Developers Meeting on Thurs, Oct 24, 2024

Time/Location

24 Oct 2024 from 14:00-15:00 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. Notice upcoming Dev Meeting Times.  This is the odd time of year where different parts of the world are exiting DST at different times.
  2. Open Repositories 2025 (Chicago) - Call for Proposals is posted. Proposals Due on December 18.
  3. DSpace and DSpace-CRIS Intent to Investigate Merger. Any questions/feedback?
     1. If merger occurs, it won't occur until 10.0 at the earliest.
     2. If merger occurs, the final product will still be called DSpace & be community controlled. Essentially, DSpace will be adding all the features of DSpace-CRIS.
     3. Overall goal is to bring our communities together & work as one.
  4. DSpace 9.0 release (due April 2025)
     1. Proposed Release Timeline (see above)) 
     2. 9.0 Board is created: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/31/
     3. Early ideas/brainstorms captured at DSpace Release 9.0 Status
  5. Ongoing Discussions:
     1. Incentivizing Code Reviews and PR Testing
     2. High CPU with DSpace 7 SSR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3110
     3. Using both public/private REST API URLs for better performance: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/1485 (Assigned to 4Science)
     4. Simplifying the Installation Process: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3184
  6. Other topics
     1. Pitch for new PR checklist item: It would be great for devs to have a way to follow new tools, libraries, concepts and patterns introduced with each DSpace release (e.g. if I introduced a new ng dependency for dspace-angular, or the first use of JDK15/17 'record' in java).
        To keep track of these things while keeping extra effort for devs and release teams at a minimum, I thought we could consider a new PR checklist item:
        "If I have introduced a new library / framework / pattern / concept, I have written a short clear description of the new concept in the PR description with links to source documentation, for inclusion in release notes" (or something like that) - when we merge, we can copy the note to a wiki page in preparation for the release along with a link to the PR that introduced it. - Kim S.
• 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 does the correlation id work? Do we need to change it? https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3335

  • 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 
• Mohana Sarmiento (Scholaris) [Wiki account coming soon!]
• Rachel Wang (Scholaris) 

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 will be at 15:00UTC. 
  • Oct 31 at 15:00UTC  (Temporarily, one hour later for North America / anyone still in DST)
• OR2025 planning.  Good discussion on possible proposals /sessions for OR2025.  Tim will create a wiki page of ideas:
  • Developer Meeting (workshop) at OR2024 was a huge success.  We should re-run this for OR2025.  Pascal-Nicolas Becker offered to help with it.
  • Contributing to DSpace (workshop) similar to the one at the 2024 DSpace North American User Group Meeting ( Tim Donohue and Holger Lenz )
    • Pierre Lasou would similarly like to have a "How to Test DSpace PRs" workshop.  It might be combined with this Contributing workshop?
  • DSpace 9.0 Release & Roadmap (talk) from Tim Donohue and/or Holger Lenz 
  • Talk or Panel or Workshop regarding the DSpace & DSpace-CRIS "Intent to Merge".  This would provide updates on any decisions that have been made.  (Ideally at this time, we would know if the merger will occur in 10.0 or not)
• DSpace and DSpace-CRIS Intent to Investigate Merger feedback
  • Good discussion on next steps/timelines.
  • Overall, next steps are just to form the planning groups (once Steering has finalized their charges). No exact date yet from Steering on when the planning groups will be formed, but hopefully sometime in November.
  • The exact timelines for a decision on the merger are unclear.  These planning groups will need to be given time to provide feedback & recommend a roadmap.   Unlikely that any merger decision will be rapid, but ideally a decision will be made before  the 9.0 release on the priorities for 10.0.  So, if the merger would happen in 10.0, we'd know in the next 6 months.  But, if a decision is not ready by then, that would imply that the merger is more complex and will not occur in 10.0.
  • There will be opportunities to volunteer for  one of the merger planning groups (if you are interested).  However, the groups may need to be scoped in terms of size (in order to get things done).  Tim notes though that he'd want the groups to be as transparent as possible (public meeting notes, etc) to allow others to follow along and give ongoing feedback.   Updates would also be brought back to this DevMtg.
• Draft 9.0 Release Schedule feedback
  • Jan 15, 2025 is very soon .  This may be difficult to achieve for new features
    • Tim offered to bump this back a week along with everything else
  • Why are we aiming for April?  Can we aim for May?
    • April avoids the stress of Open Repositories.  Sometimes OR is in early June, which makes a May release stressful/difficult.   We can lose attention as people are preparing for OR.
  • We all realize that 9.0 planning started way too late.  The key issue is that 8.0 was late, and 7.6.x was late before it.   
  • We're trying to get ourselves back on a "reasonable yearly schedule" and April is the ideal month for a release.   This does unfortunately mean that 9.0 will likely include less features.  It's going to need to be a more tightly scoped release anyways. See updated 9.0 feature scoping at DSpace Release 9.0 Status
  • How to decide which new features are allowed in 9.0?
    • We may need to delegate some of these decisions to the upcoming Merger Technical Planning Group.  Ideally, any new features added in 9.0 would not make a potential DSpace-CRIS merger more difficult .  What "more difficult" means might need to be defined by this planning group, so that we can better answer this question
    • Overall, if the feature aligns with priorities listed at DSpace Release 9.0 Status, then it can be added in 9.0
    • If a feature does not align with those priorities, it may need more discussion in the planning group to ensure it doesn't make a potential merger more difficult 

Action items

• Tim Donohue will create road map for 9.0 development