[Fab-user] Fabric 0.9.7, 1.0.2, 1.1.0, and status update part 2

[Jeff Forcier]

Hi all,

Happy to announce that both existing Fabric versions have received
bugfix updates, and we now have a new minor-level release, 1.1!

I *highly* suggest reading the changelogs in full -- we try hard to
make them human readable :)


# 0.9.7

    http://readthedocs.org/docs/fabric/en/0.9.7/changes/0.9.7.html

Nothing too exciting, just a bugfix to reboot(), which was broken for
many users.


# 1.0.2

    http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.0.2/changes/1.0.2.html

The usual grab bag and the last "big" bugfix release (see below). Most
important is a fix from Max Arnold for the widely reported issues re:
sudo prompts and output freezing. A handful of other medium-profile
bugs have also been fixed.


# 1.1.0

    http://readthedocs.org/docs/fabric/en/1.1.0/changes/1.1.html

Travis Swicegood contributed both lynchpin features here: @task
decorators and namespaces, implemented via a rudimentary
object-oriented Task class. fabric.tasks.Task is documented in the
public API and suitable for use in your own fabfiles if @task doesn't
do it for you. We'll extend this API in the future to be even more
useful.

1.1.0 also includes a number of other feature enhancements, and a few bugfixes.


# Status update pt 2

A few weeks ago I posted a notice about moving issue tracking/etc to
Github, and a near simultaneous change in release management:

    http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/fab-user/2011-06/msg00014.html

It all still applies, and is what I will be focusing on next. A specific rehash:

* Faster/smaller bugfix releases, at least in situations where a fix
is easy to come by.
* Faster/smaller feature releases -- pick a handful of related new
features, sprint on them, release.
* No more per-release labels unless a release is actively being worked on.
* Migration to Github to make use of pull requests, commit comments,
and similar features.
    * I need to do some research on the best way to import our Redmine
material into Github
    * Lock the Redmine instance so it is read-only
    * Perform the import
    * Publish some basic guidelines for GH collaboration (re: pull
requests, labels, milestones etc.)

The migration to Github may also entail switching the canonical repo
to github.com/fabric/fabric -- GH recently added a "move repository"
feature which does this and should preserve the network links.
HOWEVER: you will still need to update your git repo's remote to the
new URL. I will publish detailed instructions if and when this move
occurs.


Thanks to all of you for A) getting this far in the email and B) using Fabric!


Best,
Jeff

-- 
Jeff Forcier
Unix sysadmin; Python/Ruby engineer
http://bitprophet.org