[Libreoffice] minutes of tech steering call ...

[Michael Meeks]

Attendees:
	+ Michael, Caolan, Kendy, Andreas, Rainer, Timar,
	  Tor, Thorsten, Petr, Francois, Norbert, Cedric

* Completed AA's
	+ binned dlsym'd fontconfig & non-fontconfig X font code paths (Caolan)
	+ avoid: completely junking gnome-vfs backend & startup hooks (Caolan)
		+ glib not built internally, and system integration issues with gio
		+ RHEL5 & similar vintage don't have gio => gnome-vfs still needed
	+ put Rainer in touch with Gerv (Michael)
        + kill Adabas integration dead in master (Francois)
		+ disabled for a release, removed next release

* AA still pending:
        + Easy Hacks - completion / fixing (Bjoern)
        + get SmartArt into master as an experimental feature (Thorsten)
	+ remove old non-cairo cases (Caolan)
	+ bin monochrome & paletised display support with prejudice (Caolan)

* Action Items
* QA feedback (Rainer)
	+ short report concerning results of our German QA Meeting last weekend
		+ lots of barbeque, fun, and some results
		+ bugzilla - leave it at freedesktop.org or not ?
			+ collect goals & required features eg.
			  UNCONFIRMED as default & some timelines
			+ then discuss with freedesktop guys.
			+ concerns: wrt. compromises wrt. other projects
			+ probably: some day, one year out ? migrate away.
			+ decision in six months time.
			+ eg. automated access for bug reporting agent ?
			+ bugzilla setup easy, but upgrade / migration hard.
		+ bug hunting ...
			+ try bug-hunting session each month:
			  every 1st Tuesday of a month, EU afternoon - night
			+ wiki page coming to list details
			+ main-page / August banner ads to encourage that
			+ goals: to confirm / triage bugs - no hacking skills
			  necessary
		+ help quality
			+ getting out of step with code changes in places
			+ a common feeling, something should be done
AA:			+ contact / discuss with the documentation team to
			  find owners for help bugs (Rainer)
			+ Timar to help out with minor cleanups / removals
		+ Extensions repo testing / status (Andreas Mantke)
			+ site is setup / working / published to website list
			+ http://extensions2.libreoffice.org/
			+ branding work improved, not opened for new accounts yet
			+ work on anti-spam account filtering ongoing
			+ populate with existing Free Software extensions
			+ contact extension authors to populate the site
			+ readying to go live.
	+ graphical comparison tool
		- update regression tests ongoing

* Cross-compilation update (Tor)
	+ what works
		+ configure script configures for cross-compilation
		+ make compiles native build-time tooling
		+ then cross-compilation starts
		+ for Windows - approx. 1/2 the way before errors,
		  due to missing pieces in MingW
			+ Jesus getting involved too, and re-appling
			  GSOC 2009 work to the problem from 'build'
			+ problematic msi creation tools, WINE ?
		+ for iOS - gets quite far, nothing is linked
			+ Matus' work should help here.
		+ for Android - tries to link things, much missing
		  from VCL etc.
			+ hopefully gtk3 / broadway work can help GUI-wise.
		+ to PPC Mac from Intel Mac - not tried it much, in
		  theory the easiest target.
	+ lots more work to do, but nothing really impossible
	+ UI for embedded platforms requires much more work

* Releng bits (Petr)
	+ 3.3.3 post-release roundup
		+ out last week, no known regressions filed
	+ future of 3.3 branch (Rainer)
		+ QA meeting tested 3.3.3
			+ less community interest in testing 3.3.3
			+ eagerness to test new features etc.
			+ concern for wasted man-power on 3.3.x
		+ what are our goals ?
			+ unify distro maintenance work
			+ keep security up-to-date
			+ key as balance for less stable point-zero versions etc.
AA:		+ communicate more minimal QA requirements for each release (Petr)
	+ 3.4.1 status / roundup & 3.4.2
		+ fdo#38590 charts seem to be leaking meta-file descriptors
		  as they are rendered (amazingly) - nasty.
			+ if in 3.4.0, no regression, release note & move on.
		+ otherwise large numbers of bugs fixed, RC2 pre-release builds ready
		+ should get announced tomorrow

* Release quality / complaints ... (Cor / Italo / Olivier)
	+ presenters not present
	+ extend the feature-freeze period for 3.5 ?
		+ Norbert: may not help people fix things, just move
		  their work to the next generation.
		+ Petr: earlier Beta / Alpha releases ? need to be useable
		  and QA done continuously / before freeze as well.
		+ Norbert: 3.4 impacted by merging m106, don't have this
		  issue next time around
		+ Caolan: nightly builds are now working, and should help
		  get QA access to the code, and insight into progress
		+ Caolan: more automatic regression tests are coming too
		+ Rainer: not much penetration in QA team of nightly
		  snapshots, most don't know where to find them.
AA:		+ check out nightlies, and encourage others to use (Rainer)
		+ Nobert: treat feature-freeze as a release for QA purposes ?
		+ Caolan: master perception - should be always ok, ready to ship
		  at any time - not actually broken modulo occasional build issues
	+ the future should not be as bad as the 3.4.0 panic.

* Posting TSC minutes on the blog ...
	+ Norbert: wording is very terse, not enough context, not suitable
	  for mass public consumption.
	+ Suggestion: needs to be expanded, and made more comprehensible,
	  someone who wants that can/should do it.

* library merging plan (Matus)
	+ didn't make it to the call

* gettext - should we use it for everything ?
	+ punt until next time ... need: Caolan, Bjoern
	+ preliminary thoughts:
		+ if no slower - cold / warm start
		+ if no bigger - bloating codebase
		+ then should use it, otherwise as a fallback.
	+ is fallback mode useful for translators ?
		+ not so useful for entirely new language
		  because the code needs lots of touching
		+ could be useful for established translators who
		  want to check their work quickly

* Norbert's whitespace cleaning C app
AA:	+ review it ASAP (Kendy, Tor)
	+ is the speed / correctness trade-off right ?
	+ speedup is 2x orders of magniture over sed on a 36hr conversion
	+ Tor: how fast is 'expand' as an alternative ?

-- 
 michael.meeks at novell.com  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot