[Zope3-dev] Zope 3 releases?

[Jim Fulton]

Recent discussions make it obvious to me that we need to come to  
terms with Zope 3 releases.

I have some ideas and observations.  I don't have decisions at this  
point.  We need to make some decisions as a community, with me  
hopefully helping at times to get us unstuck. :)

- The classic 3.4 release seems to be stalled.  This was to be a  
release modeled on previous Zope 3 releases.  It provides a  
monolithic Zope 3 application.  I expect that it is stalled because  
the person who volunteered to see it through overcommitted and, more  
importantly, it isn't of much practical use, except as a testing  
platform or as some sort of known good configuration.  The original  
rational was that we didn't want to be too disruptive in the next  
release.  I think we've been overtaken by events and a lack of  
interested resources.

- There is a desperate need for a  known good configuration of  
components that work well together and that people can build on  
without having to think too hard about the underlying platform.

- There is a need for a mechanism for testing "core" components to  
make sure they don't cause breakage.

- We need to decide what Zope 3 is.  Zope 3 is *not* an application.  
I think there is fairly broad agreement on that.  I can think of  
several words that could be used to describe what it *is*, like  
"platform", "environment", "ecosystem".  I think it's time we came up  
with the elevator speech for what Zope 3 is.  It should be a few  
sentences at most.  It need not be carved in stone forever, but it  
should be agreed on and used for tactical planning.  This should  
probably go hand in hand with the bigger definition of what Zope is  
along the lines of the ideas that Tres expressed at the DZUG in Potsdam.

- We need to decide what a Zope 3 release is (or maybe multiple  
flavors).  I favor copying the linux experiences, but have an open mind.

- We need a *realistic* (especially wrt available resources) process  
for managing releases.  There are 2 aspects of this.  We shouldn't  
make plans for which there aren't enough resources.  We also  
shouldn't plan significant tasks that people won't care enough to  
work on.  I think the classic Zope 3.4 release is a good example of a  
large effort that really wouldn't benefit many people, if any.

Jim

--
Jim Fulton
Zope Corporation