[Libreoffice] minutes of tech steering call ...

[Michael Meeks]

Present:
	+ Michael, Norbert, Kendy, Andras, Bjoern, Thorsten,
	  Petr, Fridrich, Cedric, Kohei, Rene, Mitch

* AA done:
        + encourage(d) QA guys to quietly dig at snapshots
		+ master now parallel installable (thanks Andras)
		+ to get a release build: --enable-release
	+ improved Easy Hacks wiki pages (Bjoern)
	+ UNO / ABI breaking changes into a set of wiki page for 4.0 (Bjoern + Kohei)

* AA still pending:
        + research when gio came into widespread being (Caolan)
                cf. http://www.gtk.org/download-linux.html
        + wiki's impress 3.4 feature list (Thorsten)
        + the rdb setup stuff is still too cumbersome (Bjoern)
	+ get SmartArt into master as an experimental feature (Thorsten)
	+ announce new 4.0 wiki page (Bjoern)
	+ write list of things that suck for newcomers with taste (Mitch / Christian)

* 3.4 status ... (Petr / Fridrich)
	+ good progress fixing bugs
	+ much more testing going on
	+ many people seem unaware that we are using a time based release schedule
AA:		+ write up the rational for that (Michael)

* confusion wrt. 'most annoying bugs' tracker bug (Petr)
	+ is it for long standing / annoying bugs ? or for blockers ?
	+ instead: it should list all bugs we would like to fix in 3.4.x releases
AA:	+ move all 'feature' bugs to new "most annoying for 3.5" bug (Petr)
AA:	+ Petr to decide and come up with a static link of key bugs (Petr)

* announcing binfilter as deprecated in 3.4
	+ want to warn people in plenty of time
	+ officially deprecate it, we drop save support in 3.4
	+ be warned - it will die in a new major release soon.

* reviewboard / etc. (Bjoern)
	+ would using it make things easier for new developers ?
		+ another authentication account required
		+ help tracking the patch pipeline, and its status
	+ problems with off-line use
	+ is a separate patches mailing list good ?
		+ no - best to have a big friendly noise (Kendy)
		+ happy for an additional tool though (kendy)
	+ reviewing patches in bugs can be good (Mitch)
		+ but many patches get lost ~forever without poking (Michael)
	+ one mailing list best, but interested in reviewboard (Norbert)
	+ script could generate reviewboard tasks from ML (Bjoern)
AA:	+ Bjoern to investigate and come back with a more concrete proposal

* ESC membership discussion

* single git repo test (Norbert)
	+ performance is workable, merging less of an issue
	+ next step to setup a test repo
	+ necessary for tinderboxes / git bisect
AA:	+ come up with a concrete plan (Norbert, Kendy)
		+ first-cut - just merge the repos: preserves history
		+ makes history odd, but preserves ownership nicely
		+ do we migrate 3.3 / 3.4 ? (probably not)
		+ new repo names needed.
	+ plan to pull trigger mid 3.5 devel. cycle.

* 3.5 release ...
	+ nudging closer to distribution cycles / alignment ?
		+ when should we go for maximum effect ?
	+ with less table point-zero releases, distros will
	  use other versions
	+ if point zero releases are less stable, distros will
	  use other versions
	+ should the office suite be in sync. with the desktop ?
AA:	+ generate a preferred date for a .2 release (Petr, Bjoern, Caolan)
		+ we review these; and build a six monthly schedule around it

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