[GeoNode-devel] Which GeoServer version we should use (i.e. nightlies VS releases)

[Simone Giannecchini]

Dear All,
recently I have been discussing with other devs about which GS version
we should depend onto in GeoNode.

As you might know GeoServer has, at all times, 3 active branches:

- Master (2.8.x at this stage) which is open for development and is
considered unstable
- Stable (2.7.x now) which get minor developments + bug fixes
- Maintenance (2.6.x now) which gets only bug fixes

GS has a time-boxed release model so we more or less know when a
release for a certain branch will be made.

Generally speaking (at least IMHO) for a project like GN it is good to
depend on the stable branch. Master would be dangerous, Maintenance
could be moving too slow (but still an option).
So yeah, that's fine we are already doing that. The point is what to
do when we cut a GN release? Do we use a GS nightly ( they are all
marked clearly and then we can track it easily)? Do we only use
releases?

The obvious answer is to use releases from the stable branch and make
everybody happy. There is one problem though unless we align with the
GS releases we might have problem with doing GS bugfixes before a GN
release.
Let's talk about present times. Right now we are depending on 2.7.x
nightly, so if there's something bugging us in GS we fix it and the
day after we get the fix in GN. If on September 1st we want to release
GN 2.4 we won't have a GS release to use because 2.7.3 will be out in
October, hence we either wait or we ask the GeoServer community to
make an intermediate release (e.g. 2.7.2.1).

My proposal is as follows:

- try to track geoserver stable nightly in GN development
- tentatively align GN release to GS releases (they are done pretty
often anyway)
- if we want to do a GN release and we can't wait for a GS one, we ask
the GS community to cut an intermediate release

Feedback?

PS
I already started a similar discussion on the GS mailing asking for
opinions on this approach :)

Regards,
Simone Giannecchini
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