Lucene.Net and incubation status

Question

I'm evaluating options to make our search more powerful on our .Net website. I need to look into whether we purchase software/hardware such as the Google Search Appliance (GSA) or develop the solution using a framework such as Lucene.Net

We're a startup, and the GSA provides a lot of good functionality out of the box, but we would need two boxes, with the second as the backup/dev environment and things start getting expensive.....

We have used SQL Server full text in the past, but we're keen to provide very intuitive "Googlesque" type searching to our site and we've struggled to do everything we want with SQL Server.

But, I am not sure what "incubator status" for the Lucene.Net project actually implies. Should I be considering a project that is in incubator status? Is it not active? Will it at some point move into a more active status or be archived off?

Thanks

Answer 1

Lucene.NET is a currently active and updated project. The fact that is hosted as incubated under Apache is a good thing and not a negative one. As you can read on Apache incubation site, Lucene.NET is awaiting for a review and a final approval, but this doesn't mean it's unstable or unsupported. Concerning your main question, i think using it for the development stage would be an accepptable choiche if you're a startup.

Answer 2

I am not sure what "incubator status" for the Lucene.Net project actually implies

It means that the project, which was an external project, is being evaluated by apache for inclusion in the apache "stable" - I guess they have to make sure the processes are right, that there isn't patented code in there etc etc.

It has NO reflection on the code. Lucene.NET trunk is stable (v2.1), and the downloadable version (v2.0) is also stable, but not "as stable" or as updated.

If you have more questions, I'd suggest you jump on the mailing list (http://incubator.apache.org/lucene.net/) and ask George or DIGY. I've been using it on commercial projects - both internal (http://www.topgear.com for example) and packaged (not sure I can say, but it's an email archiver) since 1.xx, and it works GREAT.

I'd suggest you have a look at Solr, too. It uses the Java Lucene, and is basically an external search server, but you push info into it, rather than it trawling your site. It's on the apache lucene site.

Answer 3

Log4net was in incubation status for a long time in the Apache project. It was still recommended and used extensively. I'd be ok with using Lucene.Net for a couple of reasons. First, as @ste09, says incubation status is a good thing. Second, Lucene (the Java version) is a full-fledged project at Apache. Similar to log4j/log4net, I think this bodes well for Lucene.Net making it out of incubation status.