[Aust-NZ] Re: [GeoNetwork-devel] Merging new developments into core (was: Finding a way forward)

[Simon Pigot]

Jeroen Ticheler wrote:
> Hi Simon and others,
> I'm reading through the interesting archived discussions you have on 
> the aus-nz list (only just subscribed). 
>> Up until last month we've fed a lot of the code from the MEST back 
>> into the trunk but there is a need to write proposals and get them 
>> approved by the community before some of the later changes can be 
>> committed. Community approval is a good thing but it takes time to 
>> get this together and slot things in to the trunk - that time lag 
>> would be a problem for anyone (not just BlueNet) - especially when 
>> the priority for us has been features we need.
>
 >
 > I'm getting quite concerned when I read this, as I feel that putting 
such procedures in place should have minimum effect on the normal 
development process.
 > What it should do is start some discussion where needed and help to 
ensure that not just anything will get into core. Proposals do not have 
to be endlessly long
 > either.
 > We need to find a good way of dealing with this, since delaying to 
add new developments to core may in the end be the cause of a fork if 
your developments
 > deviated to much from trunk. Add to that the fact that you have moved 
on to new stuff, it becomes even more likely we'll never see the change 
merged back.
 >  :-(

They will - we've just been busy since the 2.2 release working on 
features/fixes for BlueNet workshops :-). As a protection against not 
merging changes back I've made myself post messages to the developers 
group giving an overview of what we've been doing at various times. 
Those emails were/are placeholders for future proposals.

I think the point of the previous messages in these exchanges (leaving 
aside the mildly annoying statements like lack of progress :-)) has been 
about forging a more effective community to drive GeoNetwork development 
- a first step for that in AU/NZ is to make the BlueNet MEST (with its 
embedded AU/NZ specific profiles) available via an svn which leads to....

 > At this point I want to have some discussion on the GeoNetwork 
developer list to find a good working solution. The most obvious one for 
me is to have
 > sandboxes set up for those that develop new functions. This will 
allow a developer to just do his work as normal, but has the big 
advantage that others can see
 > what's happening and can be informed on forehand. So when time comes 
to merge new code to trunk, we already had a chance to see the code 
(through
 > commit mailing list for instance) and the process of a proposal and 
voting would be slimmed down a lot.
 >

.....your suggestion of sandboxes as one way of dealing with this - its 
a good idea and I've replied to that in a later email on this in which 
Roald gave some details about sandboxes elsewhere and asked specific 
questions about BlueNet.

Cheers,
Simon