Developers Meeting on Thurs, Oct 3, 2024

Time/Location

03 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

There will be no meeting on Thursday, October 10 because Tim Donohue and Holger Lenz will be attending a Lyrasis All Staff retreat that week. Our next Developers' meeting will be on Thursday, Oct 17.

Agenda

Discussion Topics - If you have a topic you'd like to have added to the agenda, please just add it.
1. DSpace 9.0 release (tentative April 2025)
  1. 9.0 Board is created: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/31/
  2. Early ideas/brainstorms captured at DSpace Release 9.0 Status
2. 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
3. Other topics
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
- DSpace accepts external identifiers (DOIs and such) from submitters, and manages others (DOIs again, Handles) itself. Should these be stored in separate metadata fields? what fields? what schema? Various bits of DSpace have disagreed on the answers. See also https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/1006.
- 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

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

Updates

There will be no official dev meeting next week (Oct. 10). The next meeting will take place on Oct. 17. The Zoom room will still be open next week for anyone who would like to join and discuss things informally

9.0 Release Development Priorities

Still no formal decision/direction from Leadership
Looks likely that the main points in the "Under Discussion for 9.0" section on the DSpace Release 9.0 Status page will be priorities for 9.0 development
Tentative release date of 9.0 is still April 2025
Tim Donohue will create a rough development road map with dates; first draft planned to be available for the Oct. 17 dev meeting

Ongoing Discussion

Incentivizing Code Reviews and PR Testing: No updates
High CPU with DSpace 7 SSR:
- Krzysztof noticed circular requests, which could account for increased CPU load (see discussion section in the ticket)
- Additionally, the question was raised whether the number of REST requests invoked seem unnecessarily high
- Krzysztof will investigate further and report back to the dev group
Using both public/private REST API URLs for better performance:
- New PR from 4Science (#3358): 2 URLs for REST API - normal public one (client side) & ssrBaseURL (backend)
- Ready for testing and feedback; developers are welcome to add comments or reach out to Tim to be assigned as reviewers
Simplifying the Installation Process: No updates; if anyone has ideas, send them to Tim, add comments to discussion ticket, or bring them up during the next dev meeting(s)

Upcoming Topics

DOIs and handles: Pierre Lasou has shared ideas with Tim and Holger via email; will share publicly with the group at the next dev meeting
Refactoring and simplifying Live Import and External Data frameworks: No updates, but welcome to add thoughts to this issue and find collaborators

Board Review

Reviewed and discussed Make the CC license field component configurable in DSpace 8.0
- Can be accepted as-is, once code conflicts are cleaned up
- Question was brought up whether this should be moved to 9.0 or to 8.1; will discuss this further
Scopus metadata import: put DOIs in dc.identifier.doi
- Reviewed the discussion on this ticket and the code changes
- Relates back to where we want to store DOIs in general
- This is part of the larger discussion how we handle DOIs and where they should be stored; need to create a standard, discuss at the Oct. 17 meeting
Exclude submitter information in solr indexing
- Elicit feedback from developer as to why have anonymized submission; need to understand why placeholder name is useful
Support for multiple input files per process
- Missing automated tests
- Need to understand better why input files need to be type based according to developer's solution (why only one per type?)

Testing Pull Requests

Tim encouraged committers and developers to continue to test pull requests, do code reviews (see Testing DSpace Github Pull Requests)

Action items

Tim Donohue will create road map for 9.0 development