openerp-community team mailing list archive

[Alexis de Lattre <alexis@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Le 14/11/2012 15:34, Stefan Rijnhart a écrit :
> as we all know, the current bug policy of OpenERP SA has the following 
> results:
>
> - Bugs fixed by the community are not applied to the stable version
> - Bugs fixed by OpenERP developers through OPW are not merged with the 
> stable version or after a very long delay

I can confirm this experience with my customers. For example, this 
document shows that Anevia (who has an OPW) has only obtained 6 merges 
in stable branch out of 16 bugs that require a merge :

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuWOM58OOk02dGQ2QjRDdWw5UjZ0T0hGR1R5T2tDVWc

It means that less than half of the bug fixes made through OPW are 
merged in stable branch. Some of the bugs waiting for a merge are very 
critical bugs that show wrong data 
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/openobject-addons/+bug/1058390) or block the 
delivery process 
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/openobject-addons/+bug/1030880 and 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/openobject-addons/+bug/1027819).

I have another customer with an even lower ratio of merged bugs vs total 
OPW bugs.

As these very import bugs are not merged, we would need to manually 
merge them on the OpenERP installation of our customers. In order to 
ease this process, Akretion started to maintain its own "stable" branches :

https://code.launchpad.net/~akretion-team/openobject-addons/openobject-addons-61-akretion

Therp does the same :
https://code.launchpad.net/~therp-nl/therp-backports/openerp-addons-6.1

Camptocamp also does the same :
https://code.launchpad.net/~c2c/openobject-addons/6.1-c2c-official

When Akretion took the decision to create it's own stable branch, I was 
arguing against this move... but we had no choice. The next step would 
be to mutualize the effort of Therp/Camptocamp/Akretion and create a 
community-driven stable branch. That would not be a good thing for 
OpenERP. But, if the situation doesn't change, we will have no other 
choice than this... :-(

When I receive an e-mail of the OpenERP support team with the reference 
of the commit that fixes the bug in an OPW branch and they say "This 
will be soon merged into stable mainline.", I don't know if I should 
consider it as a joke or a lie, if I should laugh or cry...

> Many other implementators maintain their own branches but they do not 
> use Launchpad to manage the issues. Perhaps it would be better to join 
> forces and participate in a shared community project to backport fixes 
> to stable versions of OpenERP. Therp for one would be happy to join 
> such an initiative. The usual flow of issues -> branches -> merge 
> requests should be sufficient to maintain quality control as long as 
> the parties involved indeed take the trouble of reviewing each others' 
> proposals.

I am sure Akretion would be ready to join you in this initiative. But I 
would prefer that OpenERP S.A. takes it's responsabilities and merge the 
OPW bugs in the stable branch !
In the release notes of OpenERP 7.0 (http://www.openerp.com/node/1269), 
OpenERP S.A. says that they are aware of this issue :
<<
We realize that up to now OpenERP was sending within a few days a patch 
to the customer or partner, but was taking time to merge it into the 
latest stable version of OpenERP. We have reinforced the support team to 
ensure that the patches will be merged promptly. This reactivity is more 
demanding on us, but will allow us to provide superior customer 
satisfaction.
>>

Let's see if we see a change in the coming 2 months. If not, then I will 
join you on the initiative to maintain a community-driven stable branch.

--
Alexis