Editing Online Developer Meeting (2020-11-10)

* Date: [https://octave.discourse.group/t/online-developer-meeting-2020-11-10-the-future-of-octave-packages/349 Tuesday, November 11, 2020 @ 18:00 UTC]
* Location: https://meet.jit.si/octave-dev-2020-11-10

== Todays topics ==

* Meet and greet 5 minutes before meeting (audio testing).

=== The future of Octave Packages ===
: ''See also [https://octave.discourse.group/t/online-developer-meeting-2020-11-10-the-future-of-octave-packages/349 Discourse].''

==== Key points to discuss (Kai) ====

 [[Octave Forge]] packages ⊂ [https://octave.org/doc/v5.2.0/Creating-Packages.html Octave] packages

* Creating, maintaining, installing Octave packages must become more simple/fun.
* Octave Forge needs more automation ([[#pkg-index]]) or manpower.
* Guide new package contributors (remove old, stale, irritating complex documentation).

==== The Octave Forge legacy ====

===== Facts and figures =====

* https://octave.sourceforge.io/packages.php
** '''50 community''' packages
** '''21 external''' packages
** several unmaintained / renamed packages
** '''25 new package releases''' (40 in total) for 2020.
** about 5 do not work with Octave 5.2 and about 12 will not work in Octave 6.1 ([https://octave.discourse.group/t/online-developer-meeting-2020-11-10-the-future-of-octave-packages/349/7 see link])

* https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/_members/
** 7 admins (only Olaf, Mike and Kai "active")
** 51 developer (maybe 10 recently)

* '''5 request''' for new packages in the last two years (2 approved).
** Octave Forge is not attractive, '''why?'''

===== https://octave.sourceforge.io/ =====

* Website looks great.
* No major updates (necessary) since 2018 http://hg.code.sf.net/p/octave/project-web
* Useful [https://octave.sourceforge.io/docs.php Function List]. '''How to update this {{bug|53860}}?'''
* Original developer (Oliver) no longer active.
* Adding and updating packages here is expensive/dangerous
** manual SFTP uploads
** no version control for the individual package documentation
** approx. 5-10 minutes per package release.

===== https://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/ =====

* FLOSS software based on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Allura Apache Allura]
* One of the last hosting services offering Mercurial (hg) support
* Slow and many commercials, [https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/project-web/commit_browser buggy UI].

====== Clumsy package development / releasing ======

* The procedure is documented in the wiki: [[Reviewing Octave Forge packages]]
** Experience of Kai after a few releases:
*** An "easy release" with basic installation/functionality checking/uploading takes me about '''20-30 minutes'''.
*** If something is wrong with the tarballs another 20-30 minutes.
*** Version numbers are tracked in too many locations (DESCRIPTION, configure.ac, ...)
*** Octave Forge claims "high quality"
**** No OF admin can enforce it within 20-30 minutes (e.g. lack of package domain knowledge).
**** '''Users find many bugs despite this "high quality" release check procedures.'''
**** Why not just automatically release packages (pkg-index)?

* Octave Forge suggests extensions to the official [https://octave.org/doc/v5.2.0/Creating-Packages.html Octave package format]
** [https://octave.sourceforge.io/templates/Makefile Maintainers Makefile]
*** Release tarballs must be manually created and uploaded.
*** Avoids automatic tarball creation (see [https://github.com/gnu-octave/pkg-example pkg-example]).  Better practice?
** The OF [http://hg.code.sf.net/p/octave/example-package/file/tip/plain-package example-package] is rather complicated, avoid advertising it any longer?

===== Savannah =====

When reporting an Octave (core) bug on https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=octave you are "greeted" with '''1523 open bug reports''' of which [https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=octave&func=browse&set=custom&msort=0&status_id=1&resolution_id=0&submitted_by=0&assigned_to=0&category_id=108&bug_group_id=0&severity=0&priority=0&summary=&details=&advsrch=0&msort=0&chunksz=100&spamscore=5&report_id=101&sumORdet=0&morder=bug_id%3C&sumOrdet=0&offset=0#results '''330 reports (22%)'''] belong to Octave Forge packages and '''240 (15%) are older than a year'''.

* They are not likely to be closed or worked on and leave a maintenance burden and bad impression (user requests for unmaintained packages are ignored there) back to Octave (core).  A recent example of such user frustration {{bug|60048}}.

Ideas:

* Ignore and collect requests to infinity?
* Close bugs of inactive packages older than X years?  (Drop the illusion, that someone ever will fix it.)
* Octave Forge suggests to [https://octave.sourceforge.io/support-help.php use the Savannah Bug tracker] for bug reports.  Drop this announcement?
* Reopen the [https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/bugs/ old Octave Forge bug tracker]?

