[Qgis-user] [QGIS-Developer] Thoughts on QGIS Development and LTR Releases

Sat Feb 29 20:41:24 PST 2020

Hi everyone,

I'm not a QGIS developer but I've been a user since 1.X days. Aside from a
few quirks (e.g. dependency issues on Linux), I've always liked the QGIS
release cycle so I'm coming from that perspective.

To add to Alexandre's explanation, this is usually how I explain QGIS
releases:
There are 3 branches of development - LR (Latest Release), LTR (Long Term
Release), and nightly builds. Let's take a look at the LR and LTR branches.

I usually take "maintained" to mean that the branch is actively developed
-- bugs will be fixed, new features are added, etc.

The LTR (now 3.10.3) is maintained until the next LTR (in 12 months when
3.16.4 becomes the LTR). During those 12 months, a PR (Point Release) will
be released for the LTR branch each month (named 3.10.4, 3.10.5, ...,
3.10.14). This PR includes the bug fixes for 3.10.X. Being an LTR means
that there (usually) won't be any changes that will break that version in 1
year. This is usually why people think of LTR as "stable".

The LR (now 3.12.0) contains the most recent features of QGIS. A new LR is
released every 4 months. The next LR (3.14) is slated to be released in
June 2020, the next after that is 3.16 in October 2020. The 2nd LR released
after the release of the LTR is the version that will become the next LTR.
In this case, the 3.16 version that will be released in October 2020 is
slated to become the LTR after 4 months (e.g. 3.16.4 will become the LTR by
February 2021). For each month, a PR is also released for the LR branch
until a new LR is released. For example, there will be a 3.12.1, 3.12.2,
and 3.12.3 releases for March, April, and May 2020 until the 3.14 release
in June. This repeats for 3.14.1,..,3.14.3 until the 3.16 release in
October. Throughout the year, there can be big changes between LR versions
(e.g. between 3.12, 3.14, and 3.16) as compared to the LTR which stays at
3.10.X. It's also worth noting that useful features in the LR branch can be
backported (added to) the LTR branch.

The "LR/PR" released every 4 months denotes that the release is a new LR.
The "LTR/PR" released in October denotes that this release will be the next
LTR. It is not put in the LTR repo until 4 months later (February) where it
officially becomes the LTR.

We can also think of it this way:
For the LTR branch, you can expect updates every month of its life (or with
every point release) with 3.10.3, 3.10.4, 3.10.5, ..., 3.10.14 but these
will usually be minor and not so drastic.
Meanwhile, there may be drastic and major changes between LRs like 3.12,
3.14, 3.16, etc. but only minor changes between PRs of the same LR -- eg
3.12.1 and 3.12.2, 3.14.1 and 3.14.2, etc.

I also agree that the road map found at
https://www.qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/development/roadmap.html is geared
a lot towards dev people but, in its defense, it is located under the "Get
Involved/Development" part of the documentation.

If I have misrepresented or misunderstood anything, please don't hesitate
to correct me.

