[Geoserver-devel] Keeping the old maintenance series building for another 6 months?

GeoServer GeoServer Developer
1

Hi,
here is a topic for today’s PSC meeting (not feeling all that well, might not make it to the meeting).

In GeoSolutions we found that we need to run custom builds of the 2.18.x series, mostly because of its relationship with GeoNode. GeoNode tends to stay a little behind in terms of GeoServer version, e.g., the latest release uses 2.19.x, but the release before is still quite commonly installed. In addition, they don’t typically use public releases, but snapshots with the exact set of fixes and improvements they need.

I was wondering, would it be possible to keep the old maintenance series builds going for another six months, after we stop making releases?
I don’t think the extra CPU usage would be unreasonable, and the storage would be the same,
if you check, we still have 2.16.x nightlies on the build server:
https://build.geoserver.org/geoserver/

Cheers
Andrea

···

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Ing. Andrea Aime
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GeoSolutions Group
phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 333 8128928

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2

I thought the 2.18.x series builds were a goner, but Alessandro made me notice that,
while they are no more in the “geoserver” tab, they are still in the “all builds” one:

image.png

So it would be just a matter of re-enabling them (and the corresponding GT/GWC ones).

Cheers
Andrea

···

Regards,

Andrea Aime

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Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions Group
phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 333 8128928

https://www.geosolutionsgroup.com/

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

Con riferimento alla normativa sul trattamento dei dati personali (Reg. UE 2016/679 - Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati “GDPR”), si precisa che ogni circostanza inerente alla presente email (il suo contenuto, gli eventuali allegati, etc.) è un dato la cui conoscenza è riservata al/i solo/i destinatario/i indicati dallo scrivente. Se il messaggio Le è giunto per errore, è tenuta/o a cancellarlo, ogni altra operazione è illecita. Le sarei comunque grato se potesse darmene notizia.

This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. We remind that - as provided by European Regulation 2016/679 “GDPR” - copying, dissemination or use of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by telephone or e-mail

3

+0 for me

In the longer term should we switch to a yearly release cycle instead of a 6 monthly one? One complaint I hear relatively often is that releases are hard to keep up with so we ignore them

Ian

(attachments)

image.png

···

Ian Turton

4

I understand that position. Let me share counter arguments.

Consider the case where a new large functionality is implemented, with sponsoring.
The functionality is so large that a backport is out of the question.
The sponsor would have to wait several months to have it in a stable release… how much funding is the project as a whole
going to lose by using a one year cadence?

The other issue I see are backports. I have been doing some backports to 2.18.x lately, and the theme has been… conflicts,
conflicts, and more conflicts. Not too hard to fix, thankfully, but plenty of them.
A one year cadence would mean, the maintenance series will be as much as 2 years behind main. Ouch…

Cheers
Andrea

···

GeoServer Professional Services from the experts!

Visit http://bit.ly/gs-services-us for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions Group
phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 333 8128928

https://www.geosolutionsgroup.com/

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

Con riferimento alla normativa sul trattamento dei dati personali (Reg. UE 2016/679 - Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati “GDPR”), si precisa che ogni circostanza inerente alla presente email (il suo contenuto, gli eventuali allegati, etc.) è un dato la cui conoscenza è riservata al/i solo/i destinatario/i indicati dallo scrivente. Se il messaggio Le è giunto per errore, è tenuta/o a cancellarlo, ogni altra operazione è illecita. Le sarei comunque grato se potesse darmene notizia.

This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. We remind that - as provided by European Regulation 2016/679 “GDPR” - copying, dissemination or use of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by telephone or e-mail

5

I would ask that the geonode folks tag the release they need as a patch release (even just to the nexus repo). Depending on a snapshot is a terrible practice, and if you must it should be handled with a git sub module.

The geonetwork folks depend on a snapshot revision be having a git sub module, and building (for example geotools) as part of full build.

Jody

···

–
Jody Garnett

6

No problem keeping a branch building longer if it is active, but it should build towards a patch release please.

