[kde-community] Applications in KDE Generation 5

[John Layt]

On 15 January 2014 22:15, Luigi Toscano <luigi.toscano at tiscali.it> wrote:
> John Layt wrote:
>> One other thing I would do is change our app lifecycle slightly.  I'd
>> introduce a new status of Deprecated that lies between Released and
>> Unmaintained, for apps like Kopete and KPPP that are no longer
>> relevant for most people or are being replaced, but may still have
>> limited use and so need to be kept alive for a while.  I'd envision a
>> new lifecycle metadata attribute that looks something like
>> Experimental -> Incubator -> Stable -> Deprecated -> Unmaintained,
>> with only Stable apps eligible to be included in the regular
>> Applications release cycle.
>
> Just my 2 cents here: I would be careful with this kind of lifecycle. An
> application with low activity (almost unmaintained) can be still stable for a
> long time, given our committment to binary compatibility. This is true
> especially for small applications, but it is something that should be considered.

Yes, stable would have a fairly wide definition, but that's deliberate
so it does include things like KCalc that really don't change much and
don't need much work done to them.  Perhaps an extra proviso of
"actively maintained" would be needed to be included in the regular
release cycle, where active means a named person as maintainer who
triages any bugs.

> Also, I would be careful to use the word "deprecated" for applications like
> Kopete, where Ktp has not covered all the functionalities (yet); also Kopete
> receives changes/fixes. This is for the 4.x world, at least (if Kopete is not
> ported to 5 the problem is solved, but otherwise the problem still holds).

Yeap, the terminology comes from me being a libraries person,
deprecated api for us means still working and supported, we just think
there's a better option so we won't put much effort into improving it.
 If there's a better word to use for normal people then that would be
fine :-)

One benefit from looking at the apps in this way will be to decide
what does and doesn't get ported, labelling something as unmaintained
says don't bother, deprecated would be port only if you really need it
and don't make too much effort modernising it (use kde4support).  Of
course, if someone really wants to keep Kopete going they're welcome
to do the work required and to take on maintainer status, and that
would qualify for regular release status, but achieving that extra
level of being included in Essentials would require wider community
support, and I see that position in the future belonging to Ktp.
That's really what this email is about, getting those sorts of
conversations going about specific apps so we know where to start once
KF5 goes final.

Cheers!

John.