Hi Everyone,
I would like to come up with a plan of action for the first release of the Servlet API.
Now that our CI infrastructure has been provisioned I think we should be in a position where we can start to make progress on this (the lack of a TCK may still be a hold up, but I think we may be able to work around this).
Below I am proposing what I think we need to do (which is obviously open to revision). Once we are happy with the action plan I would like to turn it into a set of actionable Github issues so we can start assigning tasks to people and hopefully start making progress.
As the info required to perform the release is not all in the same place I am trying to include links to the relevant resources with information about each step.
1) Prepare a pull request for the EE4J_8 branch in Github
According to [1] the first release should be done from the EE4J_8 branch on Github. It also lays out various requirements for this branch, including:
- In order to merge a PR into the EE4J_8 branch project lead or PMC approval is required and the change must be tested against the TCK which is currently not available.
- The PMC strongly recommends accepting only critical bug fixes to the
EE4J_8branch.
I think what this means in practice is that we will want to prepare a PR that contains all the changes required for the first release. I think these will include:
- Removing the maven remote resources plugin that adds the CCDL license file, and change the pom to include the correct license (PR at [2], discussion at [3])
- Add the gpg entry mentioned at [8] into pom.xml (I assume this is still required, it mentioned that it is a workaround)
- Anything else that is required (Mark mentioned he may have some additional items?)
Something we may have to think about is do we want to include Automatic-Module-Name in the manifest? There appears to be conflicting info on this. According to [4] we should hold off on this, however it appears that JAX-RS has done it. We may need to seek clarification from the PMC, but it sounds like we should not be doing it to stay as close to the EE8 artefacts as possible.
Once we have a complete set of changes for the release we are going to need to run the TCK against it before merging. As the Eclipse TCK is not available this will likely mean that someone with access to the TCK may have to run it locally.
2) Release Review
Next step is to follow the procedure listed at [5] and start the release review process. This means:
- Email the dev list with an intention to release
- Create a release record
- Schedule a release review [6]
- Notify emo@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Submit the IP log for review [7]
- Obtain PMC approval
Once we start this step we should be able to release in around 2 weeks. According to [6] we should allow a week for the IP Review + PMC Review, and then another week for the release review. Once all this is done we can start to do the actual release.
It looks like there will probably be a bit of time involved in getting all this correct, however it does look well documented.
3) Release using CI pipeline
Parts of this step can happen earlier in terms of setting up the CI pipeline, however we probably won't know for sure if the pipeline works without testing it with a real release, so likely some of this work will happen after the release review.
The instructions for CI setup are at [8] and at [9]. In terms of what has already been accomplished we have a CI setup up at [10], and OSSRH access set up by [11]. It sounds like gpg and the credentials we need have also been set up (going by the comment at [12]).
Mark has an untested release job set up on CI, although looking it was based on the JSONP job which I think was using the old infrastructure. I am not sure if we are better off trying to modify this job or just create a new one following the instructions at [8]. Either way I don't expect this to be a big deal.
Timeframe
In terms of timeframe I am hopeful we can sort out step 1) by the end of the week and have a EE4J_8 branch that is in a state that is ready for release, which means we can start the release procedure the following week (possibly even earlier, depending on what the overall consensus is).
Given that CI is now ready and the release is supposed to be similar to the existing EE8 release I don't see any reason to delay.
Feedback?
So this is where I think we are at based on my current understanding of the process. I would really like to hear what other people think so we can start the release process.
Stuart