···

–
Jody Garnett

7

I would ask that the geonode folks tag the release they need as a patch release (even just to the nexus repo).

Separate project, we’re not really in a position to “ask” :smiley:

Depending on a snapshot is a terrible practice, and if you must it should be handled with a git sub module.

GeoNode is using a GeoServer binary as far as I know, not building it from sources… but I may be wrong
(we’d need someone from GeoNode here, I’ve only been told a small part of the story…).
Just saying, tagging it might be of limited use in that case.

The geonetwork folks depend on a snapshot revision be having a git sub module, and building (for example geotools) as part of full build.

But I don’t see Geonetwork specific tags anywhere in GeoTools. Do they depend on a specific GIT revision instead?

Cheers
Andrea

···

Regards,

Andrea Aime

==
GeoServer Professional Services from the experts!

Visit http://bit.ly/gs-services-us for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions Group
phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 333 8128928

https://www.geosolutionsgroup.com/

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

Con riferimento alla normativa sul trattamento dei dati personali (Reg. UE 2016/679 - Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati “GDPR”), si precisa che ogni circostanza inerente alla presente email (il suo contenuto, gli eventuali allegati, etc.) è un dato la cui conoscenza è riservata al/i solo/i destinatario/i indicati dallo scrivente. Se il messaggio Le è giunto per errore, è tenuta/o a cancellarlo, ogni altra operazione è illecita. Le sarei comunque grato se potesse darmene notizia.

This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. We remind that - as provided by European Regulation 2016/679 “GDPR” - copying, dissemination or use of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by telephone or e-mail

8

Perhaps I am not understanding the request, is the geonode team depending on specific community builds from https://build.geoserver.org/geoserver/2.18.x/ ?

If so … we ran out of space recently and cleaned up a lot of stuff :smiley:

As for use of SNAPSHOT and submodule geonetwork was perhaps not the best example, it is something being cleaned up over time. You can see the practice here:

The idea being that if you do a recursive checkout you can build everything together and get the exact SNAPSHOT locally that was tested / supported (and avoid the troubling use of version numbers).

As I understand it, maven no longer allows depend on a specific SNAPSHOT date stamp, or restricts this to the local repository only (1.0-SNAPSHOT vs 1.0-20090128.202731-1).

···

Jody Garnett

9

No, AFAIK they pick one and store it somewhere. Again, I’m just making guesses based on conversations I had with them.
This config file seems to confirm it:

https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/master/dev_config.yml#L2

Here is the same file on the branch that depends on 2.18.x:
https://github.com/GeoNode/geonode/blob/3.2.x/dev_config.yml

I believe this is managed from a simple, practical point of view: a maintenance branch is receiving few commits, mostly bug fixes,
so it’s normally safe to just jump to the next nightly in that series, when you need a particular fix. A dead branch moves even slower.
If they really encounter a problem with it, they can just fix it in the nightly, or fork the project at the revision it was based, and apply just
the desired patch. Then update the binary the build depends on to.

Hence, the desire to have nightly builds keep on running a little bit longer :smiley:

Cheers
Andrea

···

GeoServer Professional Services from the experts!

Visit http://bit.ly/gs-services-us for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions Group
phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 333 8128928

https://www.geosolutionsgroup.com/

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

Con riferimento alla normativa sul trattamento dei dati personali (Reg. UE 2016/679 - Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati “GDPR”), si precisa che ogni circostanza inerente alla presente email (il suo contenuto, gli eventuali allegati, etc.) è un dato la cui conoscenza è riservata al/i solo/i destinatario/i indicati dallo scrivente. Se il messaggio Le è giunto per errore, è tenuta/o a cancellarlo, ogni altra operazione è illecita. Le sarei comunque grato se potesse darmene notizia.

This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. We remind that - as provided by European Regulation 2016/679 “GDPR” - copying, dissemination or use of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by telephone or e-mail

10

I get it, no problem leaving the nightlies running longer, as long as they do not mind the contents getting clean up on occasion.

···

–
Jody Garnett