Re: Current state of Apache Commons Math and Geometry

> On Feb 23, 2026, at 4:03 AM, Johann Sorel via dev <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> Hi.
>> 
>>> Le ven. 20 févr. 2026 à 14:20, Elliotte Rusty Harold
>>> <[email protected]> a écrit :
>>> On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 3:58 AM Gilles Sadowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Le jeu. 19 févr. 2026 à 14:57, Johann Sorel via dev
>>>> I agree: Collaboration on reusable code is a better way.
>>> 
>>> I agree too. This has two prerequisites:
>>> 
>>> 1. Reusable code
>>> 2. Collaboration
>>> 
>>> Neither of those is easy to satisfy nor should either be assumed.
>>> Reusable code is probably the easier one to guarantee. You just need
>>> to find at least three existing projects that already have code doing
>>> the thing you're proposing to write a library for. You have one. There
>>> could be others.
>>> 
>>>  Collaboration is much tougher. You need active developers who are
>>> willing to contribute over the lifetime of the project. Even if you
>>> have them today, you could lose them tomorrow. Code that you
>>> contribute to a different project instead of your own will now be
>>> blocked on the availability of reviewers and might not be released for
>>> years, if ever. This is where Apache Xerces is currently stuck, for
>>> example.
>>> 
>>> Genuinely reusable code is helpful, but splitting your own work into
>>> separate parts in separate projects owned by different teams, people,
>>> and organizations is a very risky strategy. The presumption should be
>>> not to do this. Good evidence of benefit is needed before I would
>>> attempt that.
>> These are all real questions which we should tackle.
>> It's depressing that we've been asking them for years, without coming
>> up with anything but "collaboration is too complicated", even between

Woof, bold statements. Im doing my best to
give what time I can to the project (commons generally) despite having lots of responsibilities. Are you?

>> ASF projects.  Even more frustrating is that AFAIK, the "Commons"
>> project was originally started to do just that!  For a long time, we've been
>> totally open to committers from other ASF projects; yet no synergy has
>> ever emerged (as far as I remember correctly).
>> 
>> I hope that it will be different this time.  [Thank you, Johann, for reaching
>> out.]
> 
> 
> No problem, but we are not there yet :).
> 
> On my side I also have to make sure it would be okay with the other PMC and with my boss.
> And see how much regular time I can be allowed to work on this.
> So don't get your hopes up to much, this is not something we planned to do this year.
> 
> My questions were to check the state of those libraries and if it would be worth it.
> 
> 
> Johann
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Gilles
>> 
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