version 3.0.4 on download.koha.org

[LAURENT Henri-Damien]

Hi,
I have just seen that the latest version for 3.0.4 had been uploaded on
download.koha.org
Thanks to LibLime for doing that.
But for sake of not misleading people, I would find that great that
people donot have the choice between 2 versions of 3.0.4
Would any liblimer be so kind as to remove the first 3.0.4 tarball since
I cannot do it myself, please ?
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Release maintainer 3.0 branch
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[Joshua Ferraro-3]

Hi Henri-Damien,

Every time you roll a release and announce it there should be a version incremented, even if the change was a minor one to correct an error in your previous distribution. This is the generally accepted procedure for release management/maintenance.

To date, LibLime haven't been editorializing your files at all, just adding and removing files as requested. The primary reason for this is that your signatures on the release will be invalid if we change the filename. Therefore, we haven't changed 3.00.04_final to 3.00.04. We have left both of those files up on download.koha.org because both of them were announced as part of the project's history and download.koha.org is an archived history of releases to date.

You need to send us a new distribution package complete with matching MD5, .asc, and .sig files, all with the correct file name. Please call the new one 3.00.05 rather than 3.00.04_final (or some derivation thereof) and adjust the version string as appropriate in the kohaversion.pl and updatedatabase.pl.

In the future please do not send a public announcement to the Koha lists that a release is available until you have confirmed that the file has been uploaded to download.koha.org and is actually available. This will alleviate much of the confusion caused by this last announcement.

Note that writing to one of the lists, petitioning for "some LibLimer" to respond is not as effective at getting our attention as is writing us directly as you have done in the past.

Sincerely,

Joshua

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 6:23 AM, LAURENT Henri-Damien <henridamien.laurent@...> wrote:

Hi,
I have just seen that the latest version for 3.0.4 had been uploaded on
download.koha.org
Thanks to LibLime for doing that.
But for sake of not misleading people, I would find that great that
people donot have the choice between 2 versions of 3.0.4
Would any liblimer be so kind as to remove the first 3.0.4 tarball since
I cannot do it myself, please ?
--
Henri-Damien LAURENT
Release maintainer 3.0 branch
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[Owen Leonard-4]

> Note that writing to one of the lists, petitioning for "some LibLimer" to
> respond is not as effective at getting our attention as is writing us
> directly as you have done in the past.

Better yet, you could grant Release Managers and Release Maintainers
direct access to edit the relevant areas of Koha.org and permission to
load release files on download.koha.org.

  -- Owen

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[Joshua Ferraro-3]

Hi Owen,

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@...> wrote:

> Note that writing to one of the lists, petitioning for "some LibLimer" to
> respond is not as effective at getting our attention as is writing us
> directly as you have done in the past.

Better yet, you could grant Release Managers and Release Maintainers
direct access to edit the relevant areas of Koha.org and permission to
load release files on download.koha.org.

download.koha.org is a site that LibLime created to provide a historical archive of Koha releases done to date. It currently resides on LibLime servers that have other web sites so we're not able to provide direct shell/ftp access at this time.

That said, we are committed to triggering any upload request within 6 hours or receipt.

While an interesting idea, providing direct access to download.koha.org as you suggest would not have solved the problems that occurred with this last release of 3.00.04. I documented the correct procedure for rolling a Koha release in the misc/release_notes/README.txt file and following that procedure is the best way to ensure that future releases do not suffer the same confusion.

Sincerely,

Josh

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[Owen Leonard-4]

> download.koha.org is a site that LibLime created to provide a historical
> archive of Koha releases done to date.

It is not a place where the Koha open source project can post its
latest releases?

If download.koha.org is "historical," then where should Koha releases be posted?

  -- Owen

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[Chris Cormack-6]

Hi Joshua

Good to hear from you again, it's been a while.

2009/10/28 Joshua Ferraro <jmf@...>:
> Hi Henri-Damien,
> Every time you roll a release and announce it there should be a version
> incremented, even if the change was a minor one to correct an error in your
> previous distribution. This is the generally accepted procedure for release
> management/maintenance.

I'm sure Henri Damien will take your advice in the manner you intended
it, but the truth is he is the elected Release Maintainer and he is
the one who decides what a release is numbered.

