2010/7/8 vtl@scls.lib.wi.us <vtl@scls.lib.wi.us>:
OK. Thanks to Chris, Chris, Owen and Frederick I'm understanding this just a little bit better (tip of the iceberg really).
Here's my $64K question. We are sponsoring a lot of features. We need these features when we go live at the end of the year. It's possible some of these features may make it into 3.4. But even if they do, it's not likely that 3.4 would be released in time for us and it would not include everything we need. So, then we are using something like Harley in the mean time, right?
Id hope 3.4 is released by Christmas, thats what I'm aiming for. They certainly wont make it into 3.4 unless the plan is changed though. Because 6 months from now is January, and since your features haven't been released to the PTFS users, the 6 month clock hasn't started yet. If they were sent as patches as they were done, no reason they couldn't make it into 3.4. Subject to passing QA of course.
At the same time, our code would be rebased to Koha by our feature developers (not the RM).
That would make it much more useful if, when it is submitted for inclusion for Koha, it is in a format that can be integrated it makes its' inclusion a lot more likely.
Is this a permissible scenario?
Having patches or branches submitted that are based off current master is a 1000 times better than code based on something that existed 9 months ago. I still think the 6 month lag is going to cause problems, but if PTFS are rebasing the problems are now theirs instead of inflicted on the community. If you can get them to buy into that idea, it would be great. The other thing that needs to be done is a migration path from Harley back to Koha, so that you can get back in the mainstream if you desire to.
By the way, I have looked at Chris and Galen's PTFS_Harley_Integration page and I am heartened to see that much of it is slated for 3.4. And I apologize for not understanding the process a bit better.
It would go a lot faster if there were some people who wrote the code helping with the rebasing, this is not aimed at any of the developers at PTFS, but rather at the people who tell them what to work on. Chris