[kde-community] Proposal One: KDE (Core) Apps and Suites

[Jos Poortvliet]

On Thursday 01 May 2014 14:50:44 Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> El Dimecres, 30 d'abril de 2014, a les 10:48:44, Jos Poortvliet va 
escriure:
> > On Monday 28 April 2014 11:08:34 Martin Klapetek wrote:
> > > On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 10:12 PM, Jos Poortvliet <
> > > 
> > > jospoortvlietstanburdman at gmail.com <jospoortvliet at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > > > I think the idea of grouping releases ('Sigma'?) is a good one. How
> > > > about
> > > > we
> > > > start there. Let's give Applications more freedom, yet allow them to
> > > > be
> > > > part
> > > > of the 'bunch', yes? Calligra, Amarok, the Extragear apps - they
> > > > should
> > > > be
> > > > part of the KDE Applications. Fold it all in there, with more
> > > > flexibility
> > > > thanks to more regular (but non-mandatory) releases. Yes, everybody
> > > > their
> > > > own
> > > > release numbers, no synchronization needed at all. Not every release
> > > > needs
> > > > every application, but perhaps for convenience of distro's we provide
> > > > everything in a tarball- just not with updated version numbers. They
> > > > can
> > > > ship
> > > > KDE Applications 2015.6 (?) and be sure to have all of them, but many
> > > > of
> > > > the
> > > > apps might not be different from those in KDE Applications 2015.2.
> > > 
> > > I think the release numbers should be all the same and perhaps even the
> > > number of the "Sigma" release (also, we should come up with something
> > > else
> > > than "Sigma" before it catches on and stays...like "SC"...unless we
> > > want
> > > it
> > > to stay). Otherwise it will be a mess imho - "KDE Applications 2015.6
> > > contains Dolphin 5.2.1, Calligra 7.8, Amarok 4.6.4, Kontact 5.3.1" --
> > > "KDE
> > > Applications 2015.12 contains Dolphin 5.2.3, Calligra 8.1, Amarok
> > > 4.8.2,
> > > Kontact 5.4.1"....are those own version numbers really that important?
> > > It
> > > could just as well be "Dolphin 2015.6" or "Amarok 2015.12" (or some
> > > other
> > > numbers), but unified. More coherent, more clear, more simple. The
> > > downside I see is that the apps' developers would need to commit to
> > > this
> > > new policy, which might hit some resistance.
> > 
> > Look at what we try to do here: message that our applications are
> > separate
> > and independent. There is nothing about Ktouch that requires Amarok, and
> > Words is just fine without Kanagram. The fact that, on a release
> > engineering level, we release them in batches - that is irrelevant for
> > users. They just get the one app they want, be it for Windows, Mac,
> > Linux, Android...
> > 
> > Delivering it as a 'suite' with the same version numbers gives the
> > impression they do belong together. But they don't - the only thing KDE
> > software has in common is the people who make it. Functionally, you can
> > use them anywhere, alone or in groups, separate or combined.
> > 
> > Also - most apps wouldn't release with every sigma release, so more than
> > half our applications is out of sync most of the time. Having Kontact and
> > Gwenview 2014.8 and Words and Palapeli 2014.6 and Amarok 2015.2 all being
> > the latest version seems more confusing than Kontact 1.8, Gwenview 2.3
> > etc
> > etc on their own. That is what people are used too.
> > 
> > I don't see a strong argument for syncing the release numbers, the
> > confusing part doesn't convince me. There's plenty of different version
> > numbers on your system atm ;-)
> > 
> > But if anybody knows a good reason to sync, say so please.
> 
> There are a few reaons to sync releases:
>  * Most of the devels of "KDE Applications" apps don't want to do the
> releases themselves after 15 years of a release team doing it for them
>  * Having synched release schedules for "KDE Applications" like we have
> done for 15 years allows me to know easily if an application is on freeze
> or not, if suddenly as a developer I have to keep track of 160 different
> release schedules, count me out of doing fixes in those apps.
>  * We have lots of applications with "no real maintainer" but I can still
> go there, fix something that is i18n related and know it will be release
> next month with the next "KDE Applications" release, with your plan of
> "everyone releases its own stuff" my fix would never reach the user.

Agreed - but not what I was asking. Sorry, I was purely talking about syncing 
the version numbers - not about doing releases together. That saves work and 
is a good thing. The above would be an answer to Martin Klaptek when he said:
> To be honest I don't see the point of my application actually joining the
> joint release...

Cheers,
Jos

> Cheers,
>   Albert
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