Hi Stephan. Thanks for your reply.
If you are running a SMW instance, then the majority of the extensions you'll be using would be the semantic bundle ones. So it would be great if the upcoming SMW 1.9 bundle were to maintain compatibility with MW 1.19 LTS. It was being asked earlier in the year what was necessary to make SMW more widely used. Well, in my experience, stability is right up there on the wish list of potential users. Having to constantly upgrade many extensions is a real pain. Having to re-implement skins is even worse. It's taken me months of pleading and expense just to get a relatively small set of MW 1.16/7 era extensions fixed for MW 1.19 and I've also spend hundreds of hours re-skinning sites. Now I've got there, I don't want to have to embark on it all over again trying to keep up with the rapid MW release cycle, especially when compatibility seems to be getting broken so often now. I'd much rather be spending the time and money implementing new site functionality on the LTS version. Fortunately SMW has so far not been a major problem as it has maintained a sensible and practical backward compatibility policy and new functionality has obviously been coded up with care. I just would like to see this carried forward. Cheers Neill. On 04/12/12 17:16, Stephan Gambke wrote: > Hi Neill, > > maybe it would help if you could point out, what you would expect from > an LTS version. I mean, compatibility of other extensions to SMW 1.8 > is not something SMW has much influence on, is it. Ok, as a start, the > SMW maintainers could create a kind of rallying point by declaring a > specific version to be an LTS version, so other extensions could take > specific care to be compatible with it. But what else? > > Cheers, > Stephan > > On 4 December 2012 15:02, Neill Mitchell <ne...@nlkmitchell.com> wrote: >> Hi James. >> >> Thanks for your reply. >> >> The reason MW has gone with this approach is because the 6 monthly >> releases regularly breaks extensions and even more problematically, >> skins as well. There has been very heated discussion on the MW forums >> because of this. It is putting off a lot of people from building and >> maintaining extensions if they have to keep being constantly fixed every >> six months. This is not just a problem for enterprise class users. Even >> "lite" users are finding this a pain. >> >> It is always very tempting to use the very latest and greatest version >> of everything when building extensions, but if it causes a lot of >> problems for the user base it is not always a good idea. Unless the >> benefits really outweigh the pain of upgrading of course. >> >> Are there vital changes going into 1.20, 1.21 that really mean keeping >> compatibility with 1.19 will be impossible going forward? If this is so >> then this is a very worrying trend. 1.19 is only 8 months old. >> >> Best regards >> Neill. >> On 04/12/12 12:11, James HK wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> While people might want to have something like LTS (long term >>> support), you have to remember that MW has a vibrant group of >>> contributors where SMW as it stance right now (counting on the commit >>> history of the last 12 month [1]) only has four people contributing on >>> a more frequent base(at least once a month, without counting >>> translations). >>> >>> Keeping SMW1.9/MW1.19 as LTS would mean you have to maintain a >>> different code base throughout your development branch which means an >>> increased effort to maintain new developments and "old" developments. >>> >>> I would guess that LTS is something a commercial enterprise is more >>> suited to deliver than asking volunteer developers to keep in mind >>> when they want to shift the border of software functionality. >>> >>> PS: Personally, I had already had my fights in keeping some parts of >>> SMW 1.8 in alignment with MW 1.17. >>> >>> [1] http://www.ohloh.net/p/smw/contributors?query=&sort=commits_12_mo >>> >>> Cheers >>> >>> On 12/4/12, Neill Mitchell <ne...@nlkmitchell.com> wrote: >>>> Mediawiki is now offering long term support for MW 1.19. Will the same >>>> policy be applied same with SMW? >>>> >>>> Best regards >>>> Neill. >>>> On 02/12/12 10:50, Markus Krötzsch wrote: >>>>> +1 for dropping 1.18 in 1.9. >>>>> >>>>> Markus >>>>> >>>>> On 02/12/12 02:43, James HK wrote: >>>>>> Hi, >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks. You read my mind, I was just about to write a similar email as >>>>>> it happens 1.18 already dropped from the official MW supporting list >>>>>> [1]. >>>>>> >>>>>> [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download >>>>>> >>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>> >>>>>> On 12/2/12, Jeroen De Dauw <jeroended...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> Hey, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Since the 1.8 release got relayed quited a bit (it was originally >>>>>>> scheduled >>>>>>> for September and will be made tomorrow) I suggest we do not just drop >>>>>>> support for MediaWiki 1.17 but for 1.18 as well. Assuming we manage to >>>>>>> stick to the release schedule for 1.9, MediaWiki 1.19 will have been >>>>>>> available for almost a year at the point of release. Any objections? If >>>>>>> not, I'll update the roadmap [0]. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> [0] https://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Roadmap#SMW_1.9 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Cheers >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> Jeroen De Dauw >>>>>>> http://www.bn2vs.com >>>>>>> Don't panic. Don't be evil. >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: >>>>>> DESIGN Expert tips on starting your parallel project right. >>>>>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Semediawiki-devel mailing list >>>>>> Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net >>>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel >>>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Keep yourself connected to Go Parallel: >>>>> DESIGN Expert tips on starting your parallel project right. >>>>> http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Semediawiki-devel mailing list >>>>> Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net >>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel >>>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial >>>> Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support >>>> Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services >>>> Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers >>>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Semediawiki-devel mailing list >>>> Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net >>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel >>>> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial >> Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support >> Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services >> Discover what IT Professionals Know. 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