Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
Am 28.01.21 um 19:56 schrieb Timur Gadzo: I'm reading about rolling release idea, and I find it awful. It just popped up, not sure why. Yes, it's more simple to publish, but it would ruin LO usability. ESC meeting minutes: 2020-12-10 https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2020-December/086428.html I personally don't think it'll solve the problem. Feels a bit like gnupg or OpenSSL... LO is regression plagued product. Yup. But honestly with the available resources, I don't see this changing in any time-frame, I can imagine. One IMHO main problem is, that we mainly have regression unit tests. So every change is almost guaranteed to break stuff. At least for me it feels like this. Everything is a lot of guesswork for me, even in areas, where people claim I'm the actual expert. I remember patches, which had almost 100 iterations and still had a regression, literally a day after the commit. Some of my stuff you might remember from QA too, like: * The Scheduler rework, so we could get rid of crazy stuff, like the 1ms sleep, so Idles wouldn't starve each other or process stuff in the wrong sequence * The "simplification" of the SalLayout to implement some little bit more understandable font handling, which broke the generic font cache, broke Windows font handling, slowing down documents in all aspects * The unification of SolarMutex, which previously was simply ignoring underflows and "hope nothing breaks", which I stopped with std::abort() on underflow and still - now and then - get bisects on a crash to this change years later * The whole "multi-threaded" GUI processing including now crazy stuff to redirect GUI stuff from non-GUI threads, like ignoring the mutex in the main thread to process GUI, while the original threads holds it. * Or the stuff I broke while reworking the mail merge to work with complex documents and be usable with more the 100 document, not slowing down to a crawl with 200 (the sensible limit was at some point ~10k letter complexity docs) * ... etc, etc, etc... You may ask: do we have unit tests at least for some of the essential low level stuff I touched? Barely any and nothing I would consider remotely sufficient. And this is just the major stuff I worked on an broke stuff for multiple releases. And still currently there is https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/109829, which passed before XMas and now always aborts, with very broken logs indicating some (new?) Scheduler problem, I'm unable to reproduce locally, driving me nuts. And not taking into account the 12141 open bug reports against LibreOffice (according to the weekly bug summary of today). So I can very much relate to your impression. But unless you have some large new resources available for the project, we'll have to bear with it. ATB Jan-Marek P.S. and on top of it you have a lot of https://xkcd.com/1172/, simply because LO is around for a long time, used by many people and actually gets a lot more done, then I can imagine. I'm just remembering those blog post, where people replied how they use Draw for CAD... P.P.S. x.y.6 is the most stable, but sometimes people actually want to use new features a bit earlier. Or they pay for commercial support. P.P.P.S. And then there is also the very broken WASM port, which neither helps my sanity... ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On 29/01/2021 19:58, William Gathoye (LibreOffice) wrote: Ensuring there is no gap and the N-1 release doesn't EOL before N+2 is released Please read N+1 instead of N+2 obviously :P -- William Gathoye Hypertive volunteer for LibreOffice Proud member of The Document Foundation CM of LaMouette - French based association promoting ODF and LibreOffice Consultant Technical Marketer at Collabora DevOps Engineer at Arawa Core Committer at Mattermost ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On 28/01/2021 09:46, Michael Weghorn wrote: Unless anybody else suggests a different way to handle this, it IMHO certainly makes sense if you attend the ESC meeting today. (I've added that item to the agenda for now.) To @all I consider this problem solved iff the agreement reached during the last ESC and written the minutes is met: On 28/01/2021 16:37, Miklos Vajna wrote: [...] + could nominally adjust the date of 6.4 EOL → but still no more versions (Cloph) + would this mean the website vs update check will be in sync? (William) + yes, ignoring the 1w delay (Cloph) + agree to not update everybody instantly (Thorsten) [...] Ensuring there is no gap and the N-1 release doesn't EOL before N+2 is released, this will fix the issue: the situation where the version of -still equals the version of -fresh at some periods of the year will not happen anymore. So in this use case, the end of date of 6.4 [1] should have been extended to Feb 7 2021 [2] instead of Nov 30 2020. Like written and confirmed by Cloph, we can accept <=1 week of delay between announcement and the TDF update service **iff** we stick to it and we are consistent in the delay where the TDF update service and announcement are out of sync. [1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/6.4#End_of_Life [2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/7.1 -- William Gathoye Hypertive volunteer for LibreOffice Proud member of The Document Foundation CM of LaMouette - French based association promoting ODF and LibreOffice Consultant Technical Marketer at Collabora DevOps Engineer at Arawa Core Committer at Mattermost ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On 28/01/2021 11:27, Florian Effenberger wrote: I think it is intentional that we always do have two parallel versions available for download, but it's something that might change as we are looking into the rolling release system, which makes this differentiation obsolete. Yes, exactly like I wrote at the end: the situation will likely change with the new marketing plan being enforced: Also, following our new marketing strategic plan, what has been decided? Do we still need to use a -still version? [...] What's the