I'm also +1 to removing Erlang 19. I wanted to reiterate what Newson said about Erlang Solutions providing Erlang packaging, and I think we should more strongly lean on options like this rather than being dependent on the OS distros Erlang versions. Many years ago I wrote about the nuances with Erlang versions and CouchDB on the R14/R15/R16 lines [1], and it's worth noting that multiple Debian versions shipped versions of Erlang that were fundamentally broken for use with CouchDB. I think we even blocked a number of those versions in the rebar.config allowed versions.
I don't know how much of an issue that is today, but there's certainly precedent for distro shipped Erlang versions not being an option. -Russell [1] https://chewbranca.com/doc/trunk/archive/github/2014-05-07-on-the-viability-of-erlang-releases-and-couchdb.md On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 5:07 AM Bessenyei Balázs Donát <bes...@apache.org> wrote: > Thank you all for the input! > > I'll remove erlang 19 for `couchdb-config` and we'll be able to refer > to this thread when we have to remove it anywhere else. > > > Donat > > On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 10:09 PM Adam Kocoloski <kocol...@apache.org> > wrote: > > > > Ah, good research there Joan. +1 to Donat’s suggestion to drop support > for 19 from me. > > > > Adam > > > > > On Jan 22, 2021, at 4:49 PM, Joan Touzet <woh...@apache.org> wrote: > > > > > > On 2021-01-22 4:37 p.m., Robert Newson wrote: > > >> Innnnteresting. I’m actually surprised at the inversion here (that > CouchDB is dependent on IBM to confirm CouchDB’s stability). I’ve always > agonised over even the perception that IBM/Cloudant is calling the shots. I > appreciate the reassurance that running at scale provides, of course, I > just don’t think it can be our official position. > > > > > > It's a tough one. I was pretty aggressive on CouchDB running the very > latest until the scheduler collapse problem surfaced. After that, there was > another problem (I can't recall) that was pretty serious too. I took a > wait-and-see attitude at that point, and after I didn't see IBM move > forward to a newer release, didn't move forward ourselves. Looks like we > ended up in deadlock! > > > > > > However! See your own comments on this: > > > > > > https://github.com/apache/couchdb/issues/3115#issuecomment-729031967 > > > > > > I knew there was something at the back of my head on this. Guess we're > both getting old ;) > > > > > >> On the core point of the thread, it seems there’s no barrier to > dropping Erlang 19 support, so I think we can go to a VOTE thread, perhaps > best to wait till Monday for others to chime in on this discussion though. > > > > > > More important is that we already committed changes on the main repo > re: Erlang 19 about 14 months ago by Paul: > > > > > > > https://github.com/apache/couchdb/commit/3594f2f1fc16903c1c383ebaf205d31c9c17fb3a > > > > > > I think that makes Donat's request pretty straightforward. > > > > > >> I also think that IBM Cloudant’s chosen Erlang release is in part > influenced by CouchDB’s lack of support for later versions and requirement > of compatible with older releases, which now appears illusory. > > > > > > If we're ready to move to 21 or 22 as a default, we're ready. Let's > hope the serious issues in 21/22 are at least mitigated. I'm happy to make > the 3.3 release (or whatever is next) use the very latest version of 21 or > 22 from GitHub, subject to community recommendations and encouragement. 23 > is still a WIP: https://github.com/apache/couchdb/issues/3115 > > > > > > -Jon > > > > > >> B. > > >>> On 22 Jan 2021, at 21:19, Joan Touzet <woh...@apache.org> wrote: > > >>> > > >>> On 22/01/2021 15:48, Robert Newson wrote: > > >>>> I’m +1 on dropping Erlang 19 support. Erlang is now on major > release 23. > > >>> > > >>> No problem here. > > >>> > > >>>> I’d further advocate a general policy of supporting only the most > recent 2 or 3 major releases of Erlang/OTP. > > >>>> > > >>>> The main (I think only?) reason to keep compatibility so far back > is because of the versions supported by some OS’es. I don’t feel that is a > strong reason given the couchdb install, in common with Erlang-based > projects, is self-contained. The existence of Erlang Solutions packages for > all common platforms is also a factor. > > >>> > > >>> That hasn't been the case for at least 2 years, if not longer. > > >>> > > >>> As the release engineer, I've been focused on stability for everyone. > > >>> This is largely driven by knowing that IBM/Cloudant largely run > CouchDB > > >>> on 20.x at scale. Standing on the shoulders of giants, our releases > run > > >>> the latest 20.x release at the time of binary generation. > > >>> > > >>> A few times recently issues cropped up in 21 and 22 that we didn't > > >>> encounter in our user base because, at scale, we are deployed on > > >>> 20.3.8.something. Some of these issues were non-trivial. (I'm off > today, > > >>> so I don't have the time to dig into the specifics until Monday.) > > >>> > > >>> So my $0.02 is that: if IBM/Cloudant is ready to move to something > newer > > >>> at scale, I'm ready to release binaries on a newer Erlang by default. > > >>> > > >>> The alternative (running newer Erlangs in the binary distributions > than > > >>> IBM/Cloudant run in production) could possibly be perceived as > treating > > >>> our open source customers as guinea pigs. I'd rather not risk that > > >>> perception, but am willing to be convinced otherwise. > > >>> > > >>> -Joan > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>>> B. > > >>>> > > >>>>> On 22 Jan 2021, at 19:54, Bessenyei Balázs Donát < > bes...@apache.org> wrote: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Hi All, > > >>>>> > > >>>>> CI for https://github.com/apache/couchdb-config appears to be > broken. > > >>>>> I wanted to fix it in > > >>>>> https://github.com/apache/couchdb-config/pull/34/files , but I'm > > >>>>> getting issues with erlang 19. Are we okay with dropping 19 support > > >>>>> there? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> On a different note: are we okay with dropping erlang 19 support > > >>>>> overall in couch project(s)? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Thank you, > > >>>>> Donat > > >>>> > > >
