[OOTB-hive] WG: [ADDONS] Proposed activity details

Jan Pfitzner jan at alfrescian.com
Wed Aug 20 15:03:32 BST 2014


hi,
I agree with Ben's bullet list - all addons should be contributed to the
orderofthebee github repo.
Axel, I'm not sure if your quality goals are too ambitious. That's a lot of
work that most of us will be if they are getting paid for it but I won't do
any IE-testing for free ;-)
Let's think big but start small & see what we can achieve and what
activities are desirable but beyond reach.
cheers, jan


2014-08-20 15:50 GMT+02:00 Ben Chevallereau <benjamin.chevallereau at gmail.com
>:

> Hi,
>
> I would like to contribute to the ADDONS committee.
>
> I’m quite new in this organization and I tried to read everything in this
> mailing list. And I was imaging something else for the ADDONS committee. I
> was expecting to find in this order Add-Ons “supported” by the order. A lot
> of people are developing Add-Ons, sometimes they publish them on
> addons.alfresco.com, sometimes not. Sometimes, we can access to the code,
> sometimes not… Sometimes, some blog post should deserve the development of
> a proper add-ons! So it’s quite a mess…
>
> So, I was expecting to find in this order a list of plugins tested,
> packaged, following the same packaging process, and sometimes developed by
> bees. It’s definitely a lot of work, and I was not expecting to find
> thousands and thousands of add-ons. Instead of testing and validating add
> ons developed by the community, the order of the bee could be an
> organization that:
> 1) hosts the code of all supported add-ons (on github)
> 2) review and update add-ons to follow best practices defined by the order
> 3) provide a continuous integration mechanism
> 4) helps developers to maintain their code, or propose them to transfer
> their code completely to the order
> 5) create a real showcase environment when you can see all add-ons
> installed
>
> The goal is not to be concurrent of addons.alfresco.com but
> complimentary. OrderOfTheBee will be the pace where add-ons are developed,
> supported and tested. AddOns.alfresco.com will be one of the potential
> showcase.
>
> Ben Chevallereau
>
> On August 20, 2014 at 4:02:57 AM, Axel Faust (axel.faust at prodyna.com)
> wrote:
>
>  Hello guys,
>
>
>
> I’d like to get the ball rolling in the area of “Order-endorsed add-ons” /
> the “honeycomb of free add-ons” as I see it as somewhat of a pre-requisite
> to the “OOTB Edition” (or “Alfresco BE” as in “Bee-Edition”). Since I quite
> like the email “tags” suggested Boriss, I preliminarily assigned this
> thread to “ADDONS” pending a final decision on committee / team structure
> and responsibilities. I agree with the distinction Jeff made in his
> proposal for an initial organizational structure between “addons” and
> “distribution”. Apart from initial coordination / collaboration, both
> committees / structures will have enough on their hand to keep them busy
> separately. When the first major deliverables are complete and activities
> start to be stream-lined, they could be merged.
>
>
>
> The current descriptions / definitions of what we want to do in this area
> are still high level. The web site currently emphasizes reviewing
> compatibility with latest Alfresco, collaborating on any compatibility
> issues, categorization and creation / review of tutorials and screenshots.
> Jeff has used the phrase “Order-endorsed add-ons” and indicated active,
> ongoing engagement with developers and evangelism of proper procedures as
> potential responsibilities. The following combines these activities and my
> personal “wish-list” into an initial detailed activity list as a discussion
> starter…
>
>
>
> *Activity #1: Form list of Order-reviewed and –accepted Alfresco add-ons*
>
> ·         Non-commercial / open-source add-ons only (anyone – ourselves
> included – should be able to use it / modify it)
>
> ·         Add-ons listed on addons.alfresco.com only (this is and should
> remain the central directory)
>
> ·         Definition of detailed eligibility / acceptance criteria
>
> o   Eligibility: Do we only include add-ons in the narrow sense of
> extension of Repository and Share, or tools / scripts for administration
> and/or development as well?
>
> ·         Successful compatibility test on most recent / most stable
> Alfresco CE version(s) (currently Alfresco 4.2f + Alfresco 5.0a - may be a
> single version in the future)
>
> ·         Successful compatibility test with other add-ons already
> reviewed / accepted
>
> ·         Successful compatibility test with current supported client
> environment
>
> ·         Basic functionality test from user perspective (using available
> documentation)
>
> ·         General technical review
>
> o   Potential security issues (unsecured services, improper runAs usage,
> lack of traceability)
>
> o   Potential scalability issues
>
> o   MT capability
>
> o   Configurability
>
> o   De-installability / de-installation procedure
>
> o   Development best practices (details TBD, e.g. namespacing, support of
> separate Repo + Share + SOLR instances, use of public services, no hard
> override of Alfresco out-of-the-box files or beans …)
>
>
>
> Rationale: Our list needs to provide a significant “added value” to
