[TYPO3-dev] [TYPO3-ect] Announcing TER cleanup process

[Philipp Gampe]

Hi Adrien,

Adrien Crivelli wrote:

> The problem is I am not very close to TYPO3 ecosystem by any means. And,
> even though I have a clear vision of what I would like to change (drop svn
> entirely, more git/github based things), I don't feel it would be right if
> I force my ideas on hundreds of people who are (much) "older" than me in
> this community.

There are many ideas, but most lack manpower.

So if you have an idea, then write it down (a bit like an RFC) wait for some 
feedback and then go ahead and start coding (e.g. show a proof of concept).
If your idea is stupid or does not fit TYPO3 at all, you most likely will 
get that feedback before you started to put too much effort into it.
Just report early and often (communication is a key!).

> I feel it would not be fair to apply my radical changes without a clear
> approval by the community. And I fail to understand how to get this
> approval. For instance I didn't hear about TER cleanup process until a few
> days ago. I have no idea who and how it was discussed. And it may be too
> late to change the plan now. Or is it ?

It has been in the air for very long, but not much was done, because nobody 
was able or willing to change the TER code.
Please also remember that the TER needs to stay backward compatible to older 
TYPO3 versions for at least two years (more likely you want 5 years).

> Here is what I would love to have:
> 
> - existing svn is readonly from today
Not really needed.

> - all extensions are hosted on github, or TYPO3 git servers for a few
> very important one (much less maintenance for TYPO3 git/svn servers)
> - publishing extension on TER, require:
> - installing
> webhook<https://help.github.com/articles/post-receive-hooks>on github
> - matching repository name and extension key
> - using semver <http://semver.org/> tags for each release
That might be a need idea.

However, in the meantime we could just provide an admin interface that 
allows to enter an URL and to select a tag to publish a new version.

But it looks like such a hook endpoint would not need that many resources.

> - downloads for any version can be served directly from github as zip
> file (again much less work for TYPO3 servers)

Maybe it would be a lot easier to just use composer for this?

> This allow for a much more *natural workflow for developer*, and easier
> collaboration via github's pull request (as long as gerrit is not
> required, which probably is a vast majority of case for extensions). It
> also allow to simplify Extension Manager extension (dropping all code
> related to uploading).

The code related to uploading has already been dropped in 6.0.

> The only downside that I see is a total break for SVN users. But I feel
> it's a good time for a big change (with TYPO3 6.0 and TER cleanup).

I do not think that we need to break SVN here. We could use a deprecation 
phase (and I think this is already planned) and move to Git.
I do not know if the automated git setup for forge is already integrated and 
fully functional.

With the mentioned Admin Interface to the TER, it should not be too hard to 
support both custom Git locations as well as custom SVN locations.
Versions can then be publish by authors individually.

Last but not least, we could also support .zip uploads.

Maybe we should first move TER to an own server to shift the load away from 
typo3.org?

And remember, all plans will fail if nobody does the work!

Best regards
-- 
Philipp Gampe – PGP-Key 0AD96065 – TYPO3 UG Bonn/Köln
Documentation – linkvalidator
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