Meeting 2015 11 14

Informal Board of Director's Meeting

Present:

• Andrew M. (Content SB, Chair)
• Stefan R. (OS 2nd)
• Doug L. (Data 2nd)
• PapaDRB (Observer)

Summary:

• Informal Meeting
• Covered team reports (1 code bug, 9 data bugs)
• Explained anticipated release schedule: November 18th will have a BETA release, and December 16th will be the Production release of 6.06.00
• Pending issues gating 6.06
• Roadmap Projects
• Advanced Class Guide Archetypes work before 6.06

RAW LOG:

• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Greetings all, and welcome to the PCGen Board of Director's meeting on November 14th, 2015. This is currently an informal meeting.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> A quick reminder, that Board is supposed to meet on a monthly basis, and we have been having schedule conflicts. The changing of times for the States doesn't help.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Our topics on the Agenda are:
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Team Reports
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Release Schedule confirmation (Nov 18th 6.05.06 Beta, Nov 25th 6.05.07 Beta, Dec 2nd 6.05.08 Beta, Dec 9th 6.06.00RC1, Dec 16th 6.06.00)
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Roadmap/Vision discussion for 6.08
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I'll start by relaying James Code brief:
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> There isn't much to report on the code side. On the release side it was great to see someone else do a release with minimum assistance. I would be interested in hearing if you hit any issues though Andrew.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I am pleased to say the Release went fairly smooth. A few hiccups and updates, but otherwise 6.05.05 went out without any known issues.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Since the release 1 code bug has been closed.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> No report from the Arch team, however Tom has some pending issues to get in before we go Beta.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Content - Data - 9 Features/Bugs resolved since 6.05.05 was released. Gearing up for the mass conversion and PrettyLst, however Arch needs to address a bug in the converter. Docs and OS has 0 issues resolved since 6.05.05 was released.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Doug anything you wish to add for Data?
• <Distant_Scholar> Nothing new here.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Stefan anything you wish to add for OS?
• <@Zaister> I don’t really have anything to add at this time, as I’ve been a bit out of the loop
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Fair enough, thanks.
• <@Zaister> Andrwe indicated two bugs to me which I’ll be taling on next week
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> PR has not submitted any report, I thought Paul was going to be present.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Admin - no report. However, we have had some issues with the recent server migration. Jenkins still appears to be out of commission which means our autobuilds are not functioning and haven't been functioning since November 2nd. James resolved an issue with the Travis tests. Wiki is having an issue with logins.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> That covers the team reports to the best of my abilities. I'll ask for questions to be delayed till the open forum session to speed this along. ;)
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Release Schedule
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> After consulting with James and Tom, the current schedule for release will be 3 Betas (1 week intervals), 1 RC and then 1 Production. With the first Beta scheduled for Wednesday November 18th.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> With the Production release slated for December 16th.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> After the 16th, the entire team is asked to enjoy the holidays with their family and friends and resume activities January 16th, 2016.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Everyone has worked hard and deserves a well earned month off!
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> This means if you have any BOOKS, or FEATURES to be included for 6.06.00, it must be included by the deadline of the 18th, or be granted dispensation by your team Silverback.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> As always, once we hit the RC, the new version branch will be cut, and master will go back into alpha development mode.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Lastly, the team leads and volunteers need to anticipate their involvement with the project and see if they can commit to any sizable projects. We have a Roadmap for 6.08 and the anticipated project development cycle is six to nine months for next year. We anticipate Tom's inclusion of the Formula Parser, and INFO/INFOVAR. I've volunteered some time to take a look at James' work on the LST editor.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> The current suggestions for the roadmap:
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> LST Editor Completion
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Formula Parser Replacement
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> International Language Support
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Gamemode reliance removal
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Dynamic FACT like tag for Data
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Output Sheet work
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Improved Documentation
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Other suggestions and projects are also welcome.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> That concludes my informal information report.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise?
• <PapaDRB> none here
• <Distant_Scholar> Question #1: new books or features must be included by the deadline of the 18th ... of November?
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Yes
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Once we enter BETA phase, the team efforts should be focused on fixing any discovered or known bugs.
• <Distant_Scholar> Question #2: I know we're an international group, but I personally haven't heard the calls for International Language Support. Would this be a lot of work for a few people?
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> We can include books, but they must be stable, or we'll use the OOC installer method.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I get a request for international support about once every three months. It is on the project radar, we do have a Wiki on how we intended to tackle it.
• <Distant_Scholar> Got it.
• <Distant_Scholar> Question #3: This is probably me being dull-brained, or having missed a meeting, but what is a "Dynamic FACT like tag for Data"?
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> That is a "Tom" surprise. He mentioned a tag for Dynamic items that was FACT like, but has not elaborated about it further.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> When I say FACT-Like, I mean a Data driven create your own tag deal, like FACT is today.
• <@Zaister> Sounds mysterious
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> FACTs are a Static unchanging item.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> This would be a dynamic tag. Yes, Tom likes to build suspense sometimes.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> We already have a model for FACTs, it is within the realm of possibility to make a "NONFACT" or whatever.
• <Distant_Scholar> So I'm not as dull-braind as I thought! Score!
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Only dull-brain is me. I haven't pulled a 24 hour straight session in a long time.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> A quick request from me to the data team - Advanced Class Guide. The archetypes need to get enabled. We need to add BONUSes and other standard tags. I'd like to get those added ASAP before we push out the 6.06 release
• <Distant_Scholar> I can work on that. Let me know if there's an order of preference as to what gets covered.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I've already had a few bug reports for the archetypes. I suspect those will build up unless we address that issue.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> No order, probably best to start from A and go in order to Z.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I hit a snag with an Arcanist Archetype. Can't swap a Spell List (Arcanist for Witch). I added the proper newtag for that. Which I'm sure Tom will just love to pieces.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Any other questions, comments or concerns before I wrap this meeting up?
• <@Zaister> I’m personally interested in a swashbuckler archetype, so I can look at that, too, this week.
• <Distant_Scholar> I have an idea for the arcanist archetype (swap out the spellcasting completely), but that's it right now.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Let's leave the swap as a last item, focus on the items we do support. I suspect a swap will take a bit of time and likely going to be an ugly hack.
• <Distant_Scholar> OK
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> For Stefan and Doug, time management is the priority here. ACG additions will count as "bugs", focus on any features you'd like to handle before the 18th, and then spend the rest of the time on the ACG archetype work.
• <@Zaister> good to know
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> I know, technically features, but they'll be expected and reported as bugs. Special dispensation for that project.
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Okay, 35 minutes not bad. Thanks for coming everyone. Meeting is adjourned! *bangs gavel*
• <PapaDRB> bye all
• <Distant_Scholar> So long!
• <@Zaister> goodbye
• <@[Chair]AndrewAAM> Night!