2.6 Release Planning-2 (20081023)

Time / Date 

Attendees: Peter Knoop, Megan May, Stephen Marquard, Steve Smail,  David Haines, Jean-François Lévêque (UPMC), Anthony Whyte

Release Schedule

Review of current schedule to see what updates and revisions need to be made (string freeze, RC dates, ect). Current schedule is http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/FQDT

• Beta tags are scheduled to begin on Nov 10th.   We just cut the first alpha tag and it doesn't look likely we'd be ready.
• Stephen asked how we made the distinction in past releases.   in the past we moved to beta once the software the was in a stable state - for 2.5 we used UCT's deployment date as a benchmark .
• UCT is looking at a mid dec release.  They already have a local build up but haven't started testing.  Would hope to have something that is almost ready in early Dec so that could be the point we aim to switch to Beta
•  String Freeze is Dec 1st.   Not going to push that out.  Peter will contact project leads to see if there are any projects that are ready for the Itl' WG to work on.
• Release Candidates a few weeks after UCT releases. 

Approach to creating release artifacts

Anthony has a proposal for a new approach toward creating artifacts.  Three options were evaluated: 

A. No 2.6.0 branch ever, cut all tags from 2.6.x (one merge required per fix)
B. No 2.6.0 branch during the alpha phase; roll alpha tags directly from 2.6.x; then at the RC stage create a 2.6.0 branch and cut RC tags and a final release from it (one merge required per fix initially rising to two merges for certain fixes during RC phase)
C. Create a 2.6.0 branch now and generate alpha, rc, and release tags from it. (fixes will generally require two merges, one to the 2.6.0 branch, one to the 2.6.x branch)

More information is available in Anthony's blog post

Proposal is to go with option B.   + 1  from Anthony, Megan, Peter, David Haines, Stephen.  

Conversion Scripts

In the past we haven't hadn't released real maintenance releases.  However, with the 2.5 series we were able to produce  2.5.2 and 2.5.3.  Both of these included conversion.   Do we provide conversion to 2.6 from each of these or continue to require people to follow the upgrade?  

• Folks felt that would become unwieldy as here are too many possible combination's.  
• Stephen suggested doing the 2.5.0 - 2.6.0 script but including the parts for 2.5.2 and 2.5.3 but commented out/ documented. 
• The group talked about how to handle paths when there are subsequent releases.  Talked about the need to have coordinated releases with 2.5.4 and 2.6.x to preserve upgrade paths. Need to ensure this is clear.  

Proposal is to include everything since 2.5.0 and the bits from the maintenance releases will be commented out.  Megan will review and work on this. 

Project Teams

• David Haines tried to assemble information from UMich but ended up running out of  time.  Will try to have that done for next week.

• Steve Smail /Citatins - two big additions for citation. 
  • Support for meta search product.  The Citations team continues to maintain a private QA (due to product licenses) and testing is occuring there.
  • Import citations from end note Export in RIS format. Anyone with the software to generate this can test this feature. 
  • Documentation is in progress.

• Stephen wanted to review some of the release WG points on the 2.6 Confluence Page
  • Hierarchy - The project team didn't believe it was ready for inclusion in the community release.
  • Message Center / remove tool registration for combined tool.  Work not done . . . . the group thought the work to do this would have a small impact and would like it to proceed since it is no longer actively supported.  Megan will float idea and assign out as long as there is not community . 
  • Tool tools getting dropped (Presentation & Mailarchive Mailtool)  . . . . Peter will send out note that we will remove then from the release externals.
  • Conditional Release & Caldev - Believe that conditional release was not ready (project team call) and wasn't sure about CalDev.  Project Coordinator is still waiting to hear back.

QA - Testing Focus

• rWiki Confluence style
  • Stephen suggested a feature to turn this off.
  • Peter mentioned there is someone to work on this but if they don't think this can be resolved, the work to create a property will be done.
• High stakes tools - Gradebook, Assignments
  • Stephen would like to talk to the QA. team to get an idea of the testing that has already occured.  Megan will ask Jasmine to come next week. 
• Review of tools for glaring problems
• Site Info.
  • UCT uses CM.  Need to look for others using CM to test out other variation.
• Test servers - likely more will be up on Monday.

Future Meetings

Fall back for N.America occurs Nov 2 so we need to determine if the meeting time needs adjustment. 

• Deferred until next week when UCT is on (Stephen had dropped off)

Other

Components was moved to the kernel and that took properties along for the ride.   There are a lot of UI releated properties that are now in Kernel.   These need to be moved or need a way to override these outside of the kernel. 
Anthony believes this is worth addressing before 2.6.0 is released. 

• Anth will klook through file and what is kernel related vs what is UI related.  Maybe break into following
  •  Kernel.properties
  • sakai.properties.

• Seth Asked if there is other stuff that got into the kernel that shouldn't be there?   
  Anthony wasn't sure.  ==> Where is an appropriate place for properties to live?  Portal?  Library?  Taling to Ian about this.   
• What about the logging properties?  Anth will look today.  

Megan will add to agenda and touch base on progress each week