[TYPO3-v4] Minutes from the first meeting of the release team after 4.5.0 release

Wed Feb 2 21:41:58 CET 2011

Hi,

you thought you would get rid of my minutes just because 4.5.0 was
released. Not quite yet! ;)

After the very refreshing and enthusiastic welcome that the release
4.5.0 has been given by the community, we decided to meet again in our
release team to discuss the first impressions. We feel that people no
longer can live without our release meeting "minutes", so here we are... ;)

Present were: Olly Hader (core team leader), Ben van't Ende (community
manager), Steffen Kamper (4.5 technical leader) and Ernesto Baschny (4.5
release manager).

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General feeling after the release
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The days after the 4.5.0 have been characterized by:

* lack of core activity (everybody exhausted after that last sprints,
slowly warming up again)
* great activity through Twitter & Co spreading the word about the release
* many positive feedback, plenty of articles in blogs / news sites about
4.5 LTS

Ernesto feels that the main reasons for so much enthusiasms (compared to
previous releases) were:

* Shipping at the planned date: We all had full concentration on *the
day* of the release
* More features compared to the previous version than ever before:
Mainly due to more streamlined processes with teamworks, more regular
meetings, better information flow and coordination.
* First ever "LTS", bringing many people a special attention to this
release, also the press and enthusiasts. Ernesto has been noticing
plenty of "4.1 users" now upgrading to 4.5. TYPO3 4.1 has been a "de
facto" LTS, supported by the core team for over 3 years. 4.5 is now the
natural continuation, 6 months after 4.1's deprecation.

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Issues with 4.5.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We then discussed the main issues reported and seen so far. Overall we
can see a very mature and stable release already, plenty of production
sites have been running 4.5 since the beta phase. So despite the several
new features, the core functionality is very mature and stable.

Nevertheless we are faced with some problems still to solve:

ExtDirect
--------------------------------------

One main problem are still ExtDirect issues. Since we are now using more
and more ExtDirect, they are popping up more and more. E.g. the New
Extension Manager makes lots of ExtDirect calls, and thus plenty of
errors are related to this:

* json "null" in Debug Console
* Browser offering "ajax.php" to "Download" (instead of saving an
extensions configuration)

Most errors are browser specific and the reason is as usual with Ajax
and a complex ExtJS stack difficult to spot. On the day before the
release Steffen Kamper, Ernesto, Stefan Galinski and Helmut Hummel tried
hard to solve it. Main issue was that some browsers (FF 4 beta, Opera,
Safari) would split up the ExtDirect request in two different calls.
Steffen feels that "something was fixed" but cannot recall exactly. He
will further check and see if we can narrow down the source of it. Maybe
bringing more ExtJS experts to debug that would help.

stdWrapization, some things missing
--------------------------------------

Some minor things were broken by the "stdWrap-everywhere" project,
affecting Upgrades which relied on specific parts of TypoScript:

* beforeWrap property of TMENU
("17297":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17297) => Pending in core, by
Joey. Also affecting the "GLUECK" template
("16756":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=16756)
* LOAD_REGISTER misbehaviour with stdWrap depending on the order of
properties ("17385":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17385) => Fix
available in tracker, by Joey
* stdWrap .current and .setContentToCurrent do not return content
("17372":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17372) => Fixed

Pagetree "endless loop"
--------------------------------------

The ExtJS Layout rendering has still some issues and is most noticeable
in the Pagetree. Either the Pagetree was not loaded at all or the CPU
went crazy (most annoying under IE6). So basically Steffen's patch for
"17340":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17340 (already ready to
commit, will be in 4.5.1) solves this (also
"17407":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17407, the IE6 issue).

Shifting up of backend problem
--------------------------------------

We still have the unsolved problem that whenever a link in the backend
points to a target with an anchor (e.g. the Constant Editor after saving
some value), the whole content area will be shifted up by some 2-3 px.
It seems to be an ExtJS issue with the panels. Steffen found the
"typo3-content-container" has 2.5px too much and already tried hard
spotting the problem together with Steffen Gebert. He even deactivated
prototype, unloaded all skin CSS and the problem remained.

We have tried to get ExtJS expert
"Condor":http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?343-Condor to help out
on that (a supporter from the ExtJS forums), but he hasn't given us any
feedback yet. Steffen will ask some friend from Munich to take a look at
it. Ernesto will ask Nils Dehl for help.

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TYPO3 4.5.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Many people are already asking about "when will 4.5.1 will be released".
We haven't had that many fixed included in our branch so we will have to
wait for more activity / reports / fixes to be included. Since we will
have a "TYPO3 Code Sprint in
Berlin":http://wiki.typo3.org/Code_Sprint_Berlin_2011 from 28th February
to 4th March, we decided to plan a 4.5.1 release for the week after that
sprint, meaning:

*4.5.1 planned for 9th of March*

Sprints
--------------------------------------

Apart from the Code Sprint in Berlin, Steffen Kamper plans a
"Performance Sprint" (or maybe "Performance Day(s)") with Rupi Germann
and maybe some other interested people at some days during February. No
dates are settled but it will be properly announced so that others can
participate in time.

