What do you expect from the LTS version?

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Tero Heikkinen

What do you expect from the LTS version?
Tue August 12 2008 13:05:47 UTC
Hi all!

I would also like to open up a discussion about the expectations that
we have about LTS version. I wrote something about it to my blog
http://teroheikkinen.iki.fi/blog/view/
what_are_the_keypoints_of_business_value_generation_with_long_term_suppo
rt.html

Currently we are doing lots of improvements but lets take a look of
the big picture? What do you want and expect from the LTS version?
Quality and stability? Frequent updates?

What happens when a bug has been found? Where to report it? How is it
fixed and when the fix has good enough quality in order to package
and publish them. These are "easy" questions but this process as a
whole should be reviewed for the LTS version.

- Tero

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Piotr Pokora

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Tue August 12 2008 13:41:22 UTC
Tero Heikkinen writes:
> Hi all!

Hi!

> Currently we are doing lots of improvements but lets take a look of the
> big picture? What do you want and expect from the LTS version? Quality
> and stability? Frequent updates?

With a bit of lock 8.9 should be last LTS release.
We need quality and stability.
With some features ported from Midgard2 from time to time, only to make
transition easy.

> What happens when a bug has been found?

One bugfix may be worth releasing and 10 another ones may be not.
Bug severity is one thing and unit test is another.

I have such situation now with 1.8.9.
I know there are very important memory fixes, but I am not sure if it's
enough tested to
make release out.

Piotras
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Tero Heikkinen

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Wed August 13 2008 04:42:44 UTC
On 12.8.2008, at 16.41, Piotr Pokora wrote:
>>
>> What happens when a bug has been found?
>
> One bugfix may be worth releasing and 10 another ones may be not.
> Bug severity is one thing and unit test is another.
>
> I have such situation now with 1.8.9.
> I know there are very important memory fixes, but I am not sure if
> it's
> enough tested to
> make release out.

So basically this means that we must take more leverage of trac or
similar system in order to keep automatically updating list of known
bugs and bugs that are fixed in next version. Especially I think that
the list of known and already fixed bugs that are not released would
come handy if you want to do some testing with the release canditate.

Would it work that when a release is made there is a list to the
tickets that it addresses. And same with a "coming" bugfix release.
That would require making some automation but I think that I would
not be that hard to fetch a list of tickets from trac that are
assigned for a certain release from.

- Tero

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Piotr Pokora

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Thu August 14 2008 19:41:15 UTC
Tero Heikkinen writes:
> Hi all!

Hi!

> Currently we are doing lots of improvements but lets take a look of the
> big picture? What do you want and expect from the LTS version? Quality
> and stability? Frequent updates?

I have been thinking about Vinland (Midgard2) and wondering about LTS.
Basically, this "branch" will be more than stream. Not a typical branch.

* How long should we keep backward compatibility there?
I do not mean Ragnaroek compatibility. I mean its own evolution.

* How should we provide upgrades for previous installations?
If 10.09 will change database structure for example, how many future
releases should support upgrades?

Piotras
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Henri Bergius

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Wed August 20 2008 11:43:31 UTC
Hi,

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Piotr Pokora <piotrek.pokora@gmail.com> wrote:
> * How long should we keep backward compatibility there?
> I do not mean Ragnaroek compatibility. I mean its own evolution.

There are lots of big deployments in 1.8 now. They all can easily
upgrade to Ragnaroek (provided they're running PHP4), but going to
Vinland would be a big step as all configs and templates need to be
converted or rewritten, and most likely many components will be
missing still from new MidCOM when Vinland is released.

Therefore we will need to support Ragnaroek for at least some 4 years.
And I would imagine during that time some evolution will happen there,
to keep it compatible with the rest of the software stack (say, PHP6),
and to add new needed components.

However, what I want to be strict about is that any new updates to
Ragnaroek or components in it should stay compatible with 8.09.0
release of Ragnaroek. So when somebody goes to LTS they should safely
perform upgrades *within* the LTS branch.

If component changes that break backwards compatibility (with configs,
URLs, templates, whatever) will be needed, then those must be done by
forking the component, not by breaking it for existing LTS users.

> * How should we provide upgrades for previous installations?
> If 10.09 will change database structure for example, how many future
> releases should support upgrades?

I would imagine we can make some "baseline" releases that you must go
through to upgrade your data. As long as they're documented this is
fine.

