[horde] Upgrade to Horde4, or stay with 3?

[Michael Rubinsky]

Quoting Reindl Harald <h.reindl at thelounge.net>:

>
> Am 11.05.2011 19:31, schrieb Eric Jon Rostetter:
>
>> Yes.  There is a policy as the this on the web site.  Always has been.
>> Read it.  Understand it
>
> where is it? nobody can read the whole homepage

Well, if you won't/don't read the documentation, then nobody can help you.

and there is no orientation
> where will be the downloads?

Since Horde 4 is installable via PEAR, and Horde 3 is not, there is no  
one-size-fits-all download page. "Download" does not even make sense  
for 99% of the people installing Horde 4 since it is downloaded  
directly via PEAR.

If someone *does* want to directly download the PEAR package tarball,  
one can find the link to http://pear.horde.org in at *least* the  
following places: (1) On the main application list page (2) on each  
application's individual page (3) in each applcation's INSTALL file  
(also linked to on the website).

We have spent hundreds of man hours both debating the future of  
Horde's installation/upgrade management as well as preparing Horde for  
the PEAR installation method once it was decided on. This is - by far  
- an easier way to manage dependencies vs plain tarballs (which helps  
us release new features that rely on newer versions of libraries more  
often), and system upgrades going forward.

> where are really careful written migration-docs for users with setups
> maintained since 2006?

  {app}/docs/INSTALL
  {app}/docs/UPGRADING
(both of which are linked to via the website).

some magic auto-migartion of something while
> a user is logging in does not fit for admins which will not take
> the road to hell!

Well, first off, this isn't new. Even in Horde 3 there were some  
upgrade/data migration tasks that were triggered by a user login.  
Secondly, it's impossible to perform some data migrations without the  
user being logged in. Think preference systems other than SQL, that  
require a user login to operate on that user's data. Changes where  
this is not the case (such as schema changes to the DB etc...) are  
handled by the admin during the installation/upgrade process via  
(possibly) a single click on a link in the configuration screen.  The  
new migration system, going forward, also allows easier rollbacks of  
changes.

> this new website is an epic-fail for users which are working in a  
> professional IT
> where nobody uses "pear update" if he is not crazy

I'm sorry, but unless you have specific, concrete examples of how the  
current website can be improved, this comment is fairly useless...and  
likely incorrect. Horde is arguably the most widely implemented  
opensource groupware suite, including in "professional IT" as I'm sure  
many on this list will attest to.

I'm not claiming the brand new website can't be improved, in fact,  
dozens of changes have been committed since it's launch - many a  
direct result of feedback we've gotten from the community.  So again,  
unless you have a better way of representing the application  
"downloads", or *any* bit of polite, constructive criticism, we will  
continue to ignore blantantly incorrect blanket statements such as this.

>>> seeing that there no longer tarballs, the PEAR splitted in thousands of
>> PEAR packages are tarballs...

*thousands*? Wow, we've been busy. Regardless, having the libraries  
installable independently via PEAR is a huge win for making Horde more  
developer friendly.

> PEAR is a bad joke because you have no control with "pear upgrade"
> what version will be fetched if you have more than one machine
>
> so it can be that on your test-machine all is sane and the
> next day you get a newer package on production-system which
> is broken

I'm sorry, but I don't follow this.  PEAR doesn't run upgrades without  
user intervention. Why would one machine have different, let alone  
broken, packages compared to another machine? Nobody is telling you to  
blindly pear upgrade a production machine with out first  
staging/testing it... Not to mention you can always explicitly specify  
the version you want installed.

>> If you need tarballs, you can download the PEAR tarballs. If you need
>> consolidated tarballs, you can manually combine the PEAR tarballs into
>> larger consolidated tarballs.  Fairly trivial really.
>
> "you can, you can..."
>
> the developers can generate this packages in the normal process
> without any manually step if they only want

If you feel it's that easy, then we would be more than happy to accept  
a patch/contribution from you for that functionality. In other words:  
"Patch?" In the meantime I will repeat what has been said before: We  
understand that some people would like a more traditional tarball  
download. It's on our radar, but very, very low on the list. As Eric  
has correctly stated, we have more pressing issues.

Others on this list happily build various types of packages from H4  
sources...what is it that is different for you that makes this  
impossible? If you don't like the seperate PEAR tarballs, then  
checkout the entire git repository - the releases are tagged - build  
what you want yourself. While you're at it, contribute back the script  
you develop to do this and we can include it in horde-support.

>>> packages without thinking one second what this means for rpm-driven systems
>>> and apckage-builders feels like nobody cares about users as also in
>>> bugreports like http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/9670

This comment is what prompted me to reply to this thread. I normally  
make it a point not to feed this type of discussion - but I cannot let  
this go by unanswered.

The Horde team *absolutely* cares about all users of our software. To  
suggest otherwise shows a complete lack of understanding about our  
project and community.

If we did not care, we would not be volunteering countless hours of  
our lives developing, enginering, and improving this software, not to  
mention making ourselves available via mailing lists and IRC. I  
personally cannot even begin to count the hundreds of hours of my free  
time I've volunteered in #horde helping users/developers/admins with  
figuring something out ... which more often than not was something  
answerable by reading the INSTALL file or FAQs. Why do I do this? I  
care about our software, and how it is perceived by the people that  
rely on it.

>> They _DID_ think about this, and discussed it.
>
> even more worse seeing what happended finally
>
> THEY DID NOT THINK or how will you explain that for weeks the  
> main-menu was named
> "download" after this useless relaunch missing the old sidebar with  
> latest versions
> and direct download?

See above. Though I will admit to "Download" being the wrong title for  
that link. It has since be renamed to "Applications" - in part due to  
constructive feedback from the community.


>> And they do care about users.
>
> not really, evry bugreport is WONTFIX/NOTABUG

*every* bug report? Really?

even for
> broken relative includes i fixed over months with every
> update until i get a sed-commnand in SPEC-File to fix
> them while rpmbuild is running
>
>> But you can't please everyone, so you try to please as many as
>> you can even if that ticks off a few others.
>
> sure you CAN
> nobody on linux-system needs PEAR as primary source and nobody
> who is not total crazy is installing php/horde on windows

Proof?

>> Would you rather they delayed the release another year just so they
>> could provide you with a consolidated tarball?
>
> YES - i like production ready versions instead "good enough for us now"

The software we have released *is* production ready, that's why it's released.


--mike

The Horde Project (www.horde.org)
mrubinsk at horde.org