openerp-community team mailing list archive

[Pedro Manuel Baeza Romero <pedro.baeza@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, community,

Sorry in advance for the long message.

I think we have to talk about two different topics that are under the OCA
umbrella: OCB branches and community repositories.

For *OCB branches*, there are not too much discussion: it's mandatory that
we have them on Launchpad, because there are too many dependencies on LP
that cannot be avoided (see this Olivier Dony
answer<https://lists.launchpad.net/openerp-community/msg03629.html>about
this question on other thread) and we must go here together with
OpenERP S. A.

About *community repositories*, the question that Raphael has exposed is
critical: the future and maintanability of them. Having lived a part of the
evolution of them, this is what I think:

   - In some way, we are trying to compensate the lack of a global quality
   OpenERP repository. OpenERP Apps doesn't count, because the categorization
   in it is not very accurate (it depends on the module manifest) and there is
   a lot of "dummy" modules that makes a few (usability module, for example).
   - The only way we have for now is to group relevant modules in a
   repository to make it in somehow available to the groups of interest.
   - We have used Launchpad to continue with the same tools as the mother
   project.
   - These tools have conditioned the organization / reviewing process.
   - Although we are admitting a lot of new modules, it follows some
   criteria (for now based on the sense of the reviewers) to avoid only
   usability modules (we have talked about this on other thread also).
   - Reviewers can use their expertise to teach newcomers on good
   practises, and these newcomers will be soon the next teachers (this is for
   example my case). This musn't been interpreted as a dictatorial regime, but
   some work rules to assure quality. If these practises are not correct, we
   can change or refine them.
   - We don't have the obligation to maintain across the versions all the
   modules that are included in some momment on the community repositories,
   but to assure that when something arrives to them (a new module or an
   adaptation to a new version of an old one), it has enough quality to enter.
   - These reviewings can be exhausting, but we are attracting each day
   more contributors that helps with this process.
   - Nobody have the obligation to publish their modules on community
   repositories. They can use their own repositories, even hosting on others
   CVS.
   - My hope is to set these repositories as the reference where someone
   goes when he wants to contribute.

So, said that, to keep this initiative healthy, this is IMHO what we have
to do:

   - Set clear rules for the reviewing process. This is already done and
   will be merged on official documentation.
   - Set a path to contributors to become reviewers.
   - Reward contributors with some visibility on OCA mediums (web and so
   on), to encourage new contributions.
   - Set rules for admission of modules. This is not easy, but it can be
   done with a few exceptions.

Now, about *Launchpad and GitHub*, I feel the same as Raphael in the
questions he told (performance, acknowledgment, subprojects, etc), and
maybe we can switch community repositories to GitHub to avoid questions
like the one that has started this debate, but this must be assured:

   - We have a way to integrate translations for easy contributions. I'm
   already working on having Launchpad translations on community repositories
   and I see this as mandatory.
   - We must assure atribution and permissions.
   - We cannot lose contribution history.
   - Reconstruct documentation with the new contribution path.
   - We must have anyway synched Launchpad repository/repositories to
   enable modules on apps.openerp.com.

As you see, this a lot of work to do and questions to solved, but Raphael,
if you're willing to work on this, I can help you and propose to the
community a concrete proposal to make the switch.

Regards.




