[hydra-dev] White paper about interface versioning

[Leif Madsen]

----- Original Message -----
> ----- Original Message -----
> > It was stated that support would be maintained for as long as the
> > burden to support such a module did not exceed a threshold. Would it
> > be wise to specify what such a threshold might be, and how long
> > ahead of EOL a notice of deprecation would be announced?
> >
> > For example, we not give dates as to when Asterisk versions will no
> > longer be maintained. Perhaps we should do something similar where
> > we give a minimum date, with the ability to extend support for that
> > module indefinitely, but always giving a date as to when support
> > *may* be terminated?
> 
> If this was done it would have to be at a per-interface level, since
> that is where versioning occurs. It would also potentially force us to
> maintain an interface version past the point where the burden becomes
> immense/insane/nuts.
> 
> I can certainly see how it would be attractive to third party
> developers using
> the interfaces though. With a fixed schedule they could plan
> accordingly to update
> their components.
> 
> My gut feeling says that versioning is going to be a big job no matter
> what and
> trying to make it adhere to some form of schedule like above might be
> pushing it,
> but I must personally give it more thought.

I can certainly see that, and I guess I'm not specifically saying we should have an end-date for every version. Perhaps it can be general like, "will support at least 1 year from inception, but after that will no longer be supported after 30 days notice".

Or maybe we just say at any point in time it can be deprecated and no longer supported with 60 days notice. I know this isn't a "release" so it doesn't make sense to create an announcement everytime something is deprecated. Perhaps it's just a wiki with the inception date of the function and updating that page 60 days ahead of when you want to no longer support a version any longer.

I'll leave it to your capable mind to determine how to handle this though! I just think it might be nice to give developers some sort of warning (somehow) before dropping support for something. We also don't want to promise more than can be delivered either.

Leif.

-- 
Leif Madsen
Digium, Inc. | Asterisk Release Manager and Bug Marshal
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
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