[14] in Release_7.7_team
Meeting Notes, Friday, March 4
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dorothy Bowe)
Wed Mar 9 15:09:17 1994
To: release-77@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To:
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 94 15:08:46 EST
From: Dorothy Bowe <dot@MIT.EDU>
**** Executive Summary ****
We started out by examining the matrix we generated at the previous
meeting, the one which listed all the items proposed for the release and
the criteria which would affect the ease in which it could be
incorporated. As we talked about some specifics, a few ideas emerged:
1. There were certain items which everyone agreed pretty much have
to go into the release.
2. There were other items which really should happen, but probably
could not be done (or at least done well) for this release.
3. A couple of major items should be done in conjunction with the
release but are not release items per se. The most glaring
example of this is the mkserv locker, and possibly AFS 3.3.
4. Everything else pretty much fell into the "we should do this if
we have the resources" category.
For each item we then listed the area most affected, the person(s) with
the knowledge, and whether or not it could get done by code cut. (April
29)
The fallout from these ideas follows.
1. Items to definitely include
- Solaris 2.3
- AFS 3.3 clients
- Emacs 18.59
- MH 6.8
- Kerberos V support
- Remote access
- dm/xlogin (cookie)
2. Items we can't do now
- AFS 3.3 servers
- Ultrix 4.3
- X11R5/Motif1.2
3. Things to deal with outside of the release itself
- Zephyr (We will be revisiting this Friday)
- AFS 3.3 servers
- mkserv locker
4. Items we'd like to include
- Perl
- AIX 3.2.5
- Kerberos fixes (see detailed notes)
- Andrew 6
Since the meeting last week, a few more items have been proposed. We'll
be examining these and coming up with a definitive list this Friday.
=====================================================================
**** Detailed Notes ****
[ Editor's (== dot) note: Thanks Carla!]
Notes from 3/4 Release 7.7 Meeting
In attendance: Dot, Bruce, Carla, Gary, Kevin, Matt, Mark
There were 2 handouts -- 1 2-page table of the rankings we did at the
last meeting, and a 1-page handout with some possible weights for the
different categories.
*AFS Server discussion:
Bruce pointed out that layered athena for the HPs will need the new
AFS servers. What's the impact of not doing it as part of the release?
Will it even happen? Even if it were in the release, it's not clear
that ops would update them any sooner.
Action item, potentially: Dot needs to make it known to people that
something has to happen with the servers, even though it's not
necessarily a release issue.
Could we have some servers 3.3 and some not while we tested it?
Probably not in the same cell.
*Zephyr patch level 4
Matt now has more information about what is proposed for that:
- more POSIX-compliant
- 1 security fix
- getting the code that's actually running on the servers in
the release
- some performance improvements (broadcast messages not ack'd,
don't ping)
Auditing and testing would be big issues, though. Not included in this
set of changes is something that Matt would like to see done --
changing the hashing. Right now, it only hashes on class and instance,
so if you send a message to someone directly (e.g., message, personal,
carla), it has to do a linear search.
Why couldn't the zephyr stuff happen outside of the release? It might
be able to -- we aren't sure if any of the server changes require
client changes, though, and those would need to be in the release.
*Weights, items for inclusion, etc.
We started playing with the weights and the rankings some. It became
obvious that there are certain items that we knew we needed to have in
the release, though, so we first made a list of those and didn't
bother with the weights. Those items are:
- Solaris 2.3
- AFS 3.3 clients (goes along with Solaris)
- Emacs 18.59 (goes along with Solaris)
- MH 6.8 (Dot's been using it, with no ill effects)
- Kerberos V support
- Remote access (whatever Bruce can get done)
- dm/xlogin (cookie)
That left 8 items which we discussed further. We ranked 4 of those for
inclusion in the release, decided not to include 3 of them at this
time, and need more information about 1 of them.
The items we'd like included are:
1. Perl -- it's easy, and we don't expect problems
2. AIX 3.2.5 -- the hardware needs it, software is starting to need
it, could make installations easier
3. Kerberos fixes. This was originally proposed as "patch level 10",
but the item we'd actually like to include is "patch level 9 + some
POSIX stuff (done by Miki) , with Ted auditing"
4. Andrew -- testing is important here, and we should make sure to
include some non-ISers (people such as Ed Barrett)
The items we don't think should be included at this time are:
A. AFS server updates -- outside the release
B. Ultrix 4.3 -- Craig has other things to do, only know of one
third-party package that really needs it (newer version of SAS), Ezra
thinks it's too late to start on it now. This is a good candidate for
a future release; we should start on the next release as soon as this
one is done.
C. X11R5/Motif 1.2 -- Bruce is getting married, and will be returning
from his honeymoon 2 days before code cut. This would also be good for
a future release
We need more information about the proposed Zephyr changes. We suggest
making release-related changes in this release and doing the rest
outside of the release cycle, but we don't know what release-related
changes are needed, if any.
[Ed. This item is on the agenda for Friday]
*Matt suggests that we should keep 3 lists:
- items for this release
- items for next release, which should be started soon (e.g., Ultrix
4.3, X11R5/Motif 1.2, etc)
- non-release, but should be done by Fall or sooner (e.g., zephyr
server changes, mkserv stuff [needed by the time the release goes
out], AFS server updates, maybe fixing that OLC realm-checking stuff?)
*Summary of release items
For each of the items discussed at this meeting which we are proposing
for the release, we looked at what area would take the major hit doing
it, who are the people with the knowledge, and if we think the code
will be ready by April 30th.
Item Major hit area Knowledge April 30?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solaris 2.3 everyone Miki/Mark Yes
AFS 3.3 client dev, ops (in case) Miki/Mark Yes
Emacs 18.59 dev (quota fix) ??? + Calvin Yes, if
someone assigned
MH 6.8 none Miki Yes
Kerberos v5 doc (minor) Ted Yes
Remote access dev, doc, NSS(RCCs) Bruce Yes
dm/xlogin none Craig Yes
Perl dev, doc (minor) Mark Yes
AIX 3.2.5 everyone Richard ?
Kerb pl9 + dev Miki/Ted Yes
Andrew Bill, doc Bill Yes
*Next meeting -- Friday, 3/11, 10:30 - 11:30 to discuss what Dot'll
present to ppt.
