3.1 to 4.0

[MichaelC]

This has been discussed all over the place. My suggestion is this:

After 3.1 releases alpha:

• A release manager would remain in charge of 3.1.x
• Another release manager would work on features for the 3.x branch
• Another release manager would be appointed to work on 4.0.x

Then as originally suggested in the development process changes some development team members will primarily focus on bug fixes for 3.1 AND features for phpBB 3.2
phpBB 3.2, in vague accordance with this suggestion, a number of small features (nothing like a hooks system and the mini travel sized kitchen sink, just maybe changes like changing registration, adding a CAPTCHA and maybe 1 biggish feature(like a new BBcode engine)). This would be quite small and only involve tiny features and therefore it would not impact heavily on the development of 4.0

The remaining team members would work on phpBB 4.0 working to get it written.

But that suggestion doesn't fit with the topic title
It does though. It means all feature development effort (that has been going into 3.1) would go into 4.0. But it would not mean that there wouldn't be any feature releases in 3-4 years or however long it takes to develop phpBB 4.0.

Who develops features for 3.2?
As the features are small, it would not require massive amounts of time to work on.
The features would be mainly developed by the community but any features from the development team would be from the bug-fixers and therefore the development of 4.0 would not be affected.

Rhea developers becoming distracted
This is almost certainly going to happen which is why it needs to be distinct who is working on what. To get 4.0 out in the next 3-4 years it would require the people working on it to be really focused on it and not popping in to develop a feature for 3.2 or a bug fix for 3.1. Obviously phpBB 3 developers could contribute but it would only be a one way street.

Personally, this is the only way I can see being Rhea progressing while not having complaints because of a lack of feature releases to Ascraeus and Arsia during the development of Rhea.

Thoughts?

[Oleg]

So who is going to work on 4.0?

Before any new features can be implemented, tons and tons of existing 3.x features need to be reimplemented, and that part I'm not looking forward to doing.

[MichaelC]

So who is going to work on 4.0?

Before any new features can be implemented, tons and tons of existing 3.x features need to be reimplemented, and that part I'm not looking forward to doing.

Well, that would be up to you guys about whether you want to work on phpBB 3 or phpBB 4.

[Ger]

Just to make it clear for me: You suggest that the development team will be split up in 2:
3.x development team
4.x development team
(not necessarily split up in user groups, just for my idea)

While I think you have a basically good idea here (dedicated developers for a branch) I think you're going a bit far by stating

Obviously phpBB 3 developers could contribute but it would only be a one way street

This conflicts with the idea of "free" contributing; someone who want to contribute to 3.x when he finds a bug is prohibited just because he's a 4.x developer? Obviously that's not what you want. However: it is more efficient...

I guess the dev team should work out this suggestion among their own...

[callumacrae]

+1 to OP

How about leave 3.1.x to non-dev team contributors (or have one developer left behind), and have minor releases only? This means that the dev team is free to focus on 4.0, and 3.1.x remains maintained.

[MichaelC]

+1 to OP

How about leave 3.1.x to non-dev team contributors (or have one developer left behind), and have minor releases only? This means that the dev team is free to focus on 4.0, and 3.1.x remains maintained.

At the moment there are only 4 non-team members that have over 3 contributions according to this. Only 1 has contributed since 15th November last year (not including outstanding pull requests). And only 1 non-team member (at present) has developed a 'large' RFC (AJAX).

As for non-development team members but still team members, there have been 2 (team members) contribute in the last 30 days.

3.1 can't be sustained on the head of 1 developer unless they were a full-time developer to be honest.

And the reason for suggesting still have a 3.2 but smaller is because otherwise people (the community) will start complaining about not having a feature release in 4 years.

Note: imkingdavid contributed quite a few largish RFCs recently but he was then added to the development team so I haven't included him.

[MartinTruckenbrodt]

Hello,
one evil idea:
Complete the core in Ascraeus.
Make Rhea just a complete redesign for the completed core.
Forget Arsia.

Or are you planning for the time after 2020?

Bye Martin

[tbackoff]

Forget Arsia

This has been my thought for a while now. phpBB2 to phpBB3 took 5 years 8 months. Here we are 4 years 6 months and we still haven't even finished what was supposed to be just a feature release. At this rate, and assuming 3.1 is released this year, 3.2 is looking at a 2017 release and phpBB4 is looking at a 2022 release. In fact, I was all for dropping 3.1 and just moving straight to 4, but as alot of work has already been put into it, this is not feasible.

[MichaelC]

I think we need a small feature release between 3.1 and 4.0 as 4.0 will take such a long time to develop, but the majority of efforts should be put into 4.0