Difference between revisions of "Development/Software Engineering Framework"

Revision as of 17:49, 29 October 2010

1 Development/Software_Engineering_Framework
2 Development Tools
3 Review
4 Documentation
5 Testing and Quality
6 Marketing and Expectations
7 Release
8 Theming and Translations
- 8.1 Artwork
- 8.2 Translation
9 Legal And Support

Development/Software_Engineering_Framework

This page is intended to be a summary of the tools and processes used by the KDE project for Software Engineering tasks, i.e. everything around coding work. This includes bugfixing, review, testing, documentation, requirements etc.

The current tool used by KDE should be listed along with the extent of its use, known alternatives, and advantages/disadvantages.

Development Tools

Source Control

Current State	People
Subversion (Move to Git)	The kde sysadmin team: Dirk Müller David Faure
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-scm-interest	git, repo bazaar mercurial Gitorious

Subversion is currently used for source control management in KDE on a server hosted in Frankfurt. A separate server is used for access to the read-only mirror anonsvn.kde.org.

There is begun migrating to Git, see Move to Git.

Build System

Current State	People
CMake Custom CMake module documentation	Alexander Neundorf
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-buildsystem	n/a

CMake is the build tool currently used by KDE. It is Free Software developed by kitware inc and available on multiple platforms supported by KDE.

This tool was chosen as the buildsystem for the KDE4 series, and there are no plans currently to migrate away from it.

Identifier search

Current State	People
http://lxr.kde.org	The kde sysadmin team: Dirk Müller David Faure
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
n/a	n/a

LXR indexes classes and methods used in KDE. This can be useful for finding examples of how to use a class, and finding all uses of a class while refactoring or updating API.

Review

Patch review (pre commit)

Current State	People
Review-board used by plasma project. trunk/kdereview	David Solbach and the kde sysadmin team maintain the Plasma review-board installation.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-core-devel: Discuss KDE patch review and tools	Launchpad.net offers merge review/approval pre-merge [1] [2] [3]

In general KDE does not have a formal patch review policy for individual patches. Some patches do get reviewed prior to committing to svn by the relevant mailing lists. This is the case for particularly large patches or patches by new developers.

As an official policy kdereview is used to review new applications and new classes for kdelibs prior to inclusion in KDE trunk. A drawback of this system is that not all reviewers report that they have reviewed the new content. It may make sense to have a checklist for reviewers to use, eg,

All new classes documented [x]
Private classes and d-pointers used where appropriate [x]
Passes all krazy checks [ ]
No obvious security concerns [ ]
Designed well/maintainable [ ]
etc...

This was discussed to some extent here, but has not yet been refined into a techbase page.

Commit review (after commit)

Current State	People
kde-commits mailing list records all commits to KDE svn. The commit filter is used to filter relevant commits based on path of the commit. SVN `CCMAIL:` feature used to notify relevant mailing lists or individuals of specific commits. SVN `BUG:` feature used to close bugs, and also notifies all bug subscribers of the commit. SVN `CCBUG:` feature used to notify closed bugs of updates. Commonly used when porting fixes between branches. Also notifies all bug subscribers of the commit.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-commits	Unknown

The commit filter is used by several projects to forward all commits to the relevant mailing list.

Design Review

Current State	People
Design review takes place on mailing lists project wikis face-to-face/BOF sessions and sprints kdereview	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-core-devel is used to announce new additions to kdereview.	n/a

KDE does not have an offical design review process. Some design review takes place as part of the kdereview process. It may be possible to further formalise this or encourage design documentation.

Documentation

Technical documentation

Current State	People
http://techbase.kde.org http://wiki.koffice.org	Danimo is the MediaWiki admin for techbase.kde.org.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-www	n/a

techbase.kde.org is a MediaWiki powered site used for collaborating on technical tasks such as tutorials, schedules, and project information.

API documentation

Current State	People
Doxygen is used to generate api documentation from documentation strings in code.	Allen Winter administers api.kde.org.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
APIDOX tutorials Make KDE API docs better.	doxygen2qthelp used by trolltech to create qt documentation.

KDE API documentation is generated nightly and hosted on http://api.kde.org. It is also possible to generate the same documentation locally for use in an IDE for example.

It is possible to create man pages and qthelp documentation from kde sources.

User documentation

Current State	People
http://userbase.kde.org meinproc is used to generate user documentation. kde-docbook Records all SVN commits with the `GUI` magic word.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
http://userbase.kde.org Create tutorials and tips. kde-doc-english Used to coordinate user documentation. kde-docbook Help update documentation after GUI changes.	n/a

User documentation is generated from module doc/ folders and hosted on http://docs.kde.org.

meinproc is a KDE tool (written by Stephen Kulow which uses libxslt to transform docbook into (bzipped) html. At runtime kio_help opens that bzipped html and displays it to the user in khelpcenter.

http://userbase.kde.org is intended to be the primary source of user documentation on the web. Content will possibly be packaged for offline use in the future.

