4.20 Releng

[wimjongman]

Tracks the release engineering activities for the 4.20 release.

Opening actions

• [x] Update version numbers
• [x] Create Milestone 4.21 in Github
• [x] Create Release in Project Administration

Release day - 7

• [x] Announce new release pending in discussions
• [x] Revisit all open tasks

Release candidate (Milestone) - testing

• [x] BIRT 4.20 All-In-One designer
• [x] BIRT 4.20 runtime
• [x] BIRT 4.20 runtime OSGi

Release day

• [x] Create Github release (Creates Tag and Announcement in Discussions)
• [x] Update README.MD
• [ ] Update 4.20 Release in Project Administration
• [ ] Create 4.21 Release in Project Administration
• [ ] Create 4.21 Releng Issue
• [x] Release to Maven Central
• [x] Move 4.20 open issues to 4.21

[merks]

Both of these contain 4.20 version so the new release cycle is open and ready for PRs.

• https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/nightly/latest
• https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/milestone/latest

[speckyspooky]

Have we a due date for the release 4.20?

[merks]

June 11th:

https://github.com/eclipse-simrel/.github/blob/main/wiki/Simultaneous_Release.md

[speckyspooky]

@wimjongman / @merks

I fixed 3 noted errors after the release of BIRT 4.19 last week. 2 errors are coming through enhancements with BIRT 4.19.

I now normally we follow the release planning of eclipse and next official release date is June 11th. From my point of view it would be good to create a intermediate/bugfix release 4.19.1 or 4.20. It would be hard to wait with this known issue 3 month. May be we could schedule this release mid of April.

Your personal view are very welcome.

#2095 / PR #2096: PPT-output image without bookmark/hyperlink (BIRT 4.19) #2093 / PR #2094 HTML-preview with exception image/chart outside of a table/grid (BIRT 4.19) #2085 / PR #2086 Excel with nested table & dynamic text at merged cells has changed behavior (BIRT 4.16)

[merks]

There will always be bugs that need fixing and, given that very few people (probably no one) test the ongoing builds, there will be always be regressions. So for me the question is for whom would it be hard to wait? And more importantly, why can't those people use a milestone build? After all, if whomever suffers from impatience had used an interim build before the release, we'd not be having the discussion in the first place.

Many people want things but almost no one is willing to do things. So I'm not inclined to create yet more work purely for people not willing contribute even a minimal testing effort. We can produce a milestone build with a few button pushes and that provide what's actually needed, results with fixes.

[speckyspooky]

Sure, I understand this view. The topic is that with the 2 bugs of BIRT 4.19 the ppt(x)-output is broken if images are used and html-output is broken if an image/chart is located outside a table/grid. So there are 2 strong errors and BIRT with broken html-preview isn't very smart. Therefore my thinking for an earlier release to solve the problems.

[merks]

Producing releases is a significant amount of work so my thinking is to avoid doing yet more work. A milestone build solves the problem too and is no extra work (for me).

The Eclipse Platform itself has analogous issues. E.g., if you have a non-ascii letter in your user account, the Edge browser does not work and it's the default for 4.35. This is a serious regression if you are caught by this problem but we will not produce another Platform, SimRel, and EPP release to address the problem. It's too much work.

It's best that folks not expect a release every time there is a problem. That's what testing is for and failing that, that's what patience is for.

[speckyspooky]

From my side it would be fine to have a "Milestone Release" because then we can address a specific point at which moment there is a more stable version available.

[wimjongman]

How would this be administrated? Do I have to create a 4.19.1 GH milestone?

[merks]

I think we will/should just make a milestone build of 4.20 and that will be available here until the first 4.21 milestone deletes all the 4.20 milestones:

https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/milestone/index.html

There is currently already a 4.20 milestone that is effective the same content as the 4.19 release but with the version increments.

I can only reiterate that my capacity to do "special things" is severely limited...

[wimjongman]

I can only reiterate that my capacity to do "special things" is severely limited...

Yes. You are now picking up some releng stuff that we can possibly do ourselves. Is it documented how to publish a new release?

Besides this, I am happy creating a 4.20 milestone build to address intermediate issues.

[merks]

https://eclipse.dev/justj/?page=tools

https://ci.eclipse.org/birt/job/build/job/master/

I just started a milestone build there...

You'll recall each cycle I lock down the target platform for fixed p2 repositories because otherwise people complain that they can't replicate the builds. At the start the versions are incremented and the target platform uses latest repositories again.

[speckyspooky]

Thanks Ed, I have tested the milestone with advanced reports of my company. I have done currently a rollback of the topic "nested tables" to the original code of 4.15 because the latest version had additional effects. I will test tomorrow the nightly build.

Many thanks for your support here!

[merks]

@speckyspooky @wimjongman

Are we on track to release on or around June 11th?

I've build another milestone:

• https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/milestone/S202505310629/

Next week I'll lock down the target platform to permanent stable update sites.

There's no time like the present for testing that this is of release quality.

[merks]

@speckyspooky @wimjongman

FYI, I've locked the target platform down so that it's possible in the future to build against the release tag.

I'm currently trying to make the ci instance more robust:

https://github.com/eclipse-birt/birt/pull/2182

So we are on track to be able to release on June 11, but neither of you have commented yet...

[wimjongman]

I was on the road for a month. I will take it for a spin.

[speckyspooky]

I started the testing of BIRT 4.20 with "latest nightly build" - testing with environment details:

• Application server: Apache Tomcat 9.0.105 (latest version)

• Java: Eclipse Adoptium Jdk 21.0.6.7 Hotspot

• [x] BIRT 4.20 All-In-One designer

• [x] BIRT 4.20 runtime

• [x] BIRT 4.20 runtime OSGi

Current results successfully: ok

BIRT All-In-One designer - MS Windows

Screen of BIRT 4.20 runtime - default page

Screen of BIRT 4.20 runtime OSGi - default page

Screens of demo reports

Screens: birt-4.20-demo-reports.zip

Example of demo report 02, standard runtime, dark theme

[merks]

That’s awesome 😎 we’re on a good track.

[wimjongman]

Thanks, Thomas!! We are go for release.

[merks]

FYI, I am currently unable to login to BIRT's ci instance just like in this issue:

https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/issues/6245

Hopefully that's addressed today.

[speckyspooky]

I hope we get is solved very soon.

[merks]

Yes I was able to login this afternoon and built this final milestone

https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/milestone/S202506101555

I will promote that to a release tomorrow.

[speckyspooky]

Sounds very well 😃

[merks]

The release is published

https://download.eclipse.org/birt/updates/release/4.20.0

And I've opened the development stream for 4.21 development:

• https://github.com/eclipse-birt/birt/issues/2184
• https://github.com/eclipse-birt/birt/commit/d849dee2674a2a3b07467779f6b29e8a27648f49

[speckyspooky]

@merks Thank you for you support!

[merks]

@wimjongman

With the release published to Maven Central I think we can close this, right?

[wimjongman]

No, still some subtasks open.

[wimjongman]

Success! Closing.