[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evaluating alternatives to Launchpad

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

During the hackfest at the Evergreen Conference there was some
discussion about dissatisfaction with Launchpad, which we currently
use for several project functions:

* reporting and tracking bugs
* managing translations, both as an interface for translators to enter
their translations as well as tools for the translations to make their
way into Evergreen releases

The dissatisfaction, which has been building up for years, is now at
the point where several folks, including myself, have decided to
investigate replacing Launchpad. There is now a wiki page where folks
have described both what they do and do not like about Launchpad:

https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=dev:2017_new_tools

This page also lists some potential alternatives for Launchpad itself
as well as the combination of Gitolite and Gitweb that we currently
use to manage access to our GIt repositories.

The discussion thus far has been mostly among developers, but there
are a number of constituencies who would be affected by a change of
tools, which is why I've CCed both open-ils-dev and open-ils-general.
These constituencies include:

* anybody who reports bugs or wishes to know the status of them
* translators and folks who manage the translation process
* anybody who contributes code or documentation

Consequently, I would like folks to weight in, preferably on the wiki,
regarding whether Launchpad works for them or whether they seek
alternatives.

I would also like to send out a call for folks to stand up test
systems for the alternatives that have been proposed.  I know that
Jason Stephenson has been experiment with Gitolite recently. The
Evergreen community VM server is available  as well to run test
systems.

The next development meeting is on 7 June 2017; I'd like to set that
as an initial deadline for feedback with an aim towards getting a
sense of whether to continue with the investigation.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
Equinox Open Library Initiative
phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
email:  gmc at equinoxInitiative.org
web:  https://equinoxInitiative.org
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366