rationale for two days, why that urgency? Following the notes I took from the beginning of this story it was answered to me that 2 days was a good consensus: way enough time for the last repos to sync and enlarging that window means end users are likely to ask "I saw the announcement, but when using the update check it says no update available". Have seen a bunch of requests and mails like this, so as munch as the TDF update service and announcements are as much as possible in sync, the risk of getting a guazzilions tweets, remarks, personal emails, is likely to decrease. Also, thinking of the release days on Wednesdays or Thursdays, it might be smart to not put forward such updates during the weekends, when reaction times in case of issues are slower than during the week. The industry comes with a standard to release on Tuesdays. Choosing that day would have avoided this use case to happen and would have allowed shorter differences between the TDF update service and announcements on social media/blog/download page on the website. -- William Gathoye Hypertive volunteer for LibreOffice Proud member of The Document Foundation CM of LaMouette - French based association promoting ODF and LibreOffice Consultant Technical Marketer at Collabora DevOps Engineer at Arawa Core Committer at Mattermost ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On 28/01/2021 22.03, Jan-Marek Glogowski wrote: LO is regression plagued product. Yup. But honestly with the available resources, I don't see this changing in any time-frame, I can imagine. One IMHO main problem is, that we mainly have regression unit tests. So every change is almost guaranteed to break stuff. At least for me it feels like this. Everything is a lot of guesswork for me, even in areas, where people claim I'm the actual expert. [...] You may ask: do we have unit tests at least for some of the essential low level stuff I touched? Barely any and nothing I would consider remotely sufficient. [...] > So I can very much relate to your impression. But unless you have some large new resources available for the project, we'll have to bear with it. Sadly true. I fully agree with Timur that our current release model (with fresh and still) mitigates the negative impacts, though, and currently don't see how that would reasonably work if we switch to a rolling release model without addressing the issues you outlined, or another way to effectively avoid more severe regressions landing in our rolling release version. I'm not against a rolling release model in general, but would love to see such aspects addressed in a more detailed proposal. ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
Hi Timur, Timur Gadzo schrieb am 28.01.2021 um 19:56: On Thursday, January 28, 2021, Florian Effenberger mailto:flo...@documentfoundation.org>> wrote: > > William Gathoye (LibreOffice) wrote on 27.01.21 at 18:22: > >> Right now: 6.4 is EOL'ed[4] but it is still advertised on the website while the update service is redirecting users of 6.4 to the 7.0 version. > > I think it is intentional that we always do have two parallel versions available for download, but it's something that might change as we are looking into the rolling release system, which makes this differentiation obsolete. > Hi Still has a purpose, many users (me also) are using Still.last. So we need 6.4 to be on the webpage, until we get 7.0.last. Removing it from that website does not mean, that you cannot get it. You can get every former released version from http://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old But those versions will get no bugfixes at all. Especially they will get no security bug fixes. I do not understand your problem. You should already have 6.4.7 and there will never be a 6.4.8. So why do you need a download link at that website? Kind regards Regina ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On Thursday, January 28, 2021, Florian Effenberger < flo...@documentfoundation.org> wrote: > > William Gathoye (LibreOffice) wrote on 27.01.21 at 18:22: > >> Right now: 6.4 is EOL'ed[4] but it is still advertised on the website while the update service is redirecting users of 6.4 to the 7.0 version. > > I think it is intentional that we always do have two parallel versions available for download, but it's something that might change as we are looking into the rolling release system, which makes this differentiation obsolete. > Hi Still has a purpose, many users (me also) are using Still.last. So we need 6.4 to be on the webpage, until we get 7.0.last. This proposal not only missed the point and failed to consider diverse needs of others, but it's over zealous in a detrimental way. I'm reading about rolling release idea, and I find it awful. It just popped up, not sure why. Yes, it's more simple to publish, but it would ruin LO usability. LO is regression plagued product. Some serious regressions may take months to be resolved, if ever. So with Still we still have a half-decent suite (other half are all those unresolved regressions). To me, who's in QA and following thousands of bugs, this looks like making new problems, because the most important ones (regressions and 10 years old bugs) are harder to deal with. If it's working, don't change that, rather fix what's not working. Regards Timur ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
Hello, On 28/1/21 11:27, Florian Effenberger wrote: > >> 2. Write and ensure a check list for the release process is >> **enforced** to ensure these use case are properly handled and the >> TDF update service is advertising the right version with 2 days max >> delay. > > The goal is to have the update trigger live within one week. Two days > sounds rather short - having some days gives us the option to see if > there are any major problems, and is e.g. also what many Android > vendors do with their staggered rollout. > > What's the rationale for two days, why that urgency? Also, thinking of > the release days on Wednesdays or Thursdays, it might be smart to not > put forward such updates during the weekends, when reaction times in > case of issues are slower than during the week. Besides, by the default, the online updater checks for a new version once a week ( see in Tools - Options - Online Update ) so some users will get the notification 5,6 or 7 days after the new version is activated. Again, why that urgency? Regards -- Xisco Faulí LibreOffice QA Team IRC: x1sc0 ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