===== MXE-Octave =====

* The MS Windows installer [[Octave for Microsoft Windows#Packages|bundles 47]] Octave packages.
* Are there criteria for including packages in the Windows installer?
* About 26 patches necessary to achieve this.

 of-communications-1-catop.patch
 of-fits-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-fits-2-fixes.patch
 of-fl-core-1-fixes.patch
 of-gsl-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-interval-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-ltfat-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-nurbs-1-fixes.patch
 of-nurbs-2-dev-fixes.patch
 of-ocs-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-ocs-2-dev-fixes.patch
 of-ocs-3-break-fixes.patch
 of-ocs-4-pkgadd-fixes.patch
 of-ocs-5-no-odepkg.patch
 of-odepkg-1-fixes.patch
 of-odepkg-2-fixes.patch
 of-odepkg-3-deprecated.patch
 of-quaternion-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-quaternion-2-dev-fixes.patch
 of-sockets-1-cross-fixes.patch
 of-sockets-2-deprecated.patch
 of-specfun-1-deprecated.patch
 of-statistics-1-cross.patch
 of-strings-1-fixes.patch
 of-tisean-1-fixes.patch
 of-video-1-fixes.patch

* Forced updates to the packages?
* Make criterion to drop package from installer if it no longer compiles "normally" (document somewhere)?
* Document how to request package inclusion in the MS Windows installer (open bug report, Discourse, manual)?

==== New directions ====

===== pkg-index =====

* https://gnu-octave.github.io/pkg-index/
* https://github.com/gnu-octave/pkg-index/

* Super set of Octave Forge (all packages in latest version included)
* Easy to add, update and delete entries (just one file of meta data)
* Advertise pkg-index as (only) major platform for Octave packages?

* Future development:
** Automated quality checks (dead URLs, pkg installation problems)

===== pkg tool =====

* Current pkg very interleaved with / limited by Octave Forge <code>-forge</code>
** Abstracting package registry / index?
* Alternatives exist [https://github.com/apjanke/octave-packajoozle octave-packajoozle (pkj)]

* General design: '''Making pkg an Octave package?'''
** Changes to pkg or the package format can be applied to old Octave versions.
** Multiple pkg tools can be developed.

====== Octave package format ======

* Documented [https://octave.org/doc/v5.2.0/Creating-Packages.html in the Octave manual]
* In general good Octave programming project organization.
* Permitting "DESCRIPTION.md" or "DESCRIPTION.txt" extensions? (Nice highlighting in many modern source code hosting platforms.)

=== General questions, open talk ===

* How to teach people that creating an Octave package is as simple as [https://github.com/gnu-octave/pkg-example pkg-example]?
* Packages must become smaller?
** Split large packages into different functionalities?
* Octave Forge package '''maintenance overtaking''' (inactive packages)?
** Authorship can never be "overtaken".
** Grace period after public email on the mailing-list?
** Forbidden at all, only package forking?
* Where to host package documentation?
** doc folder, wiki, in the repo itself (pkg-example README.md)?

=== Some outcomes of the meeting ===

* The responsibility for a package is with the maintainer, not Octave (core).
** Okay to continue the use of Savannah for current Octave Forge packages, but not for pkg-index.

* pkg-index
** How to treat malicious code/packages?  User reports, package removal.  Depending on the actual case.

* pkg tool as package
** If synchronized with Octave core, no usage of "if version ... else ..." code. (edit: I can't remember if we decided that this was a no-go. Just something that might be worth considering... -- [[User:Mmuetzel|Mmuetzel]] ([[User talk:Mmuetzel|talk]]))
** Watch out for problems with encodings (treated differently in older Octave versions) (edit: I'm no longer sure this is the case. I might have been thinking of `test` instead of `pkg`. I'm sorry for any confusion that might have caused. -- [[User:Mmuetzel|Mmuetzel]] ([[User talk:Mmuetzel|talk]]))
** Treatment of <code>pkg install -forge</code> if package moved away from Octave Forge

* documentation
** mxe-octave: necessary steps to include a package
*** only necessary if depending on external library, otherwise should install properly

== Ideas for next meeting ==

=== Topic suggestions ===

==== Octave 7 ====

* Not only providing major releases that "fix Matlab incompatibilities".
* Great new features for a great new release.
* Code sprints.

== See also ==

* Next meeting: [[Online Developer Meeting (2021-03-23)]]
* Last meeting: [[Online Developer Meeting (2020-10-27)]]

[[Category:2020]]
[[Category:Meetings]]