[Dbix-class] IMPORTANT: A discussion of DBIC governance and future development

[Jess Robinson]

On Tue, 04 Oct 2016 19:20:51 +0100, Peter Mottram <peter at sysnix.com> wrote:

> On 04/10/16 19:08, Matt S Trout wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 04, 2016 at 12:49:49PM -0400, Ashley Pond V wrote:
>>> I did say MST RFC:MUST be respected. :P This is only here because of
>>> you. I was an early CDBI user and was there for the fights over its
>>> direction and saw you as the voice of reason, patience, and vision.
>>> Regardless of work done since, I see you as the owner. I was unaware
>>> there was as much of a schism as there apparently is.
>>>
>>> I don't know which approach is better. I feel the "permanent
>>> development ban" you assert is misrepresenting the situation.
>> Well, I'm not sure how else I can interpret riba's call for a 'project
>> freeze', especially given that in
>>
>> http://lists.scsys.co.uk/pipermail/dbix-class/2016-October/012210.html
>>
>> he appears to feel that the previous contributors attempting to continue
>> the project is "the worst possible direction, one I worked really hard  
>> to
>> save this codebase from."
> My reading is more that this:
>
> /> Really, if people upgrade, />/and encounter an issue .. they can  
> either downgrade and wait, or pitch in />/and help (or pay someone to)..  
> this is open source after all./
>
> is not a viable option if the breakage causes data loss. Problems at the
> data layer are simply unacceptable and can result in major financial
> damage and people being fired. Some projects can afford to be much more
> bleeding edge but I feel that DBIx::Class needs to be paranoid about
> what is accepted in core. After all there are other options to allow
> features to be added without touching core.
>


The above quote from me is the case with all code from CPAN.. like any  
code from the internet, if you're using it for things mission critical,  
you should do a test cycle with updates to new versions, and thus give  
yourself room to say "eek, new changes dont work for me, better not  
upgrade production".

I was not suggesting nor advocating that future changes might happen more  
randomly or without testing.. of course we'd like to keep a release cycle  
that releases test candidates to give people a chance to test etc. However  
nobody is perfect (not even Riba or MST), bugs will and do appear.

Without the community/users pitching in and testing/pointing out  
bugs/helping to resolve as I suggested, we'd have waaay more issues than  
we do.

A lot of the comments in this thread make me think its time for v9.. then  
folks with v8 can happily stagnate...

Jess