Clarifications about Kubuntu Automation branches and development

[José Manuel Santamaría Lema]

Hi,

during the last Kubuntu Vision meeting we had a discussion about how KA should 
be handled.

One of the things proposed was having stable/master branches. So far we had 
just one branch: 'master' where it's the tooling we are using to provide new 
packages in the PPA's and the archive.

I asked why do you think the KA code was handled in just a single branch and 
the answer I got was very disappointing. Here are some technical reasons why 
the KA code was handled so far in a single master branch:

1. Code that needs to be changed constantly with packaging changes:
A good example of this is the current package-names-list script:
https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/kubuntu-automation/tree/
package-name-list?id=3ec6c0ef56f5783c016980f8706462a6b64dd1dc
See line 14 and below.

2. Embedded data that needs to be constantly updated with new packaging.
For instance:
https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/kubuntu-automation/commit/
dev-package-name-lists/plasma-zesty.json?
id=543816b3e81fce90c8d5732b8970c632df9eaa71

3. The package status page (and its configuration which we have to adjust from 
time to time) is also in the KA master branch, see:
https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/kubuntu-automation/commit/
build-status-conf?id=d08e64cb16955415737195f714adec240ab52a42

4. Some time ago with the feedback from other developers, I proposed and 
worked on the implementation of a new design for KA. That's what we, the 
developers, usually call "the new tooling" @ IRC. The implementation of the 
'new tooling' is still a bit unmature, so we still need to do constantly some 
improvements to make sure it fits our needs. Still, I think even in its slighly 
unmature state the "new tooling" is working better than the old one. So far we 
used it succesfully to provide some of the packaging you are using right now 
since the end of the Yakkety cicle.

So as you can see, when I rejected the idea of having stable branches it's not 
actually "my way or the highway", it's a bit more like "we did it like that, 
because it was the only feasible way".

That being said, *maybe* in the future we could have stable releases of 
Kubuntu Automation, but we can't in it's current state. So please be patient 
and don't try to rush weird proposals about how to handle the KA code if you 
don't actually understand the KA code. It was very 'creepy' to see non-
technical people throwing random proposals about how to handle the KA code 
(no offense intended of course).

Since we can't really have stable/development branches we are doing something 
slightly different to alleviate the problem of people getting bugs from KA 
after pulling something from the master branch:
https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2016/11/11/%23kubuntu-devel.html#t22:23

Also, FYI a chat we had about KA branches:
https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2016/11/08/%23kubuntu-devel.html#t22:52

Cheers.