2013/11/6 Raphael Valyi <rvalyi@xxxxxxxxx>

> On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Joël Grand-Guillaume <
> joel.grandguillaume@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>> First thanks you Michel to take the time for that ! Now, I'm a bit
>> concerned because we didn't really face this before.
>>
>> The
>> https://code.launchpad.net/~openerp-community/openobject-addons/7.0-booking-chart
>> is more a module that should be included in one of our project, and I
>> don't which one, any idea ?
>>
>> Then the branch of the
>> https://code.launchpad.net/~openerp-community/web-addons/7.0-web-unleashed
>> is on the right place, but it contains a branch replicated from github...
>> That prevent any merge to be done in the "official" community branch here :
>> lp:web-addons<https://code.launchpad.net/%7Ewebaddons-core-editors/web-addons/7.0>
>>
>> That's a bit sad.. Any suggestion here ? How to handle GitHub branches ?
>>
>
>
> Hello Joël and others,
>
> if a branch is Github driven and replicated on Launchpad, merging a
> Launchpad MP isn't that hard: in your git branch just import the branch
> using the native git ber remote helper
> http://felipec.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/git-remote-hg-bzr-2/
> merge inside your git using usual git merge command, push to Github (then
> auto-replicated to Launchpad) and voila! Still Github submitted merges are
> easier to deal with.
>
> Of course, now if a module should integrate a branch driven on Launchpad,
> then probably it's better to let it be developed on Launchpad.
>
> Now a bit more about this: "should a module integrate some existing
> Launchpad branch?"
> In any case, people should remember that we currently group modules
> together just because OpenERP don't have any decent package manager that
> deal with version constraints and multiple repo location. And as you read
> this, please OpenERP SA don't try to reinvent a package manager (apps?),
> that's something hard, OpenERP should standardize instead of wasting
> resource on these solved problems.
> And again, it's not like if I am only "talking":
>
> https://code.launchpad.net/~akretion-team/openobject-server/trunk-extra-depdencies-info/+merge/114172
>
> But in any case, grouping modules in the same branch is rather a temporary
> artifact and a bad design than anything else.
>
> Instead, once it becomes decent to install pinned versions via package
> manager and test with standard Continuous Integration tooling,
> **we should tend to 1 module = 1 branch**
> That's how all the modular dynamic ecosystems work. Of course, we could
> still have a few exceptions. If you take the Ruby ecosystem (extremely
> modular and works well), you see that usually 1 module = 1 Github repo. But
> as for the Rails repo, it's 5 modules altogether in the same repo (but only
> 5, while a typical Rails project will depend on 50+ modules). It's an
> exception and it still works. I know it less, but I think it's the same for
> Pypi, right?
>
> If we keep grouping modules blindly, that will not scale in term of
> complexity: soon there will be tons of merge for modules that are unknown
> to most of a project team, that will be slow/frustrating or badly reviewed.
> We will have branches of these god branches incompatible between them and
> branch cross dependencies nightmares.
>
> With that in mind, I think it would be an error to think that only a few
> people should determine a single forge for all the OpenERP eco-system,
> specially if that forge sucks (I didn't tell Launchpad sucks, you are
> interpreting here ;-)
>
> I think it really make sense to use a single forge for the core, but as
> for the whole eco-system, we would try to impose bad tooling to good
> willing people and that will not work.
>
> It's cool also to have OpenERP SA and OCA doing some centralization work
> trying to develop and review core modules, but in any case, it will never
> scale to imagine that just a dozen of people will review the entire
> eco-system at every-commit. I think that instead there will be lot's of
> projects, lot's of team, ideally good practices in many places and possibly
> some centralization but only for the core things. If if try to centralize
> and decide for everything, then we will have a sub-optimal core (because
> work is diluted with non core things) and a frustrated community that see
> its freedom to innovate restricted.
>
> Now
> <my personal opinion about Launchpad and bzr>
> it does the job, but hell it doesn't do it well. Here it's very common
> that bzr branch --stack addons takes over 20 minutes (1h30 without stacked)
> vs 8 minutes for the same Github shallow clone. Want to compare
> purchase_requisition in 7.0 against trunk? in git it's a breeze, in bzr
> slow as hell. If you have a bzr branch that you want to do pull after some
> 2 months (branch for some customer?), bzr pull can easily take more than 1
> hour... (and we tried everything, local bzr mirrors etc...)
> Also I don't see much activity on bzr repo to fix this. It isn't really
> cloud ready and it's like both bzr and Launchpad are loosing the battle
> here.
> So I'm perfectly okay to contrib on Launchpad. But when I do so, I always
> think it's temporary and that one day anyway Launchpad will probably
> announce that it's closing and we will need to put all these little team
> and karma in the trash and move all that to some git (or hg) forge.
> Other things I don't like about LP: it really badly sells a project:
> navigation is awkward to newcomers, documentation isn't integrated, project
> dynamism doesn't drive to adhesion. Also, we aren't as rich as SAP or
> Microsoft, right? So what we need? We need contributors hell! but again
> Launchpad badly reward contributors vs Github that does it so well that a
> Github profile starts to be what a recruiter will look at to evaluate a job
> candidate (compare this to hackable karma...)
> Anyway this is just
> </my personal opinion about Launchpad and bzr>
> (now I said it)
>
>
> So as a conclusion:
> I say no to a dogma that we should group modules inside the same branches.
> That's only a temporary work-around while some believe or make believe
> things like apps is more important than pip modules.
>
> In the meanwhile, it's not because that there are several branches that
> there cannot be projects hub and their teams: a common team could take care
> of several projects, on several branches and possibly forges.
>
>
> Finally, I think we should investigate the great work of Vo Minh Thu
> regarding OpenERP module packaging:
> http://assertive.io
>
> My issue still is: if we have a new addons version at every commit, then
> for any delta update pip update of the addons it will probably re-download
> 400+ Mo of all the fresh addons vs a few ko if you were doing a bzr or git
> pull. Again, not exactly cloud ready...
> Given the very relative stability of OpenERP, I only have seen success of
> people doing these delta updates on their projects to fix bugs as they
> encounter and fix them. Today I don't see this working with assertive yet.
> I may just be dreaming, but instead I was thinking about something like:
> for all modules we have git-subtree (no working bzr equivalent!) cron that
> put every module in a single branch: the module version get incremented
> only if this particular module receives a commit. Possibly, a translation
> commit is the z of the x.y.z semver. Then doing pip update would
> re-download the module only if it received commits, and possibly only if
> these commits aren't just translation.
>
>
> My two 2 cts. Thanks to all for these input about that essential topic.
>
>
> --
> Raphaël Valyi
> Founder and consultant
> http://twitter.com/rvalyi <http://twitter.com/#!/rvalyi>
> +55 21 2516 2954
> www.akretion.com
>
>
>
>
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