[sword-devel] On the need for regular releases of Sword libs
Troy A. Griffitts
scribe at crosswire.org
Wed Aug 29 21:04:58 MST 2007
Those are great ideas. We'll have to post our break schedules as I have
no idea when other parts of the world break.
And of course, I mixed up biannually and semiannually; I think we need
to at least release semiannually (twice a year).
DJ Ortley wrote:
> Just a thought, but Sept 1st is coming up. That's as good a release
> date for the next version of Sword as any at this point. However, if
> going with bi-annual, then I'd suggest maybe dates near the end of
> vacations from school semesters as there seem to be a number of students
> working on Sword. Maybe we can start actively scheduling bug squashing
> parties also.
>
> If this idea is of any worth, I'd also like to suggest that dates be
> chosen that overlap the winter and summer breaks of not only people in
> the Northern hemisphere but also the Southern.
>
> -DJ
>
> On 8/29/07, *Troy A. Griffitts* <scribe at crosswire.org
> <mailto:scribe at crosswire.org>> wrote:
>
> Karl,
>
> You are right. The Bibletime team has asked me to commit to a quarterly
> release cycle. They have said that it would inspire more development if
> developers knew their code would be released in a timely manner. I
> would like to release more often.
>
> I hate releasing when I know there are outstanding issue. Maybe because
> the releases have been so far apart and I feel if I don't get things in,
> they won't be in for a long time.
>
> It all seems a catch 22. Developers don't contribute because they don't
> see their work released. I won't release because developers won't
> contribute and fix the outstanding bugs... yada yada. (Did you know
> 'YADA' mean 'I Know' in Hebrew?)
>
> So, I would like to commit to regular releases for your team, the
> Bibletime team, and others using the engine. I don't think I could
> commit to quarterly releases right now. I agree we definitely need to
> release more than once a year. Is there a middle ground we can
> negotiate between quarterly and biannually?
>
> Looking at fedoraproject.org <http://fedoraproject.org>, it looks
> like they have nearly annual
> release cycles. If we commit at least to twice a year, we will assure a
> new release for each fedora release.
>
> We also could be more disciplined doing point releases of bug fixes. I
> have failed completely in this area. Every release has been when we
> feel we have enough new features to warrant a release.
>
> I have also not been forced to be motivated because I use SVN for most
> all of my work and release BibleCS compiled statically against SVN.
>
> So, in response, I say "Yes, thank you for the kick in the butt (and
> the
> previous kick in the butt by Martin from Bibletime-- to which I had
> mentally queue this message).
>
> Let's negotiate a set release schedule target to shoot for.
>
> Let's be more mindful of point releases between these target release
> dates.
>
> And of course I would appreciate leads to encourage our teams to check
> the bug list and try to be proactive fixing engine bugs.
>
> My apologies for the negligence.
>
> -Troy.
>
> PS. Jira (our bug tracker) seems to be down. We just did major server
> upgrades of Java and Tomcat. I'll see if I can get things back online
> shortly.
>
>
>
> Karl Kleinpaste wrote:
> > I write here today as a sort of /agent provocateur/, hoping to
> get a bit
> > of a rise out of...well, somebody, possibly several somebodies. The
> > formal idea of an /agent provocateur/ is someone actually in
> opposition
> > to the organization's goals; that is not me, that is, I am of course
> > supportive of Sword. But I am explicitly hoping to provoke
> conversation
> > and debate, and possibly argument, but ultimately action.
> > ________________________________
> >
> > In roughly 6 weeks, an entire year will have passed since the
> release of
> > 1.5.9. Since that time, 3 or 4 releases of BibleTime have come
> out, 7
> > releases of GnomeSword (none since March), 2 releases of
> MacSword, and
> > (based on Crosswire front page info) at least a couple of
> BibleDesktop.
> >
> > We of GnomeSword have been in a holding pattern before making our
> next
> > release for a while now, hoping for 1.5.10 to come out, which will
> > provide certain needed bits of substructure that are available today
> > only to those who build Sword for themselves out of SVN. I know that
> > the BibleTime folks are in a similar position.
> >
> > As a wide-view matter of project policy, just-once-per-year
> release of
> > the underlying substrate upon which the UIs depend is simply nowhere
> > near often enough. Shortly after the release of 1.5.9, the
> problem of
> > bugs in "&entity;" handling arose; a number of other bugs have been
> > fixed, e.g. related to matters such as morph output, and a number of
> > formatting glitches; several small but important (to us) features
> have
> > been added, such as <figure>/<img> linkages for our UIs which handle
> > graphical content. And we, and more importantly our users, are being
> > held back, in a practical sense, because no one can get at these
> > features and bugfixes if they depend on the mere yearly releases of
> > Sword. Rather few folks are motivated to build backend libraries on
> > their own, but everybody would be happy to upgrade automatically
> using
> > their systems' package managers, if only there was something to
> upgrade.
> >
> > I know that this is technically volunteer work for all of us. I know
> > that we do it when we have both motivation and time. I know that
> Troy
> > in particular has had a hard school schedule and that the demands
> on him
> > for that are high. But on the other hand, I know that people
> actually
> > do the things in which they invest themselves.
> >
> > Shortly after the initial call for 1.5.10 -- already 10 weeks in the
> > past -- on request I filed a half dozen bug reports for things I knew
> > needed attention. Troy and I spent a little time on 2 of them;
> as far
> > as I know, the other 4 have received no attention at all, and
> none have
> > achieved resolution.
> >
> > At this point, what I believe is needed in the short term is a new
> > release "right away" (interpret those words in some appropriately
> fuzzy
> > fashion) in order to get as much benefit as is immediately available
> > from today's SVN. Call it 1.5.10, or call it 1.5.9a if you like, but
> > *call it*, and soon.
> >
> > For the long term, I believe a more stringent, regular schedule for
> > advancement and release is very badly needed. Today's offhand,
> > imprecise, uncertain, when-we-feel-like-it, when-we-get-around-to-it
> > attitude is definitely hurting the projects, and makes all the
> projects
> > unhealthy to one degree or another. Indeed, and frankly, it is
> > unprofessional. It makes the rest of us delay our work. It
> makes our
> > work appear to be of lower quality than it ought by rights to appear,
> > because the improvements to the substrate that will make our work
> look
> > good continue to be unavailable.
> >
> > --karl
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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