Current status of Zesty and Backports

[Simon Quigley]

Hello everyone,

I planned to send this email yesterday but I didn't get a chance to. It
would be good to plan the next few weeks for getting packages in Zesty
and the Backports repositories so we know what to work on. I proposed a
timeline on Big Blue Button yesterday while we were doing merges, but I
didn't get a yes or no from everyone, so I'm proposing the following
timeline:

Wednesday, November 9:
 * Have the autopkgtests finished for Frameworks 5.27
 * Upload Frameworks 5.27 to Zesty
 * Upload Frameworks 5.27 to Backports Landing, wait for Plasma 5.8.3 to
do anything with it
 * Upload Plasma 5.8.3 to the Staging PPA
 * Create the Trello card for Plasma Debian Syncs and start doing so

Saturday, November 12:
 * Plasma should be completely merged from Debian and autopkgtests
should be working
 * Frameworks 5.27 should have completely migrated from zesty-proposed
to zesty-release so Plasma 5.8.3 can be built against it in the archive
 * Upload Plasma 5.8.3 to Zesty
 * Upload Plasma 5.8.3 to Backports Landing, send out a call for testers
so we can migrate this to Backports
 * Upload Frameworks 5.28 to the Staging PPA
 * Recompile the Plasma in Staging against Frameworks 5.28 and fix any
problems that may arise from doing so, to be prepared for Plasma 5.8.4

Wednesday, November 16:
 * Frameworks 5.27 should have completely migrated from zesty-proposed
to zesty-release so nothing tries to build against Frameworks 5.28
 * Upload Frameworks 5.28 to Zesty
 * Upload Frameworks 5.28 to Backports Landing
 * Move Plasma 5.8.3 and Frameworks 5.27 to Backports (we could postpone
this a couple days)

After that is done, we would have the following:

Staging:
 * Plasma 5.8.3
 * Frameworks 5.28
 * Applications 16.04.3

Zesty Archive:
 * Plasma 5.8.3 (compiled against Frameworks 5.27)
 * Frameworks 5.28
 * Applications 16.04.3

Backports Staging:
 * Plasma 5.8.3 (compiled against Frameworks 5.27)
 * Frameworks 5.28
 * Applications 16.04.3

Xenial/Yakkety Backports:
 * Plasma 5.8.3
 * Frameworks 5.27
 * Applications 16.04.3

This would be a loose timeline and we could adjust timing when
appropriate, but it would be great if we had a general plan.

After this is done, we have a few weeks until Plasma 5.8.4 is released.
It would be great if we could schedule a day on a weekend where we get
together on Big Blue Button, do what we did with the Frameworks Debian
Merges, and try to make KCI very close to being spotless (or maybe even
100%). We talk out whatever issues we have, maybe someone shares their
screen, but it's a time to be productive and all in one place to talk
about issues. Getting KCI FTBFS jobs down to a manageable amount should
be a priority within the team, and in the few weeks we have before we
need to stage another KDE release, we could get that done for sure.

Another thing we could discuss in the meantime is making sure that while
we are shipping the latest software, all of the software is usable and
works as intended. I think it would be beneficial if we had a bug
hunting session and ensure that whatever bugs we have are reported and
being worked on. This makes a better Kubuntu for all of us.

An example of an area of Kubuntu that is very buggy is KMail. Yesterday
I tried to set it up, but I couldn't set it up because it was having
problems with Akonadi. We shouldn't ship software as buggy as that, and
people just installing software instead of that isn't an excuse. One
could install Thunderbird or Evolution (etc.), sure, but then why do we
include software that doesn't work on our seed?

So that is, in my opinion, what we should really focus on in the next
few weeks. We need to get these sort of things done now so that we
aren't suffering for the rest of the cycle.

Once those few weeks are over, we have another bugfix version of Plasma
to ship, 5.8.4. You may have noticed above that we ship Frameworks 5.28
but don't compile anything against it yet. I think this is a good thing
to do because it's less work in the long run for uploading packages. If
we sort out any issues Frameworks 5.28 might have *before* compiling a
whole desktop environment for it in Backports Landing or the Archive,
that would be preferred. A few weeks of maintenance time doesn't hurt,
either.

Plus, the Kubuntu users that are developers get the latest Frameworks
with new features and bugfixes, which is also a good thing to have.
Developers are users too. ;)

So the way I propose it's set up is this. We get Plasma 5.8.3 compiled
against Frameworks 5.27, get both of those in Zesty archive and
Backports, then we get Frameworks 5.28 in Staging. While people are
testing that, we recompile Plasma 5.8.3 against it in the Staging Plasma
PPA by setting a build dep in the PPA options. If there are any visible
issues, we take note of them and get them fixed in the Staging PPA. But
we would actually release Plasma 5.8.4 built against Frameworks 5.28.

I think we should do this, unless somebody sees the importance of
waiting until Frameworks 5.28 lands to ship Plasma 5.8.3 (and compile
against that). Please do speak up if you think we should go that route,
and postpone the timeline until then.

The one other thing I wanted to write about in this email is
Applications. Currently, we're waiting on Qt 5.7.1 to land in the
archive to upload Applications. With that Qt release will come
QtWebEngine and QtWebChannel, which are needed dependencies for this new
Applications release if I remember correctly. I've been talking with
Timo and I'll help get Qt 5.7.1 in the archive. We don't know an exact
timeline yet, as we're waiting for the Qt release team to release, but
once Qt 5.7.1 is released, it will go into a PPA. From there, we should
recompile all of our packages in KCI against it and make sure there are
no breaks caused by the new Qt. At this point we could also set the Qt
PPA as a dep of Staging Applications, and upload a fresh Applications
release there. We can work out any problems there, and wait for Qt to
land in the archive to upload it.

While it will land in the Qt PPA soon after 5.7.1 is released, Timo told
me it takes *months* sometimes to get everything in the Ubuntu Phone
repositories and everything else working. Since not only do we need Qt
5.7.1 in the archive for Kubuntu (for Applications) but Lubuntu as well,
so we can continue work on our LXQt transition, I plan on working
closely with Timo to learn and speed this up whenever possible. I'll
keep you all posted about this.

Thoughts?

-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2 at ubuntu.com
tsimonq2 on freenode and OFTC
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