Plan for EntityReference 7.x-1.2 release

#1702172 looks very similar to #2375957 - almost the same first few lines, then adds some more detailed error reporting. Could possibly mark as duplicates.

Great thing this happens!

Any maintainers around?

The current stable release, 7.x-1.1, is now over 2 years old and 11 commits behind dev. If there's a delay with committing the child issues here which are RTBC, then a 1.2 should be released from the current state of dev -- unless it's so unstable it kills kittens or something ;)

That work doesn't seem to be happening though. Out of the RTBCs referenced here, I looked at three at random, and the one most recently set to RTBC was May 2015. The other two are in 2014!

So my point is that releasing a 1.2 *now* is a 2-minute job which significantly helps users of this module. Getting all those RTBCs committed first is a job that requires an amount of time that maintainers haven't found in several months. Therefore, it makes sense to release 1.2 now, because it helps, and it doesn't detract from finding time to get the RTBCs committed.

Gotta chime in and +1 this. We really need many of the commits done over the last almost 3 years to be in a newer stable release. If there are any blockers, perhaps listing them here would be nice, so folks can try and pitch in? If not, let's just get a 1.2 out there ASAP? Thx!

+1 to approach in #6 Release now and work on the RTBC queue after and in time.

Yes #6 (release now as is) would really ease some pain.

+1 Even though I am the raiser of one of the issues that isn't yet fixed, I agree having a release exactly as-is now would be a help to all.

PS If anyone was willing to review my issue #2292451: Make "update access implies view access" optional that would be appreciated.

+1 to approach in #6

+1 to tagging a 1.2 or at least a 1.2-beta/rc

Is anyone able to ping a maintainer about this issue? (Devin Carlson/amitai/Damien Tournoud)

I volunteer DamienMcKenna as a new maintainer for this module. ;)

I've contacted DamienMcKenna to see if he'de like to nominate himself as a maintainer for this module given #2784303: Abandoned project? No commits since November 2015? and #2784307: Entityreference is abandoned , this module has over a quarter of a million reported installs and seems to have completely stalled in the last 3 years.

No reply from DamienMcKenna

He replied in #2784303-4: Abandoned project? No commits since November 2015?.

Also, "no". :p

I'd volunteer to
* implement #6 and release 1.2 as-is
* look over the RTBCs and commit the foolproofs to a dev (and maybe a 1.3-rc)
* very conservatively comaintain the d7 branch with a small but nonzero time budget

Hello everyone! Friendly neighborhood (new) maintainer here. We're going to start reviewing patches on Monday August 29th. We'll probably end up breaking the list of bugs fixes down into multiple releases just to get new stuff out/tested in a timely manner. Coldfront Labs has dedicated time as a company to contrib modules each Monday. So any subsequent release or review will occur on that schedule.

Here's our plan for the next bit:

1. We're looking to get all the RTBC into stable
2. Focus on bug fixing / security issues first
3. Any RTBC patch which doesn't have a test case defined it'll be marked as needs work
4. No port to D8 is expected (since entity ref is in core already)
5. Once all the current RTBC patches are reviewed, we'll move onto other items in the queue
6. Finally move through the Needs Review list.
7. New features only if they're already in an RTBC issue
8. We'll go through any issue which is postponed or waiting and give a one week notice to the dev to respond (given no response we'll close the issue)

After that we'll just sort through the queue of needs work and active items looking primarily for bugs or critical issues. Feature requests will probably be ignored. The end result is to put entity reference into minimal maintenance mode. Just do security updates and breaking bug fixes.

Big thank you to everyone who created patches though. We'll do our best to get them into a stable release in the near future.

Sounds alright, apart from the "feature requests" part.

Sure for the next few releases focus primarily on bugs, but please don't rule out new features entirely in the longer term. I know myself that there are several feature requests that are real value adds going back many years, it'd be a crying shame if these were completely shelved.

I also have a small concern regarding tests, my observation has been that the numbers of people able to write tests is orders of magnitude smaller than those that are able to report issues, or even create patches. So my concern is that if you just bounce back every issue to "needs tests" then unless someone with the skill is able commit time to these then they're never going to be fixed.

(Not saying we shouldn't have tests, just subtly asking if the new co-maintainers would be willing to lend a hand, or at least get the ball rolling.)

If I can clarify, we aren't completely ruling out new features. However we (maintainers) have no plans to write any new features. If a useful and compelling feature is developed (and has tests), we'll be happy to add it.

Also, we won't be bouncing every single RTBCd issue to needs work. We'll be evaluating everything case by case, starting with RTBCd issues. But if your issue gets bounced, you'll know why.

I've rolled a 1.2 release today. We'll be slowly testing and applying the rest of the RTBCd issues on to dev, and will periodically rolling releases as we go.

Since we've got a plan to move forward, I've resolving this issue.

Cool the wagon is rolling again!

@spotzero thanks for the hard work!