Hi Stephan,
There are a number of points to discuss here. In our case, I think
long-term support really refers to two things: support for older versions
of MediaWiki, and support for older versions of SMW. I don't know if
everyone's aware of it, but the WMF people have actually declared MediaWiki
1.19 to be the official LTS version for the next two years - so people are
supposed to be able to use 1.19 for the next two years without any worries.
See here:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-November/064277.html
In the case of the Semantic Bundle, only compatibility with MediaWiki
matters, since SMW is included in the bundle. But then again, maybe
everyone is just talking about support for MediaWiki?
Anyway, the best approach for long-term support, in my opinion, is to have
each extension individually maintain support for older versions of
MediaWiki - especially version 1.19. (And for older versions of SMW,
especially if some version of it is declared the LTS version.) That way
there doesn't need to be special coordination done for the Semantic Bundle,
and of course it means that the benefits still apply to people who download
the extensions in other ways.
I try to maintain support for older versions of MediaWiki in all my
extensions, going back two or more years if possible. Currently most of my
extensions support MediaWiki 1.17, which came out in June 2011 - and the
jump to 1.17 was only because of the major change in that version with the
ResourceLoader. It's not that hard to maintain backward compatibility, and
I think it's the right option, when possible - certainly easier than
holding different branches and trying to maintain all of them.
I'm not unique in this - the Semantic Forms Inputs and Semantic Maps
extensions, other SB extensions maintained by other people (both on this
thread), also still support MediaWiki 1.17, for instance. And so does SMW
itself, for that matter - though the SMW page says that MediaWiki 1.19 is
"recommended", whatever that means.
So could it be that the solution to this is to simply highly recommend to
all extension developers to keep support for older versions of MediaWiki,
now and in the future?
-Yaron
On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Stephan Gambke <s7ep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, digging this out again.
>
> On 5 December 2012 22:39, James HK <jamesin.hongkon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > # What would LTS mean in connection with SMW ?
>
> Provide LTS versions of the Semantic Bundle.
>
> This would mean:
> * to branch off versions* of SMW
> * to include updated versions of extensions in the Semantic Bundle as
> long as they support the relevant SMW version
> * to branch off versions of these extensions once they stop supporting
> the relevant SMW version
> * to clearly state extensions contained in the bundle including their
> versions
> * to clearly state compatibility of the bundle to MW versions
> * to apply patches to contained extensions if somebody provides them
>
> * Considered versions of SMW would be the last minor versions before
> the release of a new major version of SMW, i.e. 1.5.6, 1.6.1, 1.7.1,
> ...
> Of these only take one per year and support it for two(?) years. This
> would mean 1.6.1 (2011), 1.8 (2012), and 1.10 (2013).
>
>
> > # Which implications would LTS have on future developments ?
>
> Extension developers should anounce new versions of their extensions
> stating compatibility of their extension to MW and SMW. They should
> tag release versions of their extensions in git.
> They should also think about if a bug or feature is important enough
> to be backported.
>
> > # Why would SMW need/want to support a LTS infrastructure ? What would
> > be the benefit ?
>
> Availability of stable Semantic Bundles on older MWs, giving people
> more time to plan their updates and allow them to do updates less
> often.
>
>
> > # Who will do LTS for SMW and what infrastructure is needed to support
> > LTS (own branch etc.)
>
> I would do the administration work incl. applying patches. I would in
> general not do backporting.
>
> I would propose to keep download versions on Google Code along with
> the regular packages and document the contents on
> semantic-mediawiki.org and/or mediawiki.org, e.g. as subpages of the
> extension page.
>
>
> > # Would LTS mean a freeze release or do features from a development
> > branch are back ported to a LTS?
>
> See above. Basically freeze for SMW and extensions that don't support
> the frozen SMW anymore. Patches applied if provided.
>
> What do you think?
>
>
> > # SMW 1.8 supports MW 1.17/1.18+
> > # SMW 1.9 is planned to support MW 1.19/1.20/1.21 / PHP 5.3 or greater
> > # SMW 1.10 is planned to support MW 1.20 (or 1.21 pending on the release
> date)
>
> Maybe think about that again. SMW 1.6 to 1.8 all supported up to two
> year old MW versions. With the roadmap as it is this would drop to one
> year for 1.9.
>
> SMW -> MW: Delay
> 1.6 (30/07/2011) -> 1.15 (25/03/2009): 2.3 years
> 1.6.1 (20/08/2011) -> 1.15 (25/03/2009): 2.4 years
> 1.7 (01/01/2012) -> 1.16 (22/02/2010): 1.9 years
> 1.7.1 (05/03/2012) -> 1.16 (22/02/2010) 2.0 years
> 1.8 (02/12/2012) -> 1.17 (07/12/2010): 2.0 years
> 1.9 (15/03/2013) -> 1.19 (09/02/2012): 1.1 years
> 1.10 (15/08/2013) -> 1.19 (09/02/2012): 1.5 years
>
> Cheers,
> Stephan
>
>
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