Re: release4.0: OFBIZ-1106 (in or out?)

Posted by David E Jones on
URL: http://ofbiz.116.s1.nabble.com/release4-0-OFBIZ-1106-in-or-out-tp185421p185432.html


On Nov 26, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:

> The way we are doing it now, it's anal-retentive. It's like saying  
> "wait, boss, one more bugfix, just one more", and saying that for a  
> whole long year! I usually publish "release candidates" for my boss,  
> let him test it, let him scream the bug reports to me, then release  
> the next "release candidate" when he's gotten upset enough.

Maybe the way you are doing it now... "we" is going a little far...

> Ok, next question. So why not just let the whole world test the  
> moving OFBiz 4.0 branch? Why bother with publishing tarballs and  
> release candidates? Here's a simple analogy. Try telling our bosses  
> "boss, can you learn some SVN and test my bugfixes, so I don't have  
> to prepare tarballs for you?". Perhaps a good 99% of the population  
> don't want to hear the 3 letters "SVN" when they attempt to download  
> and test OFBiz.

There is certainly a target audience in that. But consider the nature  
of OFBiz: it is most commonly used by developers or analysts that full-
on customize or at least significantly configure OFBiz to make it  
possible to use in their businesses. It just isn't designed and hasn't  
been implemented for OOTB (out-of-the-box) use.

Also consider that what we really need for a strong community is for  
users to offer feedback and contributions to move the project forward.  
In fact that is the ONLY way that OFBiz moves forward as there is no  
company that owns or sponsors OFBiz.

So, we WANT people to use OFBiz from SVN. I don't know about the  
others who are involved more actively in managing and moderating OFBiz  
(ie the PMC members and committers), but for me the thought of having  
thousands of users who don't want to customize and don't contribute is  
REALLY scary. Imagine all of the complaints and problems that the  
current community isn't big or experienced enough to support for free  
in a good old community fashion...

Don't get me wrong, I ONLY wrote what and I wrote and don't read other  
stuff into it. This (a binary release) IS something that is necessary  
to help grow the project, but with limited resources and most of those  
going into trying to stabilize development and contributions because  
most contributors write WAY more than they read and research... we are  
where we are, and it is what it is. To put it in more concrete terms:  
if I have to spend 20 hours a week researching stuff so people don't  
commit things that are inconsistent or difficult to manage or  
contradict or break things that exist, where do I get time to actually  
do administrative tasks like creating a binary release?

> Also, given that the 3rd-party binaries (more than 50% of OFBiz  
> download size is *not* OFBiz codes!) is in the SVN, it is in the  
> OFBiz PMC's interest to lessen the load on the SVN server wherever  
> possible.

Nice try. Machines are machines and are cheap and easy to manage.  
People are people and are expensive and difficult to manage. It's that  
simple. If it makes things more difficult for developers it will  
hamper or kill the project.

Not gonna happen, especially if we want it to be possible to have  
enough resources to put together a binary release anytime soon...

> Just my 2 cents. I'm feeling very embarrassed for beating this topic  
> so much to death by now.

Your comments are always welcome. Feel free to re-hash too, things  
certainly change over time. Just don't be too surprised if I pull out  
every gun I can think of to argue against something that I think will  
be bad for the project, especially if I am re-writing the thoughts.

-David