[Sugar-devel] meet to discuss the release process

[Walter Bender]

On Sun, Sep 17, 2017 at 8:27 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Would interested developers be available to meet in IRC on Tuesday, 19
> September, at 5PM US/ET (9PM UTC) to discuss the Sugar release process?
> Given the chaos of late, it would be helpful if we were all on the same
> page.
>
> #sugar-meeting irc.freenode.net
>

For background, I've enclosed the log from the most recent devel meeting,
11 Sept 2017, where James Cameron led a discussion about the then pending
0.111 maintenance release:

[07:32:46] --> walterbender (~walter at 146.115.133.213) has joined #sugar

[07:55:00] <Quozl> a sugar 0.111 planning discussion opens on irc, will
close in an hour.  ;-)

[08:18:48] <walterbender> Quozl, in #sugar-meeting?

[08:19:15] <Quozl> no, here.  unannounced.  gives anybody who uses irc
continuously a chance to comment.  ;-)

[08:22:29] <walterbender> Quozl, My goal would be to continue to work
towards easier migration to Debian, etc. Not sure what outstanding issues
are looming there.

[08:22:50] <walterbender> and to make sure we are current with Fedora/GTK

[08:23:22] <Quozl> In the core of Sugar, such as the desktop, the toolkit,
the datastore, no issues.  Also current with Fedora.  Some issues may arise
with Wayland eventually, but they haven't been clearly defined yet.

[08:23:49] <walterbender> I didn't think there was too much to do on that
front

[08:24:39] <walterbender> we made a bit of headway on GTK3 and GST1.0 this
summer (although not as much as I had hoped)

[08:24:43] --> pikurasa (~devin at 209.6.193.250) has joined #sugar

[08:24:49] <walterbender> at least turtle is ported :)

[08:25:10] <Quozl> In theory, yes.  My experience with the Write activity
flicker problem, which underneath is AbiWord's Wayland code changes
breaking non-Wayland usage, is a bit of a guide as to how things can
break.  Rest of the world moves onto Wayland and anything not using it
fully tends to rot.

[08:26:17] <Quozl> So yes, not much to do.  I'm just wanting to recover
from drought of releases, and next month it will have been a year since
0.110.

[08:26:22] <walterbender> the other issue is packaging

[08:26:35] <walterbender> we are seemingly a bit in the dark ages there

[08:27:06] <walterbender> but an area outside of my knowledge space

[08:27:35] <walterbender> tincho has learned a lot on his current day job
and maybe able advise

[08:28:12] <Quozl> snaps, flatpaks, and so on?

[08:28:51] <walterbender> yes

[08:29:00] <Quozl> our activity bundle format does certainly lack secure
authentication, we're dark ages in that respect.

[08:30:22] <walterbender> I think flatpack atleast would carry the correct
dependencies

[08:30:40] <Quozl> i've been avoiding the new bundling and packaging
formats because i've no use case for them myself.  my usual output is
operating system images with preinstalled activities.  rishabh's raspberry
pi image uses the same general idea; his code just unzips the bundles.

[08:31:41] <Quozl> yes, i imagine a flatpak of sugar desktop, then one for
each activity, would be the way to go eventually.

[08:32:08] <Quozl> icarito's push toward activities that can run
independently of the sugar desktop has relevance too.

[08:32:37] <walterbender> yes. I have not had much luck replicating his
approach

[08:32:48] <walterbender> but I haven;t pushed to hard in that direction

[08:33:23] <walterbender> pikurasa, FYI https://github.com/walterb
ender/musicblocks/issues/726

[08:33:42] <walterbender> would love your feedback

[08:37:38] <icarito> walterbender, you keep saying that all you need to do
is run 'sugar-activity' in your bundle dir ;-)

[08:38:15] <icarito> missed a comma

[08:38:20] <icarito> walterbender, you keep saying that; all you need to do
is run 'sugar-activity' in your bundle dir ;-)

[08:38:23] <icarito> made it a colo;

[08:38:26] <icarito> colon;

[08:38:50] <icarito> the way to figure out what needs to be done on Debian
side is to test

[08:39:27] <icarito> Quozl, are you going to lead a release?

[08:39:29] <Quozl> i test debian stretch and sid regularly.  i'm fine with
it at the moment.  ubuntu artful however is broken because of their
transition from lightdm to gdm3.

