Release Meeting: 08 Jan 2018

 (08:00:30 AM) gac410: Hi all - Welcome to the first release meeting of 2018
(08:02:01 AM) ***uebera|| is listening in, but will be afk for most of the time
(08:02:02 AM) MichaelDaum: Hi there
(08:02:09 AM) uebera||: Hi there!
(08:02:24 AM) gac410: Hi all
(08:03:49 AM) gac410: Michael, I see you opened and fixed a blocker around RcsWrap. Rather nasty one. Seemed to be added when CDot refactored store code a while back.
(08:04:23 AM) MichaelDaum: yes.
(08:05:31 AM) gac410: Another hole in the unit tests ... They are pretty extensive and still missed that one.
(08:06:28 AM) MichaelDaum: people do like txt files ... and thus edit them on the cmdline. the store should be able to cope with it of course.
(08:06:52 AM) MichaelDaum: also, I regularly mass-edit files when formfields get renamed ... something we need a better way to do
(08:07:14 AM) gac410: Yes... I agree.
(08:07:14 AM) gac410: The other two blockers for the next Patch release are waiting on feedback from CDot. I wonder if he is gone or just on an extended break.
(08:11:03 AM) gac410: Our new list server is hurting for subscribers as well. 19 on foswiki-announce and 11 on foswiki-discuss. Compared to 145 and 166 on sourceforge.
(08:11:37 AM) gac410: i don't think we dare shut them down yet.
(08:15:04 AM) uebera||: Not given these numbers, agreed.
(08:16:32 AM) gac410: The download count for our Beta on github is a massive "2" ..... So not much testing has happened.
(08:17:05 AM) uebera||: (But maybe we can "cross-subscribe" both lists? I.e., we only send out announcements on the new list, but these will be distributed to the old one.)
(08:18:18 AM) gac410: It's not that big a deal to send to both. The handful of people who did subscribe however will get duplicates.
(08:20:46 AM) gac410: Anyway, regardless of any Beta 2.1.5 testing, it does seem to be pretty stable on foswiki.org. The only "untested" patch would be the RcsWrap fix Michael made, but we use RcsLite on foswiki.org anyway.
(08:20:56 AM) gac410: So installing another beta doesn't make much sense.
(08:21:12 AM) MichaelDaum: oh rcslite?
(08:21:22 AM) gac410: Do you think we should just go ahead and release 2.1.5?
(08:21:48 AM) MichaelDaum: I had pretty bad experiences with rcslite
(08:22:40 AM) MichaelDaum: yes I think we are fine for a final 2.1.5
(08:22:44 AM) gac410: Oh... huh... we *are* using RcsWrap.
(08:23:04 AM) MichaelDaum: if that is the case, then could you do a beta3 to test my rcs changes on f.o?
(08:23:05 AM) gac410: I thought that was not recommended for fcgi ... or is that just ModPerl where forking is bad
(08:23:44 AM) MichaelDaum: it is only forking an rcs when accessing an old rev
(08:24:05 AM) MichaelDaum: ... hopefully :(
(08:24:42 AM) gac410: Doesn't "history" just to get the modified dates also fork. maybe even the r5 > r4 > r3 ... links?
(08:25:40 AM) gac410: Rather than a Beta3 .. . we could do RC a release candidate
(08:28:09 AM) MichaelDaum: ah you are right. patternskin is using this nasty %REVINFO or %REVISIONS pseudo makro implemented on the Foswiki::UI::* level ...
(08:28:21 AM) MichaelDaum: yes +1 on a first RC
(08:30:16 AM) uebera||: +1
(08:30:40 AM) gac410: Okay. I;ll get RC built today / tonight and install it on f.o
(08:31:59 AM) gac410: BTW MichaelDaum, I did get master synced up with Release02x01. The NatEdit jquery that was in conflict I coped from the rel0201 branch, and that resulted in a null diff. so all is well.
(08:32:22 AM) gac410: So normal merging from 2.1 -> master should work fine again.
(08:32:31 AM) MichaelDaum: okay
(08:34:02 AM) gac410: The other conflicts. The .po files, *always* end up in conflict. I have to remember to merge using the "ours" strategy after every xgettext run.
(08:34:55 AM) gac410: Manual fix is to just accept the master versions of the text after the merge conflict occurs. Edit and remove the <<< === >>> markup and keep the master side.
(08:37:09 AM) gac410: Any thoughts on where we go with the 2.2. release? There are 2 or 3 feature branches that need testing / merge into master
(08:38:38 AM) gac410: Item14530 - Add new config "RootDir" to unify configuartions of file system paths - Needs Merge
(08:38:48 AM) gac410: Item14380 - Foswiki should have option to use X-Forwarded-For to determine Client IP in reverse proxy configuration. - Being Worked On
(08:39:33 AM) gac410: Item14506 - Implement ImprovePasswordResetProcess - Being Worked On
(08:42:02 AM) ***gac410 wonders how we should go forward with feature testing. We just don't have enough developers :(
(08:43:12 AM) gac410: Build a release "Foswiki-2.2-Item12345" tag and upload it as a test release on github? And ask for testing on developers / discuss / announce lists?