> Piotras

/Henri

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Tero Heikkinen

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Sat August 23 2008 09:14:31 UTC
On 20.8.2008, at 14.43, Henri Bergius wrote:

> Hi,
>
> However, what I want to be strict about is that any new updates to
> Ragnaroek or components in it should stay compatible with 8.09.0
> release of Ragnaroek. So when somebody goes to LTS they should safely
> perform upgrades *within* the LTS branch.
>
> If component changes that break backwards compatibility (with configs,
> URLs, templates, whatever) will be needed, then those must be done by
> forking the component, not by breaking it for existing LTS users.

I agree. And as for the set of components of MidCOM 3 I would like to
propose an approach where we make a core set of components that are
most often used. Those components are implemented and tested well.
Those components should not be modified or bloated per customer or
project functionality that in a certain time cause interesting side
effects for example with configurability.

If some modification or such is needed then the component inheritance
that Bergie planned for MidCOM 3 would kick in. What I'm proposing is
that the MidCOM 3 components would be divided to core / stable ones
and then to the "contrib" ones. Contrib components would be the more
mixed up versions that can vary. But if you build a site with "core"
components, then you will never have to worry about breaking things
when upgrading.

How does this sort of categories sound?

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Henri Bergius

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Thu August 28 2008 08:51:30 UTC
Hi,

What I'm proposing is that the MidCOM 3 components would be divided to core / stable ones and then to the "contrib" ones. Contrib components would be the more mixed up versions that can vary. But if you build a site with "core" components, then you will never have to worry about breaking things when upgrading.

The GNOME project has a process for this:

http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/ModuleProposing

Basically anybody is free to build GNOME-based software and release and manage it whatever way they want.

Then this software can be proposed to be included into the actual GNOME distribution, in which situation the developer has to start following the development schedule and other guidelines.

In Midgard's case this would mean that people could start their components where ever (separate github repos, for instance). And then in a developer meeting they could propose those components to be included in Midgard itself.

If passed, the components would then:
- Stay stable and backwards compatible according to Midgard's deprecation policy
- Support features and conventions coming to new Midgard and MidCOM releases
- Be placed in main MidCOM git repo
- Have at least the minimum test coverage as required by Midgard guinelines
- Get translated as part of the greater Midgard translation process
- Get tested as part of new release preparations
The components outside this would then be more "wild west" with varying levels of testing, quality and backwards compatibility. The more radical changes to "core" components could be done in "contrib" space using MidCOM3 component extending support.

This would make Midgard much safer to upgrade and more consistent, but still allow more creative freedom to component authors. The downside is that this would split components very much into two-class citizens.

Now, for this strategy to work, we need a pretty good component selection in "core". At least all components needed for building a typical web site should be covered. If I look at the dependencies of the age-old "Task_MidgardCMS" PEAR package, they were:
- News listing (net_nemein_news)
- Event calendar
- Search front-end
- Site map
- Static content (core functionality in MidCOM3)
What else should be "core" right from the start (start meaning Ragnaroek+1) ?

/Bergie
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Henri Bergius

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Thu February 12 2009 13:08:19 UTC

Hi,

Therefore we will need to support Ragnaroek for at least some 4 years. And I would imagine during that time some evolution will happen there, to keep it compatible with the rest of the software stack (say, PHP6), and to add new needed components.

Related to this, how about announcing the date when Ragnaroek support will cease?

How would October 1st 2013 sound?

/Bergie
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Arttu Manninen

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Thu February 12 2009 13:25:27 UTC
On 2009-02-12 15:04, Henri Bergius wrote:
> Related to this, how about announcing the date when Ragnaroek support will cease?
>
> How would October 1st 2013 sound?

Sounds so far away that it feels like an aeon ahead, since I rarely
remember to think the next week. ;)

+1 from me.

Arttu
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Henri Bergius

Re: [midgard-dev] What do you expect from the LTS version?
Thu February 12 2009 13:41:09 UTC
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Arttu Manninen <arttu@kaktus.cc> wrote:
>> How would October 1st 2013 sound?
> Sounds so far away that it feels like an aeon ahead, since I rarely
> remember to think the next week. ;)

Then again, time flies, and transition from Ragnaroek to Vinland is a big one.

We still have some customers running 1.7 from 2005... And PHP5 is from
2004, and still many sites run it. Things take time.

> Arttu

/Bergie

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Henri Bergius
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Sent from: Helsinki Southern Finland Finland.
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