Hi William, Cloph and Xisco can give more technical details, so just some quick thoughts from my side before the ESC call: William Gathoye (LibreOffice) wrote on 27.01.21 at 18:22: Right now: 6.4 is EOL'ed[4] but it is still advertised on the website while the update service is redirecting users of 6.4 to the 7.0 version. I think it is intentional that we always do have two parallel versions available for download, but it's something that might change as we are looking into the rolling release system, which makes this differentiation obsolete. 2. Write and ensure a check list for the release process is **enforced** to ensure these use case are properly handled and the TDF update service is advertising the right version with 2 days max delay. The goal is to have the update trigger live within one week. Two days sounds rather short - having some days gives us the option to see if there are any major problems, and is e.g. also what many Android vendors do with their staggered rollout. What's the rationale for two days, why that urgency? Also, thinking of the release days on Wednesdays or Thursdays, it might be smart to not put forward such updates during the weekends, when reaction times in case of issues are slower than during the week. Unless we e.g. have a very severe security issue, a week sounds just fine to me. Ultimately, this is something Cloph and Xisco should decide together with the ESC. Florian -- Florian Effenberger, Executive Director (Geschäftsführer) Tel: +49 30 5557992-50 | Mail: flo...@documentfoundation.org The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, DE Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: https://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
Re: [Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
On 27/01/2021 18.22, William Gathoye (LibreOffice) wrote: I would like the ESC take action on a pending topic that is annoying a bunch of users and that I have been constantly reporting for **3 years now**[0]: desynchronization between the website and the TDF update service. [...] I'll be there at the ESC meeting to support this tomorrow if you want. ESC meetings being quick and not to bother anyone with limited time, if you need further details, we can have a dedicated video chat if you want. Unless anybody else suggests a different way to handle this, it IMHO certainly makes sense if you attend the ESC meeting today. (I've added that item to the agenda for now.) ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
[Libreoffice-qa] ESC meeting agenda - Adding topic: Broken release process when fresh become still and when still become EOL'ed
Hi there, I would like the ESC take action on a pending topic that is annoying a bunch of users and that I have been constantly reporting for **3 years now**[0]: desynchronization between the website and the TDF update service. See here [1] for more background info. For complains: [2], [3], nearly all recent past infra meetings minutes, video chat with Florian Effenberger from last Friday. The update service and the versions displayed on the website need to be aligned. Sure, when a new release is cut and advertised on the website and social media, we can accept one or 2 days max. delay on the TDF update service, but if we choose a delay, we need 1) to be **consistent** and 2) **stick to it**. Right now: 6.4 is EOL'ed[4] but it is still advertised on the website while the update service is redirecting users of 6.4 to the 7.0 version. This is hurting users of LibreOffice relying on the update service, not only Chocolatey users. Resolution: 1. Remove links to 6.4, put a warning "6.4 is eOL'ed and users should download the 7.0 version" and add a link to downloadarchive.tdf for all previous versions OR simplyput 7.0 to -still with a warning explaining why the version is the same as -fresh [5]. (Yes, I know the website is undergoing an uplifting, but we cannot wait further). 2. Write and ensure a check list for the release process is **enforced** to ensure these use case are properly handled and the TDF update service is advertising the right version with 2 days max delay. I'm pretty convinced that these two issues are really easy to fix and fixing them can enhance our reliability and thus our reputation /marketing. Also, following our new marketing strategic plan, what has been decided? Do we still need to use a -still version? I'll be there at the ESC meeting to support this tomorrow if you want. ESC meetings being quick and not to bother anyone with limited time, if you need further details, we can have a dedicated video chat if you want. [0] First time reported in person to Christian Lohmeier at the 2018 FOSDEM hackfest/dinner [1] https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/website/2021/msg0.html [2] https://twitter.com/SuisJeFou/status/1189988140842393603 [3] comment section of: https://chocolatey.org/packages/libreoffice-still (new lenghty rant from R. Diez received today - which I understand) [4] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/6.4#End_of_Life [5] The MMVC code on the Silverstripe instance we have is not that complicated to automate the change if needed. src.: https://github.com/tdf/newdesign_wip -- William Gathoye Hypertive volunteer for LibreOffice Proud member of The Document Foundation CM of LaMouette - French based association promoting ODF and LibreOffice Consultant Technical Marketer at Collabora DevOps Engineer at Arawa Core Committer at Mattermost ___ List Name: Libreoffice-qa mailing list Mail address: Libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org Change settings: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-qa Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/
