Software Development Procedure

This Wiki is read-only for reference purposes to avoid broken links.

STATUS: This concept is under work.

This is a suggestion to replace the PMC Head Concept (http://www.adempiere.com/index.php/PMC_Head_Concept).

What are the goals of this document

The reason is that this concept defines the procedures in order to fillfil the following goals:

• produce high quality ERP software
• regular and plannable releases
• an all time stable trunk
• clear rules how to get code into trunk
• have several features under development at the same time
• documentation for new features
• teams are to be responsible not single persons
• lean project layout

You see, there are a lot of goals that need some structure around it to make the real.

The concept in a Nutshell

• Trunk is the main line of Development
• New features are developed in seperate branches only
• New features need an approval of the functional and technical team
• Approved features are copied into stabilization branch by the Release Manager
• After stabilization phase a regular releases is done from stabilization branch

Software Production Cycle

• Trunk is the main line of Development

Development Phase (3 Months)

• A stabilization branch is created from trunk.
• new functionalities are implemented in seperate development branches with the aim to get them into stabilization branch
  • Developers have 3 months time for integrating new functionalities, changes, Bug fixing and Integration testing in their branch
  • Before integrating new/ changed Funtionality in "stabilization" the Developers/ Implementors have to apply for approval by Technical and Functional Team

Stabilization Phase (1 month)

• After development phase is over there is 1 month stabilization phase where the stabilization branch is frozen for new features. In this time only Bugfixing and User Acceptance Tests (UAT) are allowed.

Release

• stabilzation branch is reintegrated into main line of development and a release is done (svn tag).
• The next stabilization branch cycle starts. The old branch is deleted. The new one is again created from main line of development trunk.

Roles

Release Manager

• release/ trunk (in the picture names as "release") is the main line of development in ADempiere svn. It is the root and the only place from where "ADempiere releases" are taken from via tagging.
• "stabilization" branch is opened from release/ trunk every 4 months. The stabilization branch allows new feature integrations and integration testing in the first 3 months. In the last month of "stabilization" branch lifetime, no more features are allowed, only bugfixing/ stabilization work (feature frozen zone). The beginning and end of each "stabilization" cycle is predefined before the cyle starts and afterwards never changed, no matter why. Each "stabilization" branch must end up with a release of "release" after reintegration.
• Hotfixes are allowed in "release", but Release Manager must explicitly permit. The Bug tracker of the Hotfix can only be closed when this Hotfix is fixed in release/ trunk and "stabilization" branch.
• Normal Bugfixes and small Feature Development can/ shall be done in stabilization branch. The changes/ fixes must fulfill requirements/ rules defined by teams (everybody is invited to participate in these teams). If requirements are not fulfilled Release Manager can easily decide to revert or demand the developer to fulfill the requirements/ rules quickly.
• Release Manager decides who has the permission to commit to release/ trunk and "stabilization" branch.

Developers

• Every Developer can open an own experimental or feature development branch. The branch can be taken from release/ trunk or "stabilization". The developer who opened the branch is the maintainer of the branch.
• In such branches the complex/ bigger feature development shall take place. Development of new functionality happens only in development branches. The Maintainer shall do the "public relations" for his own branch when he would like to see others helping in his development. Further on he shall discuss the planned Feature Implementations in Forum and open a Feature Request tracker.
• The Maintainer can plan the reintegration/ merge of the features of his branch into "stabilization" branch and inform Head/ Technical/ Functional teams. This shall be done as early as possible, so that Head/ can oversee the complexity of new Implementations and can give early consultancy about when to integrate. The process of Integration in stabilization branch shall be done working closely together with Head/ Technical/ Functional teams to avoid reverts/ rejections. Rejections are only temporal. The Maintainer can try to fix the cause of revert quickly or wait for the next "stabilization" branch to integrate his Implementations.
• The Maintainer is responsible to keep his branch up-to-date doing syncing with release/ trunk and/ or "stabilization". Therfor he must merge hotfixes from release/ trunk to his branch.
• The Maintainer decides who has the permission to commit into his branch.
• The Maintainer can provide his own rules for his branch.
• "Dead" or "unmaintained" experimental/ feature development Branches shall be avoided.
• ANY code that is committed to any official branch (including trunk) should respect a set of rules:
  • 100% compliance with Adempiere Best Practices (ABP)
  • code is formated using the official formatting definition (need to be defined and agreed on, but in meantime you can take this as an example)
  • respect Subversion Best Practices (see [1])
• Any data model change should be announced, discussed and voted (example: the placed were we store some well known informations like contact phone changed)
• Master Data Models (organizations, bpartners, contacts, warehouses etc) should be consistent and is not allowed to have different ways of defining the relations between this entities (examples: storing the organization details like addresses, phones, faxes in Organization Info tab or in the linked business partner)
• in case of complex functionalities, ADempiere Generic Workflows should be defined in order to guide the user how to setup the functionality and which is the designed the business process (example: take a look at Manufacturing Management Setup workflow from your ADempiere main menu)
• After approval from teams (functional, technical, other) code is integrated/ merged to "stabilization" and Integration testing ist done. The maintainer is repsonsible to provide immediate effort if the integration harms the "stabilization" branch.

Technical Team

Any code structural change (e.g. file/ directory rename/ move/ delete) should be announced and approved by Technical team before applying it. The Technical team approves/ rejects the integration of new/ changed developments into "stabilization" too. The Developer applies for approval at Technical team.

• The Technical Team checks if
  • is code documented
  • backward compatibility is achieved
  • migration scripts complete
  • technical documentation sufficient
  • backward comparability analysis
  • migration scripts are provided (when needed)
• The Technical team approves or rejects an Integration into stabilization branch from a technical perspective.

Functional team

Any functional change from ADempiere default should be announced and approved by Functional Team before applying it (examples: documents behavior changed from standard, processes behavior changed from default, main menu items moved from their default location, fields of a standard window were reorganized etc.). The Technical team approves/ rejects the integration of new/ changed developments into "stabilization" too. The Developer applies for approval at Functional team.

• The Functional team checks checks if
  • requirement makes sense
  • requirement is solved
  • test cases are complete and meet the requirement
  • user documentation sufficient
  • the ADempiere Wiki-Page describing this functionality contains
    • requirement specification
    • test cases
    • test documentation (how tested which test cases with which results)
    • user documentation
• The Functional team has got the final decision on which feature is accepted. The Functional team approves or rejects an Integration into stabilization branch from a functional perspective.

Other teams

There are already other teams that could be integrated into this Integration Process where it makes sense. For example Usability, Security team.

Reverting policy

• technical team has the responsibility to revert code that is not compliance with our rules set (technical, functional).
• The revert should be motivated precisely and without any doubt.
• Any other person outside of the technical team (including the functional team) are not allowed to revert, but are advised to call for a revert where they specify the concrete reasons.
• In case there is a contribution that based on strong reasons is not well done, but is respecting the "SVN Procedure", we can call for a community process to modify the "SVN Procedure" and to enforce this rule from now on.

Ideas behind the concept

• It will be nice to already have a Roadmap for the different stabilzation cycles, but it is not a must (new functionalities, changes can be announced by Developers in advance and are the put into the roadmap for stabilzation cycle).
• The Idea behind fixed time frames is taken from Scrum. Scrum works with Sprints (fix starting date, fix ending date) and already has predefined userstories before starting the sprint. The stabilzation cycle has a fix starting date and a fix ending date too, but the functionalities must not (but can) be predefined in advance.

See Also

• Community Governance‎