[dev] Horde 6 vs. Horde 5.3

[Michael J Rubinsky]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

> Hi,
>
> since we have been asked recently when to expect Horde 6, and what  
> could be done to speed up its release, I'd like to discuss an  
> alternative option to release Horde 5.3 first.
>
> Many new features have gone into master since the Horde 5.2 release,  
> few of them sponsored by clients or contributed by the community.  
> The expectation to see those features in a stable release within a  
> foreseeable timeframe is more than justified.
>
> We could speed up the Horde 6 release by additional sponsoring, but  
> it's not only a matter of money, but also a matter of developer  
> resources. With Michael and me being the only remaining active core  
> developers at the moment, we rather lack developer time. Especially  
> for core development like infrastructure stuff, namespace  
> refactoring etc. that are not easy for contributors to jump in.
>
> AFAIK we don't have any BC breaks in master yet, at least none that  
> couldn't be solved with bumped dependencies. So doing a 5.3 release  
> should work. Michael, please correct me if I'm missing something.
>
> The flipside is, that:
> - Horde 6 will delay even further
> - we won't be able to do any refactoring, e.g. switching to namespaces
> - we won't have a repository split that would make the libraries  
> more attractive, e.g. by being available via composer/packagist and  
> thus attracting external developers
> - we won't be able to do long-anticipated BC breaks that currently  
> hinder some development
>
> The discussion is open.

I actually had a similar email in my drafts folder for a while now,  
trying to compose the argument to do this or a "quick" Horde 6 release  
as-is - without the repo split.

All in all, I'm mostly for it, with the following concerns:

IMP in master is already labeled as 7 (not that this can't be  
changed). There is a slight API change in IMP, but from what I  
understand from Michael S.  the data that is now no longer available  
isn't data ever meant for public consumption anyway (though it IS  
still a BC break). To my knowledge the only Horde code that had used  
this bit of information is ActiveSync, but it was refactored to use  
the new data anyway.

Then there is the fact that the basic and minimal views were  
completely removed in IMP and this might be too big a change to  
include in a point release.

A point release will definitely hold up the work needed to get Horde 6  
rolling. The need to support the versions we need to, plus the lack of  
time will hold up the repo split.

My biggest gripe would be the delay in being able to start ActiveSync  
refactoring. There are a lot of things that need to be changed to make  
it more attractive to other developers. This might be a blessing in  
disguise though, since it IS so much work, getting an interim point  
release out now would prevent my refactoring from holding up any major  
release.

All that being said, I think the need to get Kronolith out, with the  
oft-requested fixes for scheduling, probably trumps all other concerns  
at this point, so I would say lets do the 5.3 release, with the  
understanding that nothing new gets added until the repo split happens.


> Jan.
>
> -- 
> Jan Schneider
> The Horde Project
> http://www.horde.org/
>
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-- 
mike
The Horde Project
http://www.horde.org
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