Core Components Maintenance Discussion 2022-11-07

Owned by James Griffin
Last updated: Nov 08, 2022 by Jonathan Rochkind
2 min read

Meeting Logistics:

 

Attendees

  • @James Griffin

  • @Heather Greer Klein

  • @Esmé Cowles

  • @Alexandra Dunn

  • @Chris Colvard

  • @Jon Cameron

  • @Emily Lynema

  • @Rob Kaufman

  • @Glen Horton

  • @david.schober

  • @Michael Klein

  • @Daniel Pierce

 

Agenda (meeting notes below)

Notes

  • Interest Group and Core Component Maintenance Working Group Status

    • James wants to determine if there should be a Core Components group at all. Want to avoid effort duplication with Hyrax maintenance, which has been the majority of components work.

    • Gradual shift away from activefedora gem exclusively, to Valkyrie.

    • Easier to focus on Hyrax gems that need to be maintained for Hyrax, but what about gems that need to be deprecated in the near future, or gems that are obscure and possibly not needed without activefedora.

    • Clear path for moving from labs, but what about a process for moving back into labs? But who would take on that effort? Not having a product owner or a commit for a certain period of time could be the answer.

    • ACTION: propose criteria to the community for deprecating gems currently without maintenance or PO, that are not used by Hyrax – ask for product ownership, and then if no response, deprecate to Samvera labs. There is also samvera-deprecated for things that are really not getting any activity.

    • Actively demoting could lend a sense of urgency. There could be security issues for some unused gems. We don’t want to commit to maintaining or mislead about maintenance for these gems.

    • Is the granularity part of the problem? ie hydrahead vs hydra editor.

    • GitHub Actions vs CircleCI – what would be solved by a move? All CI tools have their issues. Could do a straw poll of active committers, and can price that out.

    • Want to make clear we will maintain the things being used, and will help those who are willing to take on maintenance.

    • activefedora depends on LDP

    • Is there a definition for what is a core component? They were originally defined as needing a product owner, and releases were being cut, and active engagement. This is likely no longer relevant.

    • We need to communicate and also fix this – we need to maintain things that we need. ACTION a message asking for POs and maintainers for specific gems; also declaring some deprecated that are not being used. Possibly pull into Hyrax. Pre-categorizing them makes sense, shows we have thought about this.

    • Things that haven’t been updated to new versions of Ruby, that is an indication they are not being maintained.

    • Thing that is most out of date is the list of Product Owners. Is that role important and valuable for all gems? It is a way to know there is someone who is an authority on that gem and can give advice. People get stuck when there is no one to ask about a gem. ACTION mark those that do not have a maintainer; point to the dev channel for place to discuss those gems without a PO.

    • Want to make sure it clear this is a Community priority; Esmé volunteered to send the message to the Community.

  • GitHub Project Prioritization

    • External Projects (Blacklight, Bootstrap, personal Gems [engine_cart])

    • Coordination with the Hyrax development work cycles

  • Documentation Updates

  • Questions and Requests