Hi!

It's been more than two years since we've released 5.0.0, and almost as
long since Connectors and PQS have been split from the main repo.

I believe that we are now at the point where we've solved, or are close to
solving the issues that have prevented us from releasing a useful and
relevant 5.1.0 , as well as making an actual releases of PQS and Connectors
that are usable with both 5.x and 4.x.

The two major blockers that are still open are

   - PHOENIX-6010 Create phoenix-thirdparty, and consume guava through it
   - PHOENIX-5784 Phoenix-connectors doesn't work with phoenix master branch

but I hope that we can wrap those up in the next few weeks.

This is going to be a complex process, as we'll have to release new
versions of ALL of our components. To recap, the affected projects, (and
their dependencies):

   - phoenix-thirdparty
   - tephra
   - omid (phoenix-thirdparty)
   - phoenix (tehpra ?, omid, phoenix-thirdparty)
   - PQS
   - Connectors

The 5.1 release is also a point where we can revisit the decision to
support Tephra. We have inherited those projects because of low developer
interest, and it hasn't increased visibly since we've adopted them.
Rajeshbabu and Josh have done some analysis and, as a part of our day job,
are investing time first with Omid to ensure it's functional with the rest
of Phoenix in its new home/packaging.

Tephra also carries the technical debt of being dependent on the
discontinued Twill library, which in turn is locked to oid Guava versions.
In TEPHRA-308 I am implementing the stopgap solution of shading both away,
so it is not a blocker for 5.1, but concentrating on one library would
probably be a smarter use of the almost non-existent developer time that
goes into maintaining our transactional solution.

I plan to add a profile to build Phoenix without Tephra, thus avoiding the
problematic dependencies that it has. (Alternatively, the default can be
omitting Tephra, and defining a profile where it is added.)


The effect on 4.x

Short-term, the above releases do not affect 4.x, as it can stay on the old
omid and tephra dependencies. Having an official release of PQS and
Connectors is a clear win, and Richard Antal is also working on updating
some of the connectors for 4.x.

Mid-term, updating to the new Omid version will bring in the
phoenix-thirdparty dependency to 4.x, and I think it would be smart to
backport the phoenix-thirdparty changes to 4.x as well.

I do not know if there are plans for 4.16 near term. Having 4.x and 5.x
releases that are close feature and bugfix wise would be advantageous in
terms of documenting and communicating them to the users, but it hasn't
stopped either branch from releasing in the past, so releasing 5.1 and 4.16
close together would be a nice-to-have, but not a show stopper.

Also, I have concentrated on the build and dependencies side of Phoenix.
AFAICT there are no major new features going in now that would warrant
delaying the release, I can mostly see the usual fixes and optimizations
these days among the commits.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Looking forward to your questions, comments, and opinion.

regards

Istvan

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