All the best,
Ben Hur

On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 12:13 PM Alexandre Neto <senhor.neto at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Groene,
>
> I agree that the Road map is not easy to understand. Just to clarify
> things (I hope):
>
> The current LTR is 3.10 (currently at 3.10.3). It only became LTR in
> February although its first release was done in october (3.10.0). The idea
> is to let it mature (and have a broader usage and tests) for at least 4
> months before it becomes LTR.
>
> This means that for the next 12 months, more or less every month a new
> patch release will come out. That will be 3.10.4, 3.10.5 and so on. Only
> bug fixes are allowed on these releases, no new features.
>
> If there is a version with some extra number (e.g. 3.4.13-3) it means that
> something happened during packaging of the patch release, requiring a new
> package/installer to be created. You should always try to use the latest
> version of the LTR version, which should be the most stable one.
>
> Hope it helps.
>
> Alexandre Neto
>
> On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 7:11 PM Groene Bij <mail at groenebij.nl> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for bringing up this topic.
>>
>> For me the release schedule and the different abbreviations are not very
>> helpful when choosing a qgis version to install. I am not a software
>> developer and thus have little understanding what the different releases
>> are all about.
>>
>>
>>
>> Clarity, however, is always appreciated, and that is the main thing
>> missing in this topic:
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris is talking about 3.10.2 having been labeled LTR
>>
>> Qgis.org right now (29th of February) is mentioning 3.10.3 as LTR
>>
>> The release schedule on qgis.org is mentioning 3.10.3 as LR with 3.4.13
>> being the most recent LTR
>>
>> So things are unclear. Qgis.org itself seems to be unclear which version
>> actually is the LTR.
>>
>>
>>
>> The information on the Road Map page (schedule release) is also unclear:
>>
>> “The schedule is aligned to produce roughly the same dates for each year
>> given our four monthly releases with LTRs in late february.”
>>
>> Looking at the schedule, LTR’s are being released in October, not
>> February.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> In this mail Régis says:
>>
>> “LTR does not mean stable. LTR means it will gain bugfixes longer than
>> releases.”
>>
>> What does this actually mean? Does this mean 3.4.13 will have releases
>> like 3.4.13-1 and -2 etc.? I do actually find them in the download section
>> ‘older releases’ or ‘previous releases’ (also no idea why there are two
>> different download sections).
>>
>> I do not find any information on the release schedule page about LTR’s
>> having different bugfix releases. The Road Map page only says: ´ Every
>> third release (starting with 2.8) is a long-term-release (LTR) *that is
>> maintained* until the next long-term-release occurs. To me, ‘maintained’
>> can mean a lot of things.
>>
>>
>>
>> Considering LTR and PR:
>>
>> What exactly is the difference between 3.4.13 and 3.4.14? Does 3.4.14
>> contain the same bugfixes as 3.4.13-3? The most recent release date of
>> 3.4.14 is 2019-dec-07 and for 3.4.13-3 is 2019-dec-05.
>>
>> Or does 3.4.14 only contain new features, compared to the original
>> 3.4.13, released in October?
>>
>> Additional information on how to ‘read’ the release schedule would be
>> much appreciated. I find the current information difficult to understand
>> and it seems to me it is written too much from a developers or IT-minded
>> perspective in stead od a general user perspective.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Jeroen Hovens
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Van:* Qgis-user <qgis-user-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> *Namens *Régis
>> Haubourg
>> *Verzonden:* donderdag 20 februari 2020 18:25
>> *Aan:* C Hamilton <adenaculture at gmail.com>
>> *CC:* qgis-user <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>; qgis-developer <
>> qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>
>> *Onderwerp:* Re: [Qgis-user] Thoughts on QGIS Development and LTR
>> Releases
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>> I share most of your concerns, as much as I advocate the spread of QGIS
>> in enterprise and organisations.
>>
>> It is true we need always more reliability, documentation.  I'd like also
>> to point that 2.x is not so far away, and that the reliability have since
>> improved by order of magnitude.
>>
>> Let's also keep in mind that the level of expectations of users grows
>> very fast too, so this is a race that will never end ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>> However, I think there is a cultural problem, and probably a pedagogy
>> effort we should make.
>>
>>
>>
>> LTR does not mean stable. LTR means it will gain bugfixes longer than
>> releases. So it is highly expectable that installing a LTR in its early
>> versions will let you hit more issues.  I remember the very same situation
>> for ArcGIS 8 or 9 early stages. And this is the very same for linux
>> distributions or any software. I don't remember any  early x.0 release in
>> QGIS that was not followed one week later by an urgent point release. But
>> new users don't know this. They see a big green button "download that sexy
>> new version".
>>
>>
>>
>> That said, how to improve the situation? After years of discussions in
>> the various events, hackfest, conferences, discussions with public or
>> private customers, developpers, here are the possible leads we have:
>>
>>
>>
>> - Keep on explaining the rationale and codes of free software to users
>> and potential funders.
>>
>>
>>
>> - Try to keep our "power users / early testers" population, so that we
>> target the right issues during bugfix sprints.
>>
>>
>>
>> - Offer longer LTR lifespan, so that funders have a larger window to
>> actually find and have bug fixed.
>>
>>
>>
>> - Keep on explaining that QGIS bugfix release should be easily deployable
>> in big organisations. OSGEO4W silent installs allows this. Maybe going
>> toward auto upgrade /  patch system could help (it's a big effort though)
>>
>>
>>
>> - Keep on gaining more budget for QGIS.org, so that we can setup a real
>> semi automated Q/A acceptance test suite. This requires human tests.
>> Boundless did, it is possible. It is a matter of ressources. Should it be
>> centralized or community powered ? I have no idea, but this requires
>> someone to be hired all year long to do this. IMO, enterprises requiring
>> such reliability should really consider sponsoring this framework and
>> dedicate some human ressources.
>>
>>
>>
>> - Same goes for documentation
>>
>>
>>
>> - Same goes for code review, we need to have more reviewers. the learning
>> curve is steep though, and we need to find money for this
>>
>>
>>
>> - Improve the website with a simple page, with graphics and videos on
>> what is the lifecycle of QGIS, and what version to use for what
>> expectations.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A note about QGIS.org budget. To me, it is only a leverage, a catalyser,
>> but it can't fund itself a full QA infrastructure with the current economic
>> model of the association. I think, this is our responsability to spread
>> this word everywhere so that the user / contributor rate changes a bit.
>>
>>
>>
>> After all, even Microsoft with its thousands of testers, and its early
>> testing network was able to push updates causing the famous Blue Screen Of
>> the Death.
>>
>> So shit can happen. Packaging nightmare with major changes in underlying
>> libraries remains a really really complex process. How fast we are to fix
>> and change our ways to do is the real question. I think the QGIS and OSGeo
>> Community does a tremendeous work.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Régis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Le jeu. 20 févr. 2020 à 16:21, C Hamilton <adenaculture at gmail.com> a
>> écrit :
>>
>> I first want to say how much I appreciate all of the QGIS developers and
>> all of your hard work, but I would also like to suggest that you exercise
>> caution when you label a release LTR. I work in a large organization where
>> most geospatial analysts can have access to ArcGIS if they want it. The
>> advantage to ArcGIS is that everyone has been trained to use it, ESRI has
>> been around for a long time and there is a lot of documentation, training
>> and support for it. So why would users want to use QGIS?
>>
>>
>>
>> There are always a curious few who see QGIS and realize they can download
>> it for free at home. They tinker with it and come to like it and then they
>> try it in the workplace. For the users who have ArcGIS at their disposal
>> there must be a good reason to use QGIS instead. These tend to be the
>> reasons they use QGIS: 1) It does not crash as much as ArcGIS. 2) It is
>> faster than ArcGIS. 3) It can effectively processing larger data sets than
>> ArcGIS. 4) There may be some workflow in QGIS that is simpler than in
>> ArcGIS.
>>
>>
>>
>> I think that the QGIS community can be proud about the fact that most of
>> my users who start using QGIS love it and don't want to go back to ArcGIS
>> if at all possible.
>>
>>
>>
>> If a user finds that their reason for using QGIS goes away, they will be
>> disappointed, but will to go back to ArcGIS. I am an advocate for QGIS in
>> our work place. I think it should be used more, but it is really, really
>> hard to convince most people. Most of my users are not programmers so if
>> something is broken they don' t know how to fix it. We have QGIS support
>> contracts which help. Users consider the QGIS LTR to be a stable release.
>> If you release the LTR before it is stable, then that can have bad
>> consequences to our user base.
>>
>>
>>
>> QGIS 3.10.2 probably should not have been labeled LTR, but I have been
>> actively telling our workforce not to use 3.10 yet. 3.10.2 still seems to
>> have some serious bugs as it is frequently crashing (negating one of the
>> reasons for using QGIS). There must be a WMTS problem that is causing it to
>> crash and I have had a report that there is a serious memory bug. I am
>> hoping that 3.10.3 will have solved most of these problems, but I am not
>> going to count on it until I test it. Everyone has different uses for QGIS
>> and different workflows and each person's experiences are going to be
>> different, but I would suggest that you don't mark a release LTR until it
>> is reliable. Additionally, I suggest that you never back port major
>> libraries or capabilities into the LTR like what happened last fall. Only
>> fix the bugs. As saying goes, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." I still
>> have users on QGIS 2.x and they love it and it works for their needs.
>>
>>
>>
>> I share this with you in the hope that it is helpful.
>>
>>
>>
>> The best to you all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Calvin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
---
*Ben Hur S. Pintor*
bnhr.xyz
hi at bnhr.xyz

open spatial & data solutions
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