> To date, LibLime haven't been editorializing your files at all, just adding
> and removing files as requested. The primary reason for this is that your
> signatures on the release will be invalid if we change the filename.

That is precisely why people sign things, so third parties don't
modify them. I would hope the reason you haven't been editorialising
them is because Henri Damien is the elected release maintainer and
making releases is what he has been elected to do.

> Therefore, we haven't changed 3.00.04_final to 3.00.04. We have left both of
> those files up on download.koha.org because both of them were announced as
> part of the project's history and download.koha.org is an archived history
> of releases to date.
> You need to send us a new distribution package complete with matching MD5,
> .asc, and .sig files, all with the correct file name. Please call the new
> one 3.00.05 rather than 3.00.04_final (or some derivation thereof) and
> adjust the version string as appropriate in the kohaversion.pl and
> updatedatabase.pl.
> In the future please do not send a public announcement to the Koha lists
> that a release is available until you have confirmed that the file has been
> uploaded to download.koha.org and is actually available. This will alleviate
> much of the confusion caused by this last announcement.

If Liblime are unable to provide access for the 2 people elected to
provide releases of Koha, then perhaps they could change the dns to
point download.koha.org elsewhere where that can be done.

If you are willing I can provide an ip number for that.

> Note that writing to one of the lists, petitioning for "some LibLimer" to
> respond is not as effective at getting our attention as is writing us
> directly as you have done in the past.

While you are there, could you or someone at Liblime change the home
page of www.koha.org to to reflect that 3.0.4 is now the current
stable release.

Thanks

Chris
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[MJ Ray-2]

Joshua Ferraro wrote:
> download.koha.org is a site that LibLime created to provide a historical
> archive of Koha releases done to date. It currently resides on LibLime
> servers that have other web sites so we're not able to provide direct
> shell/ftp access at this time.

OK.  Just two problems with that:-

Firstly, download.koha.org was promoted as "the usual location"
to download Koha from for something over two years, as in
http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2008-January/012900.html

Secondly, why does it being on a LibLime server mean RMs cannot have
direct access at this time?  If it were generally true that one cannot
log in to another company's server, all the hosting companies would
never exist.  I expect uploaders would sign reasonable terms of use if
LibLime wanted to be really cautious.

If it's some technical problem, could we point download.koha.org at
another vendor's or library's server for the time being?

> While an interesting idea, providing direct access to download.koha.org as
> you suggest would not have solved the problems that occurred with this last
> release of 3.00.04. [...]

Yes, I sort of agree with this.  Having three 3.0.4s releases wasn't a
good thing.  However, what's done is done and I expect HDL will have
learnt from the mistakes, so this sort of public rebuke seems painful.

Regards,
--
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[Joshua Ferraro-3]

Hi MJ,

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 3:02 PM, MJ Ray <mjr@...> wrote:

> Joshua Ferraro wrote:
>> download.koha.org is a site that LibLime created to provide a historical
>> archive of Koha releases done to date. It currently resides on LibLime
>> servers that have other web sites so we're not able to provide direct
>> shell/ftp access at this time.
>
> OK.  Just two problems with that:-
>
> Firstly, download.koha.org was promoted as "the usual location"
> to download Koha from for something over two years, as in
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2008-January/012900.html

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. What I meant to clarify is why we
weren't deleting one or more of the 3.00.04 releases HDL
distributed--ie, download.koha.org preserves the history of the
project's releases and HDL's three 3.00.04 releases are part of that
history.

> Secondly, why does it being on a LibLime server mean RMs cannot have
> direct access at this time?  If it were generally true that one cannot
> log in to another company's server, all the hosting companies would
> never exist.  I expect uploaders would sign reasonable terms of use if
> LibLime wanted to be really cautious.
I don't have shell or ftp access to any other Koha company's server so
I'm not sure what you mean. But I'm also not interested in a debate
about whether or not anyone should or should not have access to
LibLime servers or whether or not LibLime should or should not host
download.koha.org. We've given the RM/RMaint a perfectly sane way to
get releases uploaded to download.koha.org, and the process has been
working fine so far.

> If it's some technical problem, could we point download.koha.org at
> another vendor's or library's server for the time being?
>
>> While an interesting idea, providing direct access to download.koha.org as
>> you suggest would not have solved the problems that occurred with this last
>> release of 3.00.04. [...]
>
> Yes, I sort of agree with this.  Having three 3.0.4s releases wasn't a
> good thing.  However, what's done is done and I expect HDL will have
> learnt from the mistakes, so this sort of public rebuke seems painful.

