In case you hadn't heard, Apache Shale is moving to the Apache Attic. What is the Apache Attic? It's a new project, started last year. It's where other projects go to die.

According to the Apache Attic site:

It is intended to:

* Be non-impacting to users
* Provide restricted oversight for these codebases
* Provide oversight for active user lists with no Project Management Committee (PMC)

It is not intended to:

* Rebuild community
* Make bugfixes
* Make releases

Basically, if your community is dead or dying, your project is a good fit:

Projects whose PMC are unable to muster 3 votes for a release, who have no active committers or are unable to fulfill their reporting duties to the board are all good candidates for the Attic.

So, it looks like the Apache Shale developer community wasn't even strong enough to put out a release. I noticed things were quiet last year when I did a talk on the Shale Test framework at JSFOne -- the latest release was available, but no one had bothered updating the site.

If you're using Shale, don't worry too much -- as the above quotes state, the purpose of the Attic is to be "non-impacting" to users. Unfortunately, even though you'll still be able to get the bits, you can kiss any hopes of bug fixes goodbye.

Read the full editorial at JSFCentral.