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Upgrade Process
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ernesto is collecting found issues around the "Upgrade Process" to get
the Upgrade Wizard more streamlined in future (see
"17353":http://bugs.typo3.org/view.php?id=17353). Those are tiny little
improvements, which would even make sense to add to 4.5.x because we
expect people to try upgrading to 4.5 from older sites on the next 2 years.

Steffen mentioned the "Install Tool Refactoring" project, but Ernesto
doesn't want to wait for that for these fixes. The Install Tool
Refactoring is nevertheless an important project which will be a goal
for 4.6.

New Install Guide
--------------------------------------

While talking about the Upgrade process, Steffen said that we have a
"new Guide for Installing and
Upgrading":http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/installation/doc_guide_install/2.0.0/view/
online which is now linked at the "Installation" menu entry of the
documentation section on typo3.org. So it hasn't got many attention yet,
but its pretty good!

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Download statistics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Since Olly is hosting the current TYPO3 Download (because of the SF
troubles), he was able to make some statistics:

* 4.5.0 has been downloaded about 25.000 times already (and it has been
released only for one week!)
* almost 1 TB of traffic
* Half of the downloads were the Introduction Package (>13.000)

SourceForge problems
--------------------------------------

Sourceforge has had known troubles with hacking in the previous week
(discovered exactly during our release day). See "SF
blog":https://sourceforge.net/blog/ for more info on that.

It seems to be getting back online. Olly will do further checks. At
least our released files (RC2 and RC3) haven't been manipulated
according to the MD5 checksums. RC3 was not available on all mirrors
(thus many people got broken downloads). As soon as we confirm that
everything is normal, Olly will upload our 4.5.0 files back to SF and
change the links on the downloads page again. He will then also delete
all alpha / beta / RC releases of 4.5.

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Translations
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

People are wanting to "translate the introduction package" (see german
translation list). Steffen asked on how to proceed here. Ben mentioned
that its difficult as there is no workflow established yet. And the
introduction package team very much disappeared and noone is really
active anymore, except Peter Beernick.

Ernesto suggested to maybe invite the interested german translator to be
"part of the team" and maybe kick start more on that. The whole workflow
should be supported by Issue Trackers so that pending issues can be
better collected.

Meanwhile the French translation efforts for the IP are at an unknown
status. Ben will further check on that.

Olly will respond to the question from Henning Nelihsen in the german
translation list.

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TYPO3 4.6
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

h3. Teams for 4.6

* FAL will continue to make it a reality for 4.6.
* Workspace team: was the most active team and will of course continue
throughout 4.6.
* Skinning team: had a nice start, but will need more "care". Steffen
mentioned that not much was solved through that channel. Ernesto was
satisfied with the split up we made (Design & Usability / Skin Team) and
that the workflow has to be further refined. Currently the members also
lack a bit of experience with dealing with core issues. So more meetings
with the whole team would definitively help in keeping the members
active and aware of the "next steps" and everyone motivated and all
aiming at the same goal.
* Linkvalidator: team is very motivated to continue development now that
the extension is in core. They are also active throughout the lists
responding to questions.
* Extension Manager: We briefly discussed if it still makes sense to
continue developing through Forge, because only Steffen K is working on
it. We decided that it will be kept in forge until 4.5.1, and then
everything will be merged back to the Core and issues will be further
maintained via Mantis. Ernesto said that maybe we'll have the GIT /
Gerrit migration "by then", but if this really happens, we just change
the plan. :)

Release Manager of 4.6
--------------------------------------

Olly mentioned a potential candidate for a release manager of 4.6. And
we also discussed other candidates and some potential constellations.
But we cannot announce it officially yet. ;)

Goals in 4.6
--------------------------------------

We listed some potential "high level" goals for the 4.6 release:

* Cleanup old legacy code, remove deprecated functionality
* Performance optimization in frontend and backend
* Better support for HA websites in clouds (e.g. CDN, static file cache
layer, etc.)
* Possibility of data exchange by using standards (CMIS, REST, SOAP)
* Continous integration process with night builds
* Better translation handling
* Possible features
  * TCEforms refactoring
  * File Abstraction Layer

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Next steps
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We decided to keep our meeting routing active (Steffen misses a week
without a meeting...) but will do it more sporadically. During the 4.6
release process Ernesto and Steffen agreed to keep on participating (as
time permits) in the regular release meetings (just as Benni did in
ours), supporting the new release manager. Ernesto mentioned that he
won't have the time to write the minutes thou. :)

We planned a next meeting in two weeks, on 14th of February, at 14h.

The TYPO3 Code Sprint in Berlin will happen from 28th February to 4th March

http://wiki.typo3.org/Code_Sprint_Berlin_2011

Cheers,
Ernesto

-- 
Ernesto Baschny
Core Developer V4 Team
Release Manager TYPO3 4.5

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