If this were the first time we've had these kinds of problems with
releases I'd completely agree.

Also, Chris Cormack asked about changing the homepage to link to
3.00.04, but so far we haven't heard from HDL about his intentions to
roll 3.00.05 to fix the previous issues with 3.00.04 and
3.00.04_final, and to provide a single download point for this
release. To avoid further user confusion I suggest we await his
comments on that.

Cheers,

Josh

> Regards,
> --
> MJ Ray (slef)  Webmaster and LMS developer at     | software
> www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        |  .... co
> IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html |  .... op
>



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[Owen Leonard-4]

>> Secondly, why does it being on a LibLime server mean RMs cannot have
>> direct access at this time?
>
> I don't have shell or ftp access to any other Koha company's server so
> I'm not sure what you mean.

I have shell/ftp access to several other companies servers: Pair.com,
Dreamhost.com, etc. One of the amazing things about web server
technology is that it makes it relatively easy to provide secure
access to a wide variety of users while giving them varying
privileges.

> If this were the first time we've had these kinds of problems with
> releases I'd completely agree.

Is this your way of throwing your hat in the ring?
http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?do=show&id=en%3Adevelopment%3Aroles3.4

> Also, Chris Cormack asked about changing the homepage to link to
> 3.00.04, but so far we haven't heard from HDL about his intentions to
> roll 3.00.05

How about we update Koha.org to reflect the most current information
without speculating about what the future might bring? One of the
amazing things about content management systems is that they make it
relatively easy to provide secure access to a wide variety of users
while giving them varying privileges.

  -- Owen

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[MJ Ray-2]

Joshua Ferraro wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 3:02 PM, MJ Ray <mjr@...> wrote:
> > Firstly, download.koha.org was promoted as "the usual location"
> > to download Koha from for something over two years, as in
> > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2008-January/012900.html
> I didn't mean to imply otherwise. What I meant to clarify is why we
> weren't deleting one or more of the 3.00.04 releases HDL
> distributed--ie, download.koha.org preserves the history of the
> project's releases and HDL's three 3.00.04 releases are part of that
> history.

Even ignoring the gaps (some understandable like the pipex.com-hosted
2.0 releases, some surprising like the 2.0pres), most of the files
there have a much later timestamp than the originals, so it doesn't
seem a terribly accurate historical archive.  I feel that this sudden
new announcement of download.koha.org's purpose is a bit odd.

> [...] I'm also not interested in a debate
> about whether or not anyone should or should not have access to
> LibLime servers or whether or not LibLime should or should not host
> download.koha.org. [...]

Well, that's a bit of a change from "though LibLime does own koha.org,
we'd look for the comunity to decide what would be suitable as far as
content on the community site" (Joshua Ferraro, #koha, 2008-08-23).
It seems pretty clear that the community would like empowerment of the
community's release managers to manage releases on download.koha.org.
I guess we could hold a poll if you'd like, but why cause the koha
community that pain?

> > Yes, I sort of agree with this.  Having three 3.0.4s releases wasn't a
> > good thing.  However, what's done is done and I expect HDL will have
> > learnt from the mistakes, so this sort of public rebuke seems painful.
> If this were the first time we've had these kinds of problems with
> releases I'd completely agree.

Please excuse my poor memory, but that comment means little to me.

> Also, Chris Cormack asked about changing the homepage to link to
> 3.00.04, but so far we haven't heard from HDL about his intentions to
> roll 3.00.05 to fix the previous issues with 3.00.04 and
> 3.00.04_final, and to provide a single download point for this
> release. To avoid further user confusion I suggest we await his
> comments on that.

OK - HDL?  (And had anyone asked you before this?)

