I'm not really in favor of LTS support, it's a good idea, but not sure it can be backed by the community?[open question here ;)]. I don't think it fit in our current model for few reasons:
- Upgrade path might become impossible as patches become part of multiple versions. We could end up with problem at database schema with the current db upgrade model. - Enforcing user to stay on a legacy ACS release disallow usage of future hypervisor version, Guest OSes and new hardware used by hypervisors. As hypervisors will become out of date, they won't be able to support new Guest OSes and new hardware. - I think the initiative would dilute the effort on the upgrade path and making sure the upgrade path is easy and always work. Since 4.3.1 as been released after 4.4.0, do we know if a 4.3.1 can be upgrade to 4.4.1 or event 4.5? - Contribution to ACS and bugfixing become nightmare as bugfix might end up in 4 branches (4.3, 4.4, 4.5, master,...) Why not as community (let's face it, not very a big one) we all focus on the next 4.5 version, make sure it's properly tested, make sure upgrade "just work" and have ACS 4 as the LTS ? ;-) I know a production system is not likely to run the latest version of ACS and upgrade of such a prod tool can occur maybe one or two time a year. That's just my opinion on the subject, nothing against anyone or to block the idea. On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Hugo Trippaers <h...@trippaers.nl> wrote: > Top posting here as my remarks are mainly on the original topic. > > I’m not in favor of supporting LTS releases as a community. The reasoning > here is that there is a huge chance that we will fragment the community in > people that just want to work on the latest and greatest and some other > folks who are trying to keep older releases from being updated with newer > fixes. It requires a lot of dedicated commitment to keep an LTS release > going. Particularly if you yourself are already working with a newer > release in your environment. So from a personal standpoint i can almost > guarantee that i will probably not spend the time and effort of back > porting any fixes i do to older versions of CloudStack. > > That doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. If people are willing to take > charge of an LTS branch and are willing to do the work to back port fixes > where appropriate i would happily support them and even try to test the > releases so we can have an official release. > > New developers might also be scared by the fact that a fix they make has > to be supported on multiple branches and might decide not to commit such a > fix because of the work involved. With the rate of change in the code at > the moment this is also very hard for seasoned developers, so much little, > but important stuff changes all the time that back porting is very > difficult. It is an open source project and generally people will want to > focus on the latest and greatest and just get their features in. I’m > already regularly having some trouble back porting between master and 4.5. > Consider back porting to master, 4.5 and 4.3 as well and having to test > each branch. > > Basically my point is, everyone who wants to LTS support a certain branch > is free to do so. Whether or not other contributors or committers will want > to do that is their choice. As a community we should not make any promises > about LTS support for a certain branch. > > Cheers, > > Hugo > > > > > > > On 25 nov. 2014, at 16:16, Rohit Yadav <rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com> > wrote: > > > > Hey Daan, > > > >> On 25-Nov-2014, at 7:26 pm, Daan Hoogland <daan.hoogl...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > >> That is worrying, Rohit. As the rest of your mail is already a vote of > >> distrust, this part says we should not release 4.4.2 as it contains > >> regressions. > > > > Looks like you skimmed my email and missed the following from my > previous email: > > “Note: This is not to say that 4.4.x is not stable, we’re simply saying > we recommend 4.3.x because we have a confidence of its stability and we > encourage serious CloudStack users to use it.” > > > > 4.4.x is probably the greatest ACS feature release ever but I would > still recommend conservative users (who consult me) to stick to 4.3.x for > production since we know it just works with least amount of pain. The other > issue is I know a lot of people who are on ACS 4.3.x still (including > ShapeBlue’s customers) want to have bugfix releases and they may not want > to migrate to 4.4.x right now since 4.5.x is about 2–3 months away. > > > > ACS when consumed by enterprise companies has a typical lifecycle that > lasts at least 6 months, that means someone needs to support it, therefore > the idea of official LTS releases. > > > >> This is a very bad signal to users and the rest of the > >> community. What you are saying is (you in transitive form), 'we won't > >> port fixes to 4.4 but only to 4.3 so upgrade to newer 4.3 versions and > >> not to a 4.4 version. You have the right to do so but I don't like it. > > > > In any form I did not say anything about not helping out or not porting > things. People who know me, know that I love to help everyone and I’m quite > prompt at reply and resolving things. I’ve taken the task to maintain 4.3 > and you’re very welcome to go thorough JIRA etc. to backport things that > you want for 4.4 since you’re alone the gatekeeper of this branch. > > > > I’m going through these bugs that have a different fix version (not > 4.3.0 or 4.3.1): https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?filter=12329775 > > > > Wido suggested that backporting is time consuming so as a challenge I’ve > went through 50 issues today, I was able to understand/backport about 25 of > them that qualified for 4.3 branch (many of them were trivial, > https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cloudstack.git;a=commit;h=f72eb945540e607ff25917922b4084187246f31a), > about 10 of them were hard to backport so I’ve asked authors to help out. I > think with this speed I alone should be able to go through like 300 issues > reported on JIRA in about 10-15 days time and after than about 10-20 days > of testing and getting the bugfix release out. Though if we all help out we > can get more mileage. > > > > It sucks for me personally that I’ve been emailing you privately about > cherry-pick and asking you to pick them on 4.4 (also leaving messages on > JIRA). I’ll continue to do that :) and meanwhile, you are very welcome to > go see the things I picked on 4.3 and pick those applicable on 4.4. > > > > Yours friendly and as always, > > > > Rohit Yadav > > Software Architect, ShapeBlue > > M. +91 88 262 30892 | rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com > > Blog: bhaisaab.org | Twitter: @_bhaisaab > > > > Find out more about ShapeBlue and our range of CloudStack related > services > > > > IaaS Cloud Design & Build< > http://shapeblue.com/iaas-cloud-design-and-build//> > > CSForge – rapid IaaS deployment framework<http://shapeblue.com/csforge/> > > CloudStack Consulting<http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-consultancy/> > > CloudStack Software Engineering< > http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-software-engineering/> > > CloudStack Infrastructure Support< > http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-infrastructure-support/> > > CloudStack Bootcamp Training Courses< > http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-training/> > > > > This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are > intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any > views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not > necessarily represent those of Shape Blue Ltd or related companies. If you > are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any > action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please > contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. > Shape Blue Ltd is a company incorporated in England & Wales. ShapeBlue > Services India LLP is a company incorporated in India and is operated under > license from Shape Blue Ltd. Shape Blue Brasil Consultoria Ltda is a > company incorporated in Brasil and is operated under license from Shape > Blue Ltd. ShapeBlue SA Pty Ltd is a company registered by The Republic of > South Africa and is traded under license from Shape Blue Ltd. ShapeBlue is > a registered trademark. > >
