Developers Meeting on Thurs, May 22, 2025

Time/Location

22 May 2025 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. Open Repositories 2025
     
     1. OR2025 DSpace Developer Meet-Up and Q&A (Workshop) - Sign up if you'd like to share your work or suggest a topic for discussion!
     2. DSpace at OR2025 - Wiki page of known DSpace-related talks to be presented at OR2025
  2. DSpace & DSpace-CRIS potential merger discussions
     1. DSpace and DSpace-CRIS Planning Groups - wiki pages to follow along with ongoing discussions.
     2. DSpace-CRIS and DSpace Differences  - List of known feature/architectural differences between DSpace 8 and latest version of DSpace-CRIS
  3. DSpace 9.0 release (see release schedule above)
     
     1. Please review the Release Notes
     2. 9.0 Release.  When to expect the release to be cut.
     3. Release Announcement likely on Tuesday, May 27 (because of USA's "Memorial Day" Holiday on Monday)
     4. Any final tasks left before release?
  4. DSpace 8.2 and 7.6.4 maintenance releases
     1. Maintenance Board (9.x, 8.x, 7.6.x)
     2. Maintenance releases to backport recent bug / accessibility fixes that will be first released in 9.0
     3. Setting a tentative dates for these releases: Just after Open Repositories?
  5. DSpace 10.0 Brainstorming
     1. New 10.0 Board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/32
     2. Obviously priorities for 10.0 depends heavily on a final decision around a potential merger with DSpace-CRIS.  In meantime, 10.0 has general priorities similar to DSpace Release 9.0 Status
     3. Are there other features / improvements you'd like to see soon in DSpace?
  6. Other topics
     
     1. (Please add any here that you'd like to discuss)
• 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.
  • Maintenance Board (9.x, 8.x, 7.6.x) - 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)
  
  • Ongoing Discussions (temporarily put on hold until there are updates):
    1. High CPU with DSpace 7 SSR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3110  (This should be alleviated through several SSR related performance improvements coming in 7.6.3 and 8.1)
    2. Simplifying the Installation Process: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3184
  • Discussion: how to keep message catalogues in sync? https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/3334

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 
• Sascha Szott 
• Marsa Haoua 
• Jesiel Viana 
• 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. 

Priorities listed at DSpace Release 9.0 Status. 

Goals for 8.2 / 7.6.4

Deadline is TBD for both 8.2 and 7.6.4.  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

Reminders and Updates

• Open Repositors will be happening June 15-18, 2025
  • DSpace Developers workshop will happen on June 15; please sign up if you'd like to share your work or suggest a topic for discussion
  • See DSpace at OR2025 for all DSpace related presentations, workshops, etc. at OR25; slide decks will be gathered on this page for those who cannot attend OR
• Merger discussion is ongoing 
  • No decision made as of yet 
  • Technology group will meet today
  • Current discussions revolve around DSpace-CRIS and DSpace Differences
  • If you have any questions or notice that something is missing from this list, please feel free to edit the wiki page or reach out to Tim/Holger

9.0 Release

• Tim is still working on a final count of contributors, probably in 80-100 range
• Release notes are close to being finalized; please look through them to double check them if you (or your client) is recognized correctly 
• Documentation is in good state; please take a look and double check things (esp. committers)
• Acknowledgment section is not yet up to date; backend section still needs to be updated; once this list is fully ready for review, Tim will ping the dev channel on slack; please review this as well
• Release will go out either today or tomorrow; announcement will happen next Tuesday (Monday is a national Holiday in the US); Tim will send updates on the dev channel in slack
• If there are any other final tasks, please contact Tim as soon as possible
• A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed!

Maintenance releases

• Even after 9.0 goes out the door, DSpace 7 is still under maintenance
• Tim has updated our maintenance board to include 9.x maintenance, has moved over all bug tickets off the old 9.0 board on GitHub (other than things in the "done" category) into the maintenance board; the old 9.0 board will be closed out once the release has been officially completed
• There is a new 10.0 board, where all the new features that didn't make 9.0 have been moved to
• Please review the boards, esp. the maintenance board, since we want to get maintenance releases out for 8.2 and 7.6.4 relatively soon (after OR); anything in 9.0 flagged to be backported and is still outstanding will be backported into these
  
  • There's no deadline for these as of yet, we will set one in the coming weeks
  • There are some bug fixes on the 9.0 board that have the "port to" label; some have not yet been ported; please take a look to see what hasn't been backported yet

10.0 Release

• There is a 10.0 board that has not yet been organized or cleaned up; everything feature related left over from 9.0 is now on that board
• There is already a big backlog on the "under review" and "needs reviewer assigned" columns (~130)
  • A lot of these PRs have been opened for some time
  • Would be great if we could come up with a strategy, ideas on how to speed up this process; please pass any ideas Tim's way
    • Steering will be discussing speeding up code reviews in the coming weeks and try to come up with ideas and solutions
  • If you'd like to see them in 10.0 release, please test these, review these
• Some bug tickets found their way on to this board and need to be cleaned up
• Tentative plan: have 10.0 out roughly a year after 9.0's release; no date as of yet, but roughly May 2026
• 10.0 priorities will heavily depend on the outcome of the merger planning work
  • Hopefully in the next month or two, we will have more clarity around a potential merger
  • Until there is more clarity, we will proceed similar to 9.0 release
    • Priorities for 9.0 were purposefully vague
    • As always, there is a ticket open related to any major work you'd like to do; if the ticket doesn't already exist, please make one
    • Please let Tim know if you'd like to claim something that is currently not on the board
  • As soon as there are more official guidelines, we can shift as necessary what we will do for 10.0
• Discussion: Do you have any brainstorms, features, or improvements you'd like to see coming to DSpace?
  • We will have this discussion throughout the next weeks; please think about this 
  • Refactor of JUnit 4 to 5; upgrading dependencies related to testing, which would allow us to move to JDK 21
  • More advanced audit trail functionality 
  • Enhanced Statistics
  • Explore Springshell in order to replace the current CLI tools: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/10054
  • New guidelines for accessibility that will be coming into effect in the US in 2026; not just platform, but content-related
    • Is there a way to make content uploaded to DSpace more accessibility compliant?

Action items