I have nothing against these ideas. It seems to me though that some applications currently in specialpurpose are more used and/or
have a larger scope than some others.
Roughly said I see 2 kinds of components there:
"1st class citizens" would be
assetmaint
ecommerce
example*
pos
maybe myportal?
projectmgr
scrum
and maybe webpos?
"2nd class citizens" would be all the rest but workflow which should be moved to Attic ASAP (I will do soon
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-4900)
They are more like addons that actually less people use.
I still wonder if moving "1st class citizens" out of the repo will be a good thing for those component... I bet they will have less
audience...
So I'm inclined to move "1st class citizens" in applications with ecommerce, and let the rest go to Extra or even Attic (one of ebay
and ebaystore for instance, with dependencies resolved 1st)
Anyway these are long terms plans and I think things will change in the
meantime...
Jacques
From: "Jacopo Cappellato" <jacopo.cappell...@hotwaxmedia.com>
Yes, this could be the easiest way to implement it.
And if and when we will release the "specialpurpose" applications we could simply create a tag (if we do not plan to backport
fixes for "specialpurpose" releases) or we could create a release branch specific for "specialpurpose" (if we do not want to
backport fixes for "specialpurpose" releases).
Jacopo
On Jul 9, 2012, at 2:59 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
So, we would remove the specialpurpose folder from the release branch? That
sounds fine to me.
-Adrian
On 7/9/2012 1:55 PM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
Adrian,
all you proposed sounds good to me, I like it.
What about the idea of not including specialpurpose in the releases? I think it is important because it simplifies the task of
reviewing the code that we officially publish when we do a release; releasing separately will help to focus on a smaller amount
of code every time we do a release.
Jacopo
On Jul 9, 2012, at 12:50 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
I like the general direction, but I think the steps are overly complicated. I would prefer to keep the specialpurpose folder
name, and keep its components in the build scripts and test runs. This is important because higher level component tests can
reveal problems in the core logic (those tests were invaluable during the Mini-language overhaul).
So, let's move stuff into specialpurpose, then move bits of specialpurpose out of the project. When the specialpurpose folder
is empty, we can remove it.
The eCommerce component could be moved to the applications folder.
I would be interested in spinning off the Asset Maintenance component to a separate project. Maybe we could use that as a test
run of the "extras" concept.
-Adrian
On 7/9/2012 11:21 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
A few months ago we discussed about moving out of OFBiz some components from framework and specialpurpose and introduce the
concept of "OFBiz Extras" projects, managed out of the ASF infrastructure.
I still think it is a good way to go, especially because it will help to grow an ecosystem of projects not necessarily
licensed under the same license.
However I understand that this will take time to adjust and a lot of work to setup communities etc... this is the main reason
I have prepared this proposal for an intermediate step: instead of moving out the components we can move them to the
"specialpurpose" folder, rename it into "extras" and exclude the folder from the ootb build/deployment and from releases.
Some more details:
* the extras folder will not be included in build scripts, test runs, deployments; in order to build/run/test an extras
component, it will have to be dropped into the hot-deploy folder
* extras components are not deployed on our demo instances, or included in automated builds; no dependency on them (links,
documentation etc...) will exist in the OFBiz codebase
* some of the components in the extras folder could be experimental; each component should contain a README file with all the
information required to deploy it successfully
* a separate LICENSE file will be maintained in the extras folder
* extras folder will not be part of the future OFBiz releases; we will instead release all the extras components in one
package as "Apache OFBiz Extras" let's say every year
* we may consider to move back ecommerce from specialpurpose/extras to
applications, at least the core ecommerce features
Considering that the components are either experimental or very specific, it will be easier to get commit rights for one or
more of the "extras" components; new committers will be formally "OFBiz committers" (i.e. in theory they will have right to
change all code in svn, including ofbiz code) but they will be asked to limit their field of action to the components they
have been voted for; it will be based on trust rather than commit rights; a formal vote will be still required to authorize
the committer to other components; the fact that a committer will still have the ability to change all code could be an
advantage if we allow them to commit code under the explicit permission of another senior committer on specific case; for
example a senior committer could say "I have committed r123456 and this should be backported to 12.04 and 11.04 but I don't
have time; is there a committer available to help to backport and test the feature?"
This strategy, to have committers that are asked to not commit out of specific components, or areas (we could, for example,
have a committer allowed to only work on ui labels), could even be considered for old committers (whose commit history shows
lack of quality)... but this is probably topic for another day.
In short, this approach should help in a few areas: smaller core code base, greater community of specialized committers, less
load on existing committers.
What do you think?
Jacopo
