[Discussion] Preparing for the upcoming v0.19 release

[carlopav]

Heavy Draft restructuring effort is likely contributing to a bit of a setback too.

I don't think this has anything to do with the release schedule it's all python and if a bug emerge it can be backported really quickly... Also the restructuring is not supposed to change anything in the code, just move it around a bit

[chrisb]

Also the restructuring is not supposed to change anything in the code, just move it around a bit

Even if it is Python, it still is code belonging to FreeCAD. Restructuring is of course a code change and bears the possibilty of instabilities.

[carlopav]

Of course.
But do you have an idea of how many bugs draft had in the 0.18 release? And it was released anyway

[Zolko]

Also the restructuring is not supposed to change anything in the code, just move it around a bit

Even if it is Python, it still is code belonging to FreeCAD. Restructuring is of course a code change and bears the possibilty of instabilities.

Of course. But do you have an idea of how many bugs draft had in the 0.18 release? And it was released anyway

Do you realize that Draft is not an Addon-Module, it's part of the FreeCAD core, that other functions and command might rely upon it, therefore "only" shuffling code around will break those functions ? How could that code shuffling be allowed to happen without being discussed openly here ?

[carlopav]

Oh, Zolko, I expected you to popup here
Draft changes have been discussed openly since november-decemberaugust 2019, but were anticipated by yorik long time ago.
If you spot some problems with Draft please let us now so we can fix them and we will stop blocking the release. Thanks for your help.

Edit: after zolko request, the link to the main discussion: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=38593 , there was even an older one where yorik pointed out the possibility to tackle this issue, but i have not much time now to look for it in the old posts, sorry.

[Jee-Bee]

I don't now much of packaging / programming. So i can't over see the difficulties of what i propose.
To overcome the problem of a feature freeze for a month would it be possible to make a split between master==0.19_pre to master==0.20_pre but that there is no 0.20_pre yet.
Then new features can be added to master and bugfixes that are also influence 0.19 can be added to 0.19_pre too.
Then only 0.19_pre changes are compiled. Then you have the month feature freeze AND less holdup when the new cycle start.

[uwestoehr]

To overcome the problem of a feature freeze for a month would it be possible to make a split between master==0.19_pre to master==0.20_pre

FC 0.19 has already so many new features in all fields. It is time to release it.

To taking a breath and focusing on bug fixing would be very valuable. Meanwhile the FC masters have time to have a look at the the pending PRs.

Abdullah for example started already to fix now only bugs for the Sketcher WB he administers. And this was a wise decision. Often bugs make life for real-life documents harder than not having a certain feature. And I see with the sketcher WB that the bugfixing boosts the usability for me a lot.

I recently caught myself in starting new features I have on my Todo list. So I know that it is much harder to investigate in bugs than in new features.

[Zolko]

Draft changes have been discussed openly since november-december, but were anticipated by yorik long time ago.

That's great news: unfortunately you forgave (EDIT: you have forgotten ?) to link to all those many discussions that had been taken place around. I've tried to search for them but unfortunately I failed to find any reference. Would you please give us the links so we can catch up ?

[bernd]

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=38593

[abdullah]

Abdullah for example started already to fix now only bugs for the Sketcher WB he administers. And this was a wise decision. Often bugs make life for real-life documents harder than not having a certain feature. And I see with the sketcher WB that the bugfixing boosts the usability for me a lot.

Yes, I have been looking into fixing Sketcher bugs and some PartDesign ones.

I have also looked into several bugs in other projects in the category (crash or above):
https://tracker.freecadweb.org/view_all_bug_page.php

For some of them I cannot reproduce (I have posted in the relevant threads). I think it would make sense to close those in which nobody can no longer reproduce.

In the meantime I will try to continue fixing bugs.

Do we have a release criteria? (a preliminary release date or a minimum number of features or fixes we want to include)

EDIT: BTW, I have created the 0.20 version in the bugtracker, so that we can also take a look of what we will reasonably release with 0.19 and which tickets should be pushed to 0.20. This should help having a realistic roadmap:
https://tracker.freecadweb.org/roadmap_page.php