Thanks,
--
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[LAURENT Henri-Damien]

MJ Ray a écrit :

>
>> Also, Chris Cormack asked about changing the homepage to link to
>> 3.00.04, but so far we haven't heard from HDL about his intentions to
>> roll 3.00.05 to fix the previous issues with 3.00.04 and
>> 3.00.04_final, and to provide a single download point for this
>> release. To avoid further user confusion I suggest we await his
>> comments on that.
>>    
>
> OK - HDL?  (And had anyone asked you before this?)
>  

Well, noone asked me to update the home page, and as far as koha.org is
concerned, and I **cannot** (don't have permissions on page to) do that.
About download.koha.org, and the numbering, I was really very recently
 asked to increase the number rather than add a tag after the name. And
I agree with that. But the fact is that since the release still counted
a few problems owed to the complexity of the conflicts management and
modules and scripts and templates we use, with all the bug fix patches
in a really short amount of time, and testing those changes on a wide
variety of system preferences. And those problems required a fix.
I would have rather keep the name of the initial release and change the
tag position in the tree, and replace the release tarball with the fixed
one. Since I would not want a non stable version to be kept in history.
The quicker the fixed version would have been up, the better it would
have been. But the right I have on tags is limited. And I had been once
suggested to post-fix the release  number with some comment. And the
access on download.koha.org I had was limited since I could only upload
the version on a private place on the server and Liblime had to move the
files uploaded into public directory. And that access has even been
closed just after the first 3.00.04 release.

If you ask about 3.00.05, I propose to set one quite soon in order to
stick to the principle release early, release often. Better a release
which counts a few patches, which work than a release which counts lots
and does have some problems.

But for now, the 3.00.04_final is the latest stable release and it would
be nice if koha.org pointed to that.
Thanks.
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Release Maintainer
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[Joshua Ferraro-3]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 6:40 PM, LAURENT Henri-Damien
<henridamien.laurent@...> wrote:

> MJ Ray a écrit :
>>
>>> Also, Chris Cormack asked about changing the homepage to link to
>>> 3.00.04, but so far we haven't heard from HDL about his intentions to
>>> roll 3.00.05 to fix the previous issues with 3.00.04 and
>>> 3.00.04_final, and to provide a single download point for this
>>> release. To avoid further user confusion I suggest we await his
>>> comments on that.
>>>
>>
>> OK - HDL?  (And had anyone asked you before this?)
>>
>
> Well, noone asked me to update the home page, and as far as koha.org is
> concerned, and I **cannot** (don't have permissions on page to) do that.
> About download.koha.org, and the numbering, I was really very recently
> asked to increase the number rather than add a tag after the name. And I
> agree with that. But the fact is that since the release still counted a few
> problems owed to the complexity of the conflicts management and modules and
> scripts and templates we use, with all the bug fix patches in a really short
> amount of time, and testing those changes on a wide variety of system
> preferences. And those problems required a fix.

Why did you publish and publicly announce a release that hadn't been tested?

Your excuse for why this release is/was so buggy reinforces the fact
that good release management/maintenance needs to focus on producing
_quality_ releases and that this idea of 'release often release early'
is NOT the appropriate strategy if the software is broken. If a
release is going to be complex, please roll alpha/beta versions of it
so that it can be tested, as we did with 3.00.00.

You've put independent libraries running 3.0 and solutions like
LibLime's Koha Express, in an awkward position because we know that
3.00.04 and 3.00.04_final are not really stable, production-ready
releases. For the record, its not the first time since the 3.00.00
release that this has happened. We need some assurance from you that
this won't happen again!

> I would have rather keep the name of the initial release and change the tag
> position in the tree, and replace the release tarball with the fixed one.
> Since I would not want a non stable version to be kept in history. The
> quicker the fixed version would have been up, the better it would have been.
> But the right I have on tags is limited. And I had been once suggested to
> post-fix the release  number with some comment. And the access on
> download.koha.org I had was limited since I could only upload the version on
> a private place on the server and Liblime had to move the files uploaded
> into public directory. And that access has even been closed just after the
> first 3.00.04 release.
>
> If you ask about 3.00.05, I propose to set one quite soon in order to stick
> to the principle release early, release often. Better a release which counts
> a few patches, which work than a release which counts lots and does have
> some problems.
>
> But for now, the 3.00.04_final is the latest stable release and it would be
> nice if koha.org pointed to that.

We've adjusted the front page to point to the _final release since it
is less buggy than the original 3.00.04 release you produced. However,
just for the record, LibLime's community solutions such as the Koha
Express platform are going to skip this release for its bugs and hold
off until 3.00.05 to see if they are resolved.

Cheers,

Josh

> Thanks.
> --
> Henri-Damien LAURENT
> Release Maintainer
>



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