Developers Meeting on Weds, January 26, 2011

Agenda

• First 20+ minutes: JIRA Catch-Up – starting with issue DS-669
  • Search for all Unresolved Issues (since DS-669)

• General Announcements:
  • Tentative Timeline for 1.8.0 now posted
    • Will be released in October 2011. Tentative, detailed timeline now posted on 1.8.0 Release Notes page
    • Formal announcement forthcoming to DSpace community (via listservs).
  • Tentative Listing of potential features for 1.8.0
    • Also listed on 1.8.0 Release Notes page
    • These are not definite, just what we hope will be ready in time for 1.8.0. If you want to see a particular feature happen, please volunteer to help!
  • New "How To Contribute Ideas or Suggest New Features" on How to Contribute to DSpace page.
    • This is meant as a general guide to Community for how they should submit Requests to us. Feedback welcome & encouraged!

• 1.7.1 – seems we've had several fixes in 1.7.x branch recently (though none seem serious). We may want to begin thinking about whether we want to release a 1.7.1 within next month or two.

• Schedule a "Special Topics" Meeting? Any of the following could make for a nice discussion (these are all larger topics that have come up recently).
  • Discuss usage or best practices around git / DCVS
  • Discuss forming a "Documentation Management Team"? Or reworking our procedures for managing/reviewing/approving Docs on the Wiki.
  • Discuss improving how DSpace handles Metadata. Several ideas mentioned recently:
    • Updating to current DCMI standards: DS-805
    • Creating a new "dspace" internal usage schema (for administrative, or non-DC metadata)? Formalize the "dc" schema to be strictly valid QDC/DC?
    • Metadata on all DSpace objects (not just Items)
  • Discuss whether we want to switch to a new version numbering scheme? Suggestions include:
    • drop the "1.", so that "1.8" would be "DSpace 8",
    • release number based on release date, so Oct 2011 release would be numbered 11.10 (YY.MM) – this is similar to Ubuntu Release numbers

Meeting Notes

JIRA review, side-discussion on i18n release process, Architecture Best Practices, 1.7.1 discussions, upcoming special topics meetings

• JIRA Review ended with DS-674
• Side Discussion about i18n release processes. Mark Diggory & Tim Donohue had some general disagreement on processes during meeting, but have since been resolved.
  • Mark's stance was: i18n language packs should be released asynchronously, so that releases need not wait for them, and so they can be updated between releases.
  • Tim's stance was: agreed with Mark, but with one exception. i18n keys (in language packs) should be kept stable (as much as possible) between bug-fix releases (e.g. 1.7.0 -> 1.7.1). This would ensure that during a bug-fix release, we didn't require re-translation effort to take place. The only exception to this would be if there was actually a bug where necessary i18n keys were missing from the language packs, or a bug could only be fixed by adding new i18n keys.
  • After this discussion, Mark & Tim agreed via email that i18n keys should be kept as stable as possible during bug-fix releases.
• Initial Feature listing for 1.8.0 now at: DSpace Release 1.8.0 Notes
• New "How To Contribute Ideas or Suggest New Features" on How to Contribute to DSpace page. Comments / Improvements welcome!
• Discussion of whether a 1.7.1 is immediately necessary
  • Developers decided there are no bug fixes that need immediate release (though DS-785 may need release once it is resolved)
  • At this point, we see no immediate need for a 1.7.1. But, we reserve the right to change our minds later, and will revisit this likely in the next few weeks/months.
• Upcoming Special Topics Meetings
  • 'git' Special Topic Meeting - scheduled for Feb 9, Peter Dietz will lead
  • "DSpace Metadata" Special Topic Meeting - widespread interest. As yet unscheduled, also need someone to lead it.

Meeting Transcript

• Full IRC Transcript is be available at - http://irclogs.duraspace.org/index.php?date=2011-01-26