(08:44:11 AM) gac410: Or just accept with the current state of the project that new features should just go ahead with minimal testing ... :(
(08:46:18 AM) MichaelDaum: imho we should merge these features to master
(08:46:57 AM) MichaelDaum: thats where they are supposed to end anyway ... and it eases testing
(08:47:09 AM) MichaelDaum: (for me ;) )
(08:48:54 AM) gac410: Y, with only a handful of devs, makes sense. The bigger question is how to make the bar lower or others to participate. Testing a tgz build is easier than setting up a git checkout
(08:59:53 AM) gac410: Anyway, a depressing start to 2018. But I'll build 2.1.5 RC later today, and will work on merging those 3 feature branches.
(09:00:20 AM) gac410: 2.1.5 RC announce will serve as another reminder to the mail listss to subscribe to the new list server.
(09:01:08 AM) uebera||: Did we also announce the beta versions on Twitter? Might not hurt if not (at least for the RC)
(09:01:38 AM) gac410: We should also annoucne the new mailing lists on twitter.
(09:01:55 AM) uebera||: +1
(09:02:01 AM) uebera||: Just saw, we announced beta2 --> https://twitter.com/Foswiki/status/943468285332467712
(09:02:07 AM) ***gac410 does not have a twitter account
(09:02:42 AM) MichaelDaum: yes I am regularly posting project updates to twitter and facebook
(09:03:11 AM) MichaelDaum: as well as other things such as joining foswiki on the fosdem
(09:05:48 AM) gac410: Well we are at 1 hr. maybe project participation should be a big topic on our association annual meeting.
(09:06:03 AM) gac410: We need to get that process going soon as well.
(09:07:08 AM) MichaelDaum: I'll have the chance to talk to the other wiki communities on the fosdem at brussel. maybe they are experiencing a similar process.
(09:07:56 AM) MichaelDaum: could also be that this is a broader effect on all of the open source community
(09:08:54 AM) MichaelDaum: there are a few technical things that we can do in order to prevent people from being chilled
(09:09:14 AM) gac410: Watching the twiki developers meetings, it's only 3 participants. and pretty much no development
(09:09:25 AM) MichaelDaum: y
(09:09:57 AM) MichaelDaum: as I see it, there is a certain combination of factors that come into play
(09:10:10 AM) MichaelDaum: foswiki looks old
(09:10:13 AM) gac410: The one hopeful development is that there have been a couple of forks and pull request, including the feature.
(09:10:26 AM) MichaelDaum: perl is not highly popular
(09:10:26 AM) gac410: changing the directory structure
(09:11:01 AM) MichaelDaum: open source development isn't sexy anymore
(09:11:33 AM) MichaelDaum: wikis are aging as a concept
(09:12:35 AM) MichaelDaum: and I didn't start talking about tech internals of foswiki that need an overhaul
(09:13:01 AM) gac410: Well the overhaul is certainly underway with vrurg's work
(09:13:33 AM) MichaelDaum: thats not enuf to attract people. we need to replace pattern skin with something else.
(09:13:52 AM) gac410: btw, if you email crawford. he is listed as an auditor for 2017
(09:14:08 AM) gac410: As is kenneth
(09:15:47 AM) gac410: Well there is always Nat skin, but that's just so huge, at least with the ecosystem of all the extensions
(09:15:51 AM) MichaelDaum: If I was a potential contributor and just came from stripe.com and then hit foswiki.org ... I'd be shocked
(09:17:37 AM) MichaelDaum: well either NatSkin can be slimmed down ... or we come up with a lean sass based skin that looks just fine & modern.
(09:17:52 AM) gac410: It's just the stuff we need is such a huge undertaking. vrurg did the engine, ... phase 1 ... but skinning foswiki is just as huge a project.
(09:18:26 AM) MichaelDaum: we have to
(09:18:54 AM) gac410: skin development is waaaay over my head.
(09:19:17 AM) MichaelDaum: some other stuff is over mine
(09:19:26 AM) MichaelDaum: such as anything parser-ish
(09:19:43 AM) MichaelDaum: tables, tml, ...
(09:21:52 AM) gac410: Anyway, I'm fresh out of solutions. I'll get 2.1.5 RC done ... and continue to plod along.
(09:27:20 AM) gac410: Thanks MichaelDaum uebera|| ... See y'all in the main channel.
(09:28:05 AM) uebera||: cu :)
(09:30:51 AM) MichaelDaum: cu. thanks.