[08:39:57] <Quozl> icarito: nah, i'm just gunna do it.  not enough
followers to have any plans to "lead".

[08:40:09] <icarito> i've not had much time to work on a newer Debian
SugarBlend

[08:40:27] <icarito> Quozl, great, doing it is leading ;-)

[08:40:51] <pikurasa> walterbender: you want feedback re: UI I assume?

[08:41:15] <Quozl> icarito: i've already got local branches and local
release tarballs for 0.111, and have pre-edited the Wiki, next step is
testing locally before i upload and announce.

[08:41:26] <walterbender> pikurasa, testing first of all... does it
actually solve any problems?

[08:42:25] <pikurasa> walterbender: I have not tested enough yet. I will
let you know once I have.

[08:42:49] <icarito> Quozl, still it would've been better for there to have
been a freeze etc...

[08:42:50] <icarito> a process

[08:43:05] <Quozl> icarito: no, not better.

[08:43:16] <walterbender> pikurasa, thx

[08:43:36] <walterbender> pikurasa, re drums, I cannot seem to be able to
reproduce the bug.

[08:43:37] <icarito> Quozl, remember to refresh pofiles from pootle

[08:43:42] <Quozl> icarito: sounds more like automaticity.  we did it
before therefore do it again.  i don't see any need for all those extra
steps.

[08:43:51] <walterbender> maybe a video so I can follow exactly your steps?

[08:44:08] <pikurasa> walterbender: I can tell. I am really scratching my
head because it is so easy for me to reproduce. Happens every time.

[08:44:30] <walterbender> pikurasa, I must be doing something different
than you

[08:44:40] <icarito> i thought freezes had a purpose. I've not even worked
on Sugar without a release schedule or a roadmap

[08:44:42] <walterbender> or using a different configuration of some sort

[08:45:18] <Quozl> icarito: purpose of a freeze was coordinating multiple
people; unless you can show me multiple people i won't freeze.

[08:45:37] <icarito> Quozl, another purpose would be to show signs of life

[08:45:46] <walterbender> Quozl, do we need any i18n work?

[08:45:46] <Quozl> icarito: no thanks, that's an artifice.

[08:46:22] <icarito> walterbender, of course we do

[08:46:24] <Quozl> walterbender: the only process we have for detecting
i18n work is translate.sugarlabs.org count of words not translated; we
don't have any way to know if the POT file is updated in
translate.sugarlabs.org either.

[08:46:48] <walterbender> Quozl, I meant in terms of new strings for 111

[08:47:00] <walterbender> I know we have old work remaining

[08:47:29] -*- pikurasa AFK

[08:49:42] <icarito> so we move to release "when we feel like it"

[08:49:51] <icarito> it's better than "when it's done" ;-)

[08:49:55] <Quozl> walterbender: yes, mostly Tony Anderson's Save-As
feature.

[08:50:18] <walterbender> Quozl, OK. Maybe CJL can get the word out

[08:52:26] <icarito> Quozl, I don't think taking over is the best approach

[08:52:32] <Quozl> walterbender: yes, that's what a 0.111 release will do.

[08:52:35] <icarito> i.e. if you want to propose yourself to manage a
release

[08:52:46] <icarito> then I would think that's a good idea

[08:53:48] <icarito> but there are guidelines and every release manager has
followed them more or less

[08:54:00] <Quozl> icarito: i'm not able to promise to that depth, but i
can release a 0.111 without unecessary cruft from old guidelines that no
longer apply, and nobody else has or will do that.

[08:54:33] <icarito> Quozl, I support you! Just saying, lets cut the fat
and update those guidelines as part of the push

[08:54:35] <Quozl> icarito: i've changed the guidelines so that many of
them are optional, as i do not think they matter when there are no other
active developers on the modules.

[08:55:05] <icarito> cool yes I've seen you've worked on feature process

[08:55:10] <icarito> all for trimming that

[08:55:17] <icarito> in general, removing anything that doesn't really exist

[08:55:50] <Quozl> https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Development_Team/Release is
mainly what i'm talking about, not the feature process.

[08:57:14] <Quozl> thanks, one hour discussion ends for me, back later.

[08:57:39] <icarito> do announce perhaps there are others interested in
your fork
[08:57:39] <icarito> ;-)

[08:57:42] <walterbender> Quozl, thank you

[08:58:43] -*- walterbender goes to make dinner

---
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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