Update On Pinax 16.04

Inspired by Linux distributions like Ubuntu, James Tauber proposed a different approach to releasing Pinax apps and starter projects. As a result of James’s proposal we announced Pinax 16.04 last month and explained as well the benefits of the approach as the rough plan we were going to follow.

Step 1: Voting On Apps

As a first step we decided which apps to focus on. We took a large list of apps from issue #84 and set up a spreadsheet to vote on which of these apps we thought were close to being ready. Based on the voting, these are the candidates for the Pinax 16.04 distribution:

Please note that this doesn’t mean that we won’t continue working on other Pinax apps as well. This just means that only the above apps are contenders for inclusion in the April Pinax distribution. Additionally, note that just because an app is in this list this doesn’t guarantee that it will also be included in Pinax 16.04. An additional requirement for an app to be included in the 16.04 distribution is for it to be used in a starter project which is itself accepted for inclusion.

Next Steps

The next steps which will happen are the following:

  1. If you have a problem with any of the above 18 apps, meaning if you would like for one of them to be omitted or think an additional app should be included, please raise a flag as soon as possible! The best way to do this is to join our Pinax Slack team and ping us there, or to comment on issue #84.
  2. If there is any work in progress on any of these apps it needs to quickly be triaged and anything likely to be unstable should be punted.
  3. We will releases of all the above apps (if needed) and note the release number that is a candidate for the 16.04 release.
  4. We will quickly identify gaps in starter projects and get working on them to make sure every candidate app above is well-represented amongst the starter projects.

What We Are Currently Working On

We are currently trying to designate a “release manager” for each app. The release manager won’t have to do all the work. Their main task is staying on top of issues and pull requests and deciding which apps will be included in 16.04 and which ones to postpone until after 16.04. If you are interested in becoming the release manager for any of the apps mentioned above, please ping us in Slack and let us know!

Additionally, as well as triaging issues and getting apps ready, we’re working on making sure we have starter projects done that showcase the apps. All this progress will be tracked in our “app readiness” spreadsheet. We hope to have all of this done by the end of March so we can tag all the releases for Pinax 16.04 in April.

In order to accomplish this big effort we would appreciate your help. If you would like to help us with Pinax 16.04 in any way, please contact us! We’d love to hear from you!