Sakai 2.6

• General Information
• Release Schedule
• What's in Sakai 2.6?
  • Overview
  • Jira Filters
  • sakai.properties changes
  • db Conversions
  • Kernel
  • Tool Promotions/Retirements
  • Contrib Project Compatibility
• QA
• Adopter Timlelines

General Information

Branch Manager(s): David Horwitz, Stephen Marquard

Questions on the release? Email sakai-dev@collab.sakaiproject.org.

Release Schedule

The release team reserves the right to adjust deadlines, in order to produce a quality release, and to accommodate holidays, weekends, etc.

	Event	Weeks Prior to Release	Target 2.6.0 Dates	Description	Responsibility
	Call for Tool Promotions	23	11-Aug-2008	Put call out call for nominations of tools to be promoted/demoted in the release.	Project Coordinator Community
Frozen later than anticipated to accommodate enhancements.	Kernel API Freeze	22	15-Aug-2008	Freeze Kernel API's.	Kernel Team
Some exceptions granted.	Feature Freeze	21	31-Aug-2008	Preliminary tool and service change specifications should be shared for work intended for the next release. A complete specification for the project should be made available in the project's Confluence space, and a summary should be incorporated into the Sakai Roadmap.	Project Teams Project Coordinator
Low response rate.	Specification Freeze	20	07-Sep-2008	Project specifications are frozen. Summaries and full specifications of what is changing should be re-published in their updated form, including for projects seeking tool status changes.	Project Teams
Tool Status being replaced with Scorecard Approach.	Tool Promotion Deadline	20	07-Sep-2008	End of nominations for tool status changes. Discussion of tool promotion can begin prior to this, but all should be underway by this time.	Community Project Teams
Frozen late, 06-Oct-2008.	Kernel Freeze	19	07-Sep-2008	Freeze K1 kernel in preparation for Sakai 2.6	Kernel committers
No major upgrades for 2.6.	Upgrade Freeze	18	15-Sