise it, so the same stall repeats across projects."
The way forward
- Redesign: open the discussion on a signal. Repeated missed reports, or a roll call with fewer than three active members, opens the Attic conversation by itself. Nobody has to find the time to start it.
What happened next
- 2020. A board member filed one retirement himself: "No response from anyone on the project on the dev@ list from my email on 03-18. I put in the retirement resolution."
- 2021. Another stalled on its last step: "So far, nobody volunteered to cut the release, though and therefore there is no movement."
- May 2023. The board changed what every project must report. Each report now states the project's condition from a fixed list: "New, Ongoing, Dormant, At Risk and 'Considering moving to the Attic'." Within a month, a project was using the last of those.
That is part of the way Leo laid out: a standing signal, asked for every time, rather than waiting for someone to notice. The record does not show the discussion opening by itself; the project still names its own state.
What this does not show
The minutes do not say why the board made the change, or whether Leo's reading of 2019 had anything to do with it. It had nothing to do with it: Leo read the minutes in 2026. What the record shows is a stall that repeated for years, and an organisation that, in time, built a signal into its routine.
Leo learns how an organisation really runs by hearing from each of its people, then lays out the ways the work could go, side by side, and keeps the choice with the people who make it. When they take a path, its card records it, including one Leo did not offer.