> complement addons.alfresco.com without being “just another top 10 list”
> that you can find on some blogs already. The majority of us should be able
> to say “I would have no qualms using that add-on in production” for every
> add-on we list. Our tests / review should never be a replacement for proper
> QA by the add-on developer, instead focusing more on the “Model Citizen”
> aspects, interoperability and compatibility. As a group, we should have
> enough experience to review add-ons concerning the more advanced concepts
> (MT, scalability, de-installation) which a single (beginner) developer may
> not yet be aware of but can hurt unaware add-on users the most…
>
>
>
> I would to see us come up with staggered sets of acceptance criteria, e.g.
>
> ·         Mandatory core criteria that all add-ons must pass
> unconditionally (e.g. CE compatibility, compatibility with at least X
> different clients, separate Repo + Share + SOLR instances, no hard
> overrides…)
>
> ·         Secondary criteria with limited allowed violations (e.g.
> improper runAs usage, compatibility with other add-ons…)
>
> ·         Tertiary criteria that will result in some sort of flagging,
> warning or simple documentation within our listing
>
>
>
> *Activity #2: (long term) Continuous update / maintenance of add-on list*
>
> ·         Trigger #1: Updated Alfresco CE release
>
> ·         Trigger #2: Updated release of listed add-on (active trigger by
> developer or passive trigger due regular internal review of list)
>
> ·         Partial or full re-evaluation (similar to initial review /
> acceptance)
>
> ·         Creation / Setup of tooling / test automation for basic
> compatibility / functionality tests
>
> o   Prepared reference environment (e.g. Amazon Machine Image incl.
> reference data set + CloudFormation template)
>
> o   Source / build project to aggregate all / subset of listed add-ons
> for testing
>
> o   Individual UI test script / test suite for each add-on (Selenium or
> anything else (not my strong area))
>
> o   Potential test script / test suite for backend services of each add-on
>
> ·         Flagging of listed add-ons that no longer match acceptance
> criteria
>
> ·         Dropping / removal of listed add-ons that repeatedly failed
> acceptance criteria / are no longer actively maintained
>
>
>
> *Activity #3: Developer / add-on community engagement*
>
> ·         Publishing tutorials / guides on development best practices,
> solutions to compatibility / interoperability issues
>
> ·         Active feedback / issue logging from initial or continuous
> review and compatibility testing
>
> ·         Review of add-on documentation / tutorials, suggestion of and
> collaboration on potential improvements / additions
>
> ·         Temporary stewardship of unmaintained but relevant add-ons
> incl. search for new maintainer / help in add-on transition phase
>
>
>
> Rationale: We are not enough people / have not enough time to provide
> missing tutorials / screenshots / documentation or fix issues for the
> add-ons in the community that we potentially end up listing, so the focus
> should be on coordination, enablement and evangelism. This activity will
> also require collaboration with “Marketing” as speaker participation at
> conferences / meetups may in some cases be focused on highlighting
> community contributions. General CE customer stories may also be
> inter-linked with individual add-ons that are part of the story and these
> could help to promote add-ons - so much that we could end up declaring
> “featured add-ons”.
>
>
>
> *(internal) Activity #4: Collaboration on pre-packaged edition*
>
> ·         Any add-ons included in pre-packaged edition should (must?) be
> from the list of reviewed and accepted add-ons
>
> ·         Alignment of acceptance criteria
>
> ·         Consolidation of test automation efforts / reference
> environments
>
>
>
>
>
> *Selection of add-ons*
>
>
>
> The initial list of add-ons that we subject to a review and include in the
> list will most likely be based on the requirements for the pre-packaged
> edition and our own work experience. Douglas has already posted a list of
> his favorite add-ons / tools earlier this month. We should pool and
> prioritize similar suggestions once we have narrowed down the eligibility
> and acceptance criteria.
>
> For the long-term we should also decide on a procedure for adding new
> add-on candidates, e.g. if we just want to scan & review content of
> addons.alfresco.com or also provide means for developers to submit
> add-ons for consideration. Personally, I don’t see the need for a formal
> submission process and would simply include a public view of backlogged /
> declined add-ons which is updated / synchronized with addons.alfresco.com
> in defined intervals as well as reviewed by committee chair.
>
>
>
>
>
> So far for my initial collection of thoughts on that matter – feel free to
> comment or correct. I may be a bit slow to answer though as I am currently
> running two projects at work and trying to finish a personal Alfresco PoC
> in time for summit.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Axel
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