Testing and Quality

Bug tracking

Current State	People
Bugzilla 3.0.x. KBugBuster	Matt Rogers and the KDE sysadmin team maintain the KDE bugzilla installation.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-core-devel Discuss alternative bug trackers for KDE. kde-bugs-dist Records all updates on bugs.kde.org. kdelibs-bugs Records all updates to kdelibs bugs. konq-bugs Records all updates to konqueror bugs. kdevelop-bugs Records all updates to kdevelop bugs. amarok-bugs-dist Records all updates to amarok bugs.	https://bugs.launchpad.net, Leonev trac Redmine - kind of "Trac on Rails"

Bug tracking in KDE currently is managed using Bugzilla 3.0. Work was recently merged on a transition to Bugzilla 3.0 from Bugzilla 2.16. There is still cleanup work going on but most features of the previous Bugzilla installation already work.

Bugzilla can be difficult to use and daunting to newbies.

Static code analysis

Current State	People
Krazy hosted at EnglishBreakfastNetwork (EBN). Coverity is used to find possible sources of defects and suggested optimizations. Results are displayed per module as part of Dirks Dashboard builds.	Adriaan de Groot Allen Winter
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
	n/a

Additional checks are always welcome for adding to Krazy. See http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/quality/.

Build testing

Current State	People
Continuous build server reports broken builds on linux. CDash build server stores results of Nightly builds for KDE modules.	Dirk Mueller maintains the dashboard Bill Hoffman is involved with the CDash service provided by Kitware. http://www.cdash.org/mailinglist.html
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-core-devel Find out how to submit test build results.	n/a

There is interest in more build testing for KDE especially on non-linux platforms. Improvements include some standard ctest scripts that can be used to build and submit a dashboard result for kdelibs to CDash. This would be run on a cronjob for simplicity.

Builds are planned for the following platforms:

Windows
MacOS
FreeBSD 6 (gcc)
FreeBSD 7 (gcc)
Solaris (S10, S11) on SPARC and amd64

Unit testing

Current State	People
Unit tests may be written with the QTest framework. Tests can be run with the command '`make test`'.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
Techbase Unit tests tutorial	n/a

It may be possible run run these tests automatically possibly on EBN or on Dirks dashboard.

Quality testing

Current State	People
The early adopter/user community SQO-OSS	Adriaan de Groot Paul Adams
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
	n/a

It may be possible to obtain metrics such as bugs per kloc, defect injection rate etc.

Profiling and Optimizations

Current State	People
kde-optimize mailing list coordinates optimizations in KDE. Krazy and Coverity tools also include some optimization checks. KDE macros for optimization of common algorithms.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-optimize Coverity report for KDE libs.	n/a

Tutorials may be provided in the future to help developers optimize their code.

Accessibility and Usability

Current State	People
http://usability.kde.org/ http://openusability.org/projects.php Season of usability	Celeste Lyn Paul Ellen Reitmayr
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-usability KDE Human interaction Guidelines.	n/a

Research

Current State	People
http://research.kde.org SQO-OSS http://nepomuk.kde.org/ Semantic desktop project funded by the EU.	Adriaan de Groot Sebastian Trueg leads the kde-nepomuk project.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
Nepomuk KDE mailing list	n/a

Marketing and Expectations

Requirements Gathering

Current State	People
Requirements come from user feedback on http://bugs.kde.org and from commercial interests. Developers may do some research into requirements for applications based on User Research Profiles.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
http://bugs.kde.org Fill new wishlist items. kde-core-devel Discuss new ways for kde to gather requirements.	n/a

Promotion

Current State	People
The KDE marketing team manage marketing and promotion from official kde sources. http://dot.kde.org is the community forum around promotional announcements. http://www.kde.org/announcements is the official source of promotional announcements regarding KDE. Design and maintenance of KDE websites is organised on the kde-www mailing list The Marketing working group coordinates several marketing efforts such as promoting planning and branding. KDE e.v provides a booth box for conference booths containing posters, leaftlets and other information needed at a conference stand.	Wade Olsen Troy Unrau Jos Poortvliet
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-promo Submit dot articles	n/a

Community management

Current State	People
The Community Working Group helps with community advice when needed Code of Conduct Based on the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, documents guidelines for acceptable behaviour within the community. Can be summarized as 'Be Excellent to Eachother'. http://community.kde.org. In development website.	Anne Willson Juan Carlos Torres Lydia Pintscher Martin Fitzpatrick Tom Albers
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
Send an e-mail to community-wg@kde.org	n/a

Communication

Current State	People
Developers communicate with each other through mailing lists IRC Blogs Conferences Developers communicate with users though Blogs to some extent (mainly early adopting users). Forums to some extent where the developer chooses to. News announcements Users communicate with each other and developers through Forums kde mailing list #kde irc channel.	Chris Lee administers planetkde.org
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
Add your blog to planet kde if you contribute to KDE in some way, including development, testing, advocacy, translation, documentation etc.	n/a

Release

Release Scheduling

Current State	People
Maintained at Schedules.	Cyrill Berger - KOffice release coordinator. Allen Winter - KDEPIM release coordinator.
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
release-team	n/a

Feature planning

Current State	People
Schedules/KDE4/4.6_Feature_Plan	The KDE release team
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-core-devel - Discuss the KDE approach to feature planning.	Launchpad.net offers a blueprints system. Scrum in Open Source Projects

Currently techbase is used for feature planning but there may be better alternatives.

Downstream packagers and contributions

Current State	People
Many distributions package KDE3 & KDE4.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-packagers - Private mailing list for packagers. Includes information relating to security releases.	n/a

Theming and Translations

Artwork

Current State	People
The kde-artists team creates offical artwork for KDE. kde-look.org for non-offical artwork.	Nuno Pinheiro
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-artists	n/a

Additional contributed artwork is available on http://kde-look.org.

There may be a need to create tutorials on how to create artwork for kde.

Translation

Current State	People
http://l10n.kde.org/ is used for level of completion of translations in KDE. GNU gettext is used for translation in KDE. `.po` files are edited directly in KDE svn to update translations. A kde4 based translation client (Lokalize) is being developed in kdesdk/. Krazy includes sanity checks/plurals checking for translation.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
kde-i18n-doc	launchpad.net features a web-based tool called rosetta, which allows for easier fly-by translations. This is considered not to be useful as fly-by translators often do not follow guidelines or consistency rules when translating.

Legal And Support

KDE e.v. - Representative Legal Entity

Current State	People
KDE e.v. is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
KDE e.v. membership	N/A

Resolving licencing issues.

Current State	People
A Fiduicary Licence Agreement is available, which will allow KDE developers to optionally assign copyright of their contributions to KDE e.v. This would allow easier relicencing of contributors content in the event that KDE needs to move to another licence. It also allows the e.v. to more easily represent the work in the unlikely event of a court dispute involving KDE code. KDE licencing policy allows commercial and non-commercial development and proprietry and non-proprietry development. Projects/KDE_Relicensing Effort to relicence KDE code to use version 3 of GNU GPL and LGPL. This work is unfinished but not still being performed. Many contributors are no longer contactable.	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
n/a	N/A

Sponsorship and Patronship

Current State	People
Supporters of KDE contribute sponsorship money to KDE e.v. http://ev.kde.org/getinvolved/supporting-members.php	Unknown
Get Involved	Alternative Tools
n/a	N/A

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 | name=Source Control
 | currentState=
-* [http://websvn.kde.org/ Subversion 1.4]
+* [http://websvn.kde.org/ Subversion] (Move to Git)
 | people=
 The kde sysadmin team:
@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 }}
-Subversion 1.4 is currently used for source control management in KDE on
+Subversion is currently used for source control management in KDE on
 a server hosted in Frankfurt. A separate server is used for access to
 the read-only mirror anonsvn.kde.org.
-There is interest in migrating to a distributed source control
+There is begun migrating to Git, see [[Projects/MovetoGit|Move to Git]].
-management tool, such as GIT. Discussion of this is taking place on the
-{{KDEML|kde-scm-interest}}
-mailing list. It is likely git will be used along with a tool such as repo.
 {{SEFBox
 | name=Build System
 | currentState=
-* [http://www.cmake.org/ CMake 2.6.0]
+* [http://www.cmake.org/ CMake]
 * [http://api.kde.org/cmake/modules.html Custom CMake module documentation]
 | getInvolved=
@@ Line 53: / Line 50: @@
 This tool was chosen as the buildsystem for the KDE4 series, and there
-are no plans currently to migrate away from it. CMake version 2.6.2 will be required to build KDE 4.2 final.
+are no plans currently to migrate away from it.
 {{SEFBox
@@ Line 390: / Line 387: @@
 | name=Feature planning
 | currentState=
-* [[Schedules/KDE4/4.5_Feature_Plan]]
+* [[Schedules/KDE4/4.6_Feature_Plan]]
 | people=
 [https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/release-team The KDE release team]
@@ Line 429: / Line 426: @@
 | name=Translation
 | currentState=
-* http://i18n.kde.org/ is used for level of completion of translations in KDE.
+* http://l10n.kde.org/ is used for level of completion of translations in KDE.
 * GNU gettext is used for translation in KDE.
 * <tt>.po</tt> files are edited directly in KDE svn to update translations.
@@ Line 444: / Line 441: @@
 | name=KDE e.v. - Representative Legal Entity
 | currentState=
-* [http://ev.kde.org KDE e.v] is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters.
+* [http://ev.kde.org KDE e.v.] is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters.
 | altTools= N/A
 | getInvolved=