Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions and LTS

2013-02-14 Thread Mark A. Hershberger
Niklas voiced what will surely be a common refrain amongst extension
developers:

On 02/13/2013 02:09 AM, Niklas Laxström wrote:
 There is near zero chance that I will keep supporting 1.19 for that
 long in master branch in all of my extensions (and this is assuming
 support for 1.19 is dropped immediately when 1.25 is released). It's
 already hard since 1.19 is missing some features I need.
 
 People need to realize that they can't get the latest shiny extensions
 on years old MediaWiki. For extensions this would mean that they would
 create a branch with security fixes and other important bug fixes for
 1.19. MLEB will probably just declare some release as the last release
 that works with 1.19.

As we develop our LTS policy (and it has to be a policy developed by all
of us so that there is some consensus about it), we need to flesh these
things out.

I didn't intend to equate maintenance with LTS support with
implementation of all the latest features of an extension, but the way I
framed it -- and the change I made to Niklas APC extension release
status MW.o -- made it look that way.

As Niklas says:

 Maintained doesn't necessarily mean support for 1.19 is kept.

True.

We can satisfy LTS users (who want to know that X extension will work
with their version of MW) and developers (who don't want to spend too
much time maintaining their extensions for old MW) by updating the
Release Status box and adding a link to a version of the extension
that has been verified to work with the LTS.

As for finding maintainers for orphaned extensions: that is something we
haven't tried yet.  I hope it we can find them in cases where we need
them.  Nemo pointed me to http://wikiapiary.com/wiki/Extension:Apc for
sites that use the APC extension -- which Niklas has said needs a new
maintainer.

-- 
http://hexmode.com/

There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.
   -- Mahatma Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace and War

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions and LTS

2013-02-13 Thread Andre Klapper
On Tue, 2013-02-12 at 18:48 -0500, Mark A. Hershberger wrote:
 I'd like to think that extensions in [[Category:Stable_extensions]] will
 be maintained, but maybe that isn't right.  I certainly haven't tried
 all of them against 1.19.

Wondering how differently Stable extensions is interpreted by
individuals who once upon a time added that category on an extension
homepage and then forgot about it.../pessimism

andre
-- 
Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler
http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions and LTS

2013-02-12 Thread David Gerard
On 12 February 2013 23:48, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote:

 I'm going to start paying close attention to people who have problems
 upgrading from 1.19 over the next couple of years so that when we hit
 the next LTS (1.25) in 2015, we'll have fewer issues for the people
 moving from 1.19 to 1.25.


Waiting that long? That'll leave Ubuntu 14.04 with 1.19 unsupportable
for a year or so. It also strikes me as a long time given the pace of
MW development. (I suppose I'd be asking a lot to ask for overlapping
LTS times.)

The rest of your post is wonderful and heartwarming stuff for a
tarball user to hear :-)


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions and LTS

2013-02-12 Thread Niklas Laxström
On 13 February 2013 01:48, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote:

 I'm going to start paying close attention to people who have problems
 upgrading from 1.19 over the next couple of years so that when we hit
 the next LTS (1.25) in 2015, we'll have fewer issues for the people
 moving from 1.19 to 1.25.

There is near zero chance that I will keep supporting 1.19 for that
long in master branch in all of my extensions (and this is assuming
support for 1.19 is dropped immediately when 1.25 is released). It's
already hard since 1.19 is missing some features I need.

People need to realize that they can't get the latest shiny extensions
on years old MediaWiki. For extensions this would mean that they would
create a branch with security fixes and other important bug fixes for
1.19. MLEB will probably just declare some release as the last release
that works with 1.19.

1.19 was released on 2012-02-09. For comparison Ubuntu has released
LTS version every two years.

 I'd like to think that extensions in [[Category:Stable_extensions]] will
 be maintained, but maybe that isn't right.  I certainly haven't tried
 all of them against 1.19.

Maintained doesn't necessarily mean support for 1.19 is kept.

 Developers can help out with this.  On Debian, for example, developers
 can announce that they're orphaning a package and it needs a new
 maintainer.  Ideally, a developer would find someone to maintain his own
 extension, but if you see an orphaned extension or just don't feel like
 maintaining one any more, please add {{Unmaintained extension}} to its
 page on MediaWiki.org.

Has any extension been adopted this way?

  -Niklas

--
Niklas Laxström

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