[Cucumber-linux-development] Development Plans for the Next Couple of Months

[Scott C. <sc...@cu...>]

Hello all,

It's been a while. Consequentially, this will be a long email. I
apologize in advance for this, but all of the information in here is
quite important, so please read all the way through it.

Believe it or not it is already time to start talking about *Cucumber
Linux 2.0* now that Cucumber Linux 1.1 has been released. Unfortunately,
our current infrastructure is not powerful enough to maintain Cucumber
Linux 1.0 and 1.1 and develop Cucumber Linux 2.0 simultaneously. I will
be substantially upgrading our infrastructure in the next couple of
months, after which we will be able to handle all three versions
simultaneously without infrastructure issue; however, until the upgrade
is complete, we will not have a development branch of Cucumber Linux.
The upgrade should be finished some time in June, so hold tight until then.

In the meantime don't fret, there are plenty of *other things to do*.

First, we can plan what *versions of the core packages* (see
https://cucumberlinux.com/support_policy.php) we will use for Cucumber
Linux 2.0. This requires careful research to ensure that all of the
versions of the core packages will be supported for a reasonable amount
of time, allowing us to fully support Cucumber Linux 2.0 for as long as
possible. I have already started researching this, and a spreadsheet
outlining what I have found can be found at
https://cucumberlinux.com/~scott/release_proposals/2.x%20Package%20Version%20Information%20DRAFT%201.html
<https://cucumberlinux.com/%7Escott/release_proposals/2.x%20Package%20Version%20Information%20DRAFT%201.html>.
I encourage you to double check my work here because it's very important
we get this right. Also, let me know if there are any packages you think
should be classified as core packages that are not listed on that
spreadsheet.

It's looking like the following will be our (very tentative) release
schedule for Cucumber Linux 2.0:

    June 2018 - Active development begins; cucumber-2.0 branched off of
cucumber-1.1.
    January 2019 - Cucumber Linux 2.0 released.
    November 29, 2021 - Cucumber Linux 2.0 End of Full Support.
    March 1, 2022 - Cucumber Linux 2.0 End of Life.

This is all subject to change, so don't get too worked up over any of
these dates (especially the release date; that one is the most
flexible). For a more visual depiction of this see
https://cucumberlinux.com/~scott/release_proposals/1.x%20&%202.x%20Release%20Cycles%20DRAFT%201.png
<https://cucumberlinux.com/%7Escott/release_proposals/1.x%20&%202.x%20Release%20Cycles%20DRAFT%201.png>.

Second, *the Ports Tree*. As everyone is probably well aware, the
current Cucumber Linux ports tree leaves a lot to be desired. I have
spoken to various people, and most people have indicated that the reason
they don't use Cucumber Linux more is one of the following: the lack of
documentation, or the lack of easily installable third party packages.
While we are waiting to start building Cucumber Linux 2.0, I would like
to work on addressing these two issues.

Everyone seems to have one or two packages he absolutely needs that is
not part of the official distribution. What I have in mind is creating a
ports tree hosted in a Git repository, containing buildscripts and
makefiles for building third party packages. This would allow several
people to easily create and update different package ports. Otherwise,
it would continue to work much the same as the current ports tree, which
works similarly to the FreeBSD/OpenBSD ports trees. From an end user
perspective, you would just have to `cd /usr/ports/<package> && make
install` to install the package. I'm still working on flushing out the
details (expect another lengthy email once that's done). If you have any
thoughts or ideas, drop me an email or ping me on IRC.

Third, *Documentation*. I have resumed my endeavor to write /The
Hitchhiker's Guide to Cucumber Linux/, a book going over the basics of
Cucumber Linux system administration. I have published the first preview
draft at
https://cucumberlinux.com/~scott/documentation/DRAFT%20PREVIEW%201%20-%20The%20Hitchhiker's%20Guide%20to%20Cucumber%20Linux%201.1.pdf
<https://cucumberlinux.com/%7Escott/documentation/DRAFT%20PREVIEW%201%20-%20The%20Hitchhiker%27s%20Guide%20to%20Cucumber%20Linux%201.1.pdf>.
Any and all feedback is welcome. If you'd be interested in helping work
on it, please let me know.

Ok I'm done. Thanks for sticking with me, and here's to a successful and
productive Cucumber Linux 2.0 development cycle.

    - Scott