Developers Meeting on Thurs, Nov 21, 2024

Time/Location

21 Nov 2024 from 15:00-16:00 UTC

Location: https://lyrasis.zoom.us/my/dspace?pwd=RTk4QUhISnhPRi9YenVrTFJKbDllQT09 (Meeting ID: 502 527 3040).  Passcode: dspace

• More connection options available at DSpace Meeting Room

Agenda

• Discussion Topics - If you have a topic you'd like to have added to the agenda, please just add it. 
  
  1. DSpace at OR2025 - Open Repositories 2025 Call for Proposals. Proposals Due on December 18.
  2. DSpace 9.0 release (due April May 2025)
     1. On Nov 19, Steering voted to shift the 9.0 schedule to May.  The reason was to ensure that the "Feature PR Creation Deadline" doesn't fall in January, right after the end-of-year holidays. 
     2. 9.0 Board is created: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/31/
     3. Early ideas/brainstorms captured at DSpace Release 9.0 Status
  3. DSpace 8.1 / 7.6.3 releases (date not yet finalized)
     1. As discussed the last few weeks, we'd like to push out bug-fixes & performance improvements to 8.x and 7.6.x.  A few mentioned priorities...
     2. "Infinite Load Times when editing/browsing Items" NEW PR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/3677
     3. Using both public/private REST API URLs for better performance (Frontend PR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/3358, Backend PR: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/9856)
  4. Enhancements to the Troubleshoot an error page to provide more information about finding "odd behaviors" or performance bugs.
     1. Feedback is welcome.  The goal of this page is to help people in reporting bugs / performance issues.  If you have tips to share, please pass them along.
  5. Ongoing Discussions:
     1. High CPU with DSpace 7 SSR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3110
     2. Simplifying the Installation Process: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3184
  6. Other topics
     1. (Add topics here)
• Board Review:
  • 9.0 Project Board - Review PRs collaboratively or Assign new PRs to volunteers to code review and/or test.
  • Backlog Board - Are there any tickets here stuck in the "Triage" column?  We'd like to keep this column as small as possible.
  • 8.x and 7.6.x Maintenance Board - Known bugs can be found here, along with any backported bug fixes.
• Upcoming Topics: (Let us know if there are topics you want to discuss in future weeks)
  
  • Discussion: how to keep message catalogues in sync? https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3334
  • Discussion/proposal around refactoring and simplifying Live Import and External Data frameworks: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/9758
    (nothing concrete yet but would be great to get thoughts added to this issue and maybe find some collaborators)

Attendees

• Tim Donohue 
• Holger Lenz 

• Art Lowel (Atmire) 

• Andrea Bollini (4Science)

• Giuseppe Digilio (4Science) 
• Paulo Graça
• Mark H. Wood 
• Grazia Quercia (4Science)
• Corrado Lombardi (4Science) 
• Julian Timal (eScire) 
• Martin Walk 
• Melissa Anez 
• Oliver Goldschmidt 
• Hrafn Malmquist 
• Pascal-Nicolas Becker 
• Pierre Lasou 
• Kim Shepherd 
• Nicholas Woodward 
• Regrets: Scholaris Team

Current Work

Project Boards

• DSpace 9.0 board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/31
• DSpace 8.x and 7.6.x board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/29

To quickly find PRs assigned to you for review, visit https://github.com/pulls/review-requested  (This is also available in the GitHub header under "Pull Requests → Review Requests")

Goals for 9.0

To be decided by DSpace Steering Group with feedback from Leadership Group. 

Early brainstorms at DSpace Release 9.0 Status.  Please feel free to add your own brainstorms or link in tickets that you wish to be considered. 

Goals for 8.1 / 7.6.3

Deadline is TBD for both 8.1 and 7.6.3.  Bug fix releases do not have fixed/scheduled deadlines. Instead, the developer team will determine when to create a release based on the significance of the issues to solve. (e.g. If major issues are fixed, then a bug fix release will occur more rapidly.  If minor issues are found, then a bug fix release may be delayed until sufficient fixes have been made to warrant a release)

• Bug/security fixes only.  These minor releases will not include any new features.
  • New "themeable components" (for dspace-angular) are allowed in bug fix releases, provided that they don't significantly modify component behavior or similar.
  • Accessibility fixes are also allowed in bug fix releases, provided they don't significantly modify component behavior or similar.
• Bug fix PRs should be created against "main" branch where possible. The "main" branch has the most strict code style rules. (i.e. PRs created against dspace-7_x  are becoming more difficult to port forward.)
• Per our support policy, bug fixes are only guaranteed to be ported back to 8.x.  That said, where possible, we'll try to backport bug fixes (especially significant ones) to 7.6.x.
  • Keep in mind, if a specific bug fix is important to you in 7.6.x, then it is best to create two PRs (one for main and one for "dspace-7_x").  If you are able to provide a backport version of the PR, then we will merge it alongside the "main" branch version.
  • NOTE: In many scenarios, a backport to "dspace-8_x" should be possible to automate using the "port to [branch]" labels & the "Port merged Pull Request" GitHub Action

Try "Pull Request Trading" for a quicker review

Do you have a PR stuck in "under review" that you really want to see move forward?  Or maybe it's someone else's PR but you want to get it more attention?

See Trading reviews on Pull Requests for how to get immediate attention to that PR!

Notes

Meeting Next Week

• There will be no developers meeting next week due to Thanksgiving holiday in the US
• Our next meeting will be on Dec. 5

OR 2025 Call for Proposals 

• Still have the wiki page with ideas for proposals that will likely be submitted
• If you have any ideas, feel free to add on to this page
• Feel free to reach out if you would like feedback on proposals

9.0 Release

• The release date for 9.0 has been shifted from April to May; this has been approved by Steering
• See the new release schedule (DRAFT) on top of this page
• We're waiting for feedback on this schedule from both the developers team and DCAT (testathon timeline) before finalizing this schedule
• Reminder to look at the status page and work on tickets listed there

DSpace 8.1 / 7.6.3 releases

• "Infinite Load Times when editing/browsing Items" now has a PR; this is high priority to get out in an 8.1 release (also 7.6.3)
  • Kim Shepherd and Giuseppe Digilio (4Science) have volunteered to test this; others: please consider testing this to move it along quickly
• Public/private REST API URLs (frontend and backend) is also high priority for 8.1 and 7.6.3
  • Discussed ways to move this forward
  • Decided to move forward "as is"
  • Giuseppe Digilio (4Science) will investigate if there is a way to add configuration on server side to replace base urls
• Tim highlighted another performance related ticket (#9906) and asked developers to investigate and work on this
• Any ticket labeled "performance / caching" is of high priority

Enhancements to the Troubleshoot an error page

• Tim has reworked the first section of this page (Finding the Error Message) and added some new content
• Please review this section to make sure that users have what they need to provide as much information regarding an issue as possible
• Art will look into using a data dump tool to make the process of informing developers about issues easier 

Ongoing Discussions

• #3110: would be great to have a PR based on https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3110#issuecomment-2324513871
• #3184: no updates
• Discussed #3674: need to make sure this doesn't conflict with the Angular 18 update; 4science and Atmire will coordinate to avoid conflicting PRs
• Discussed #9760: Andrea Bollini (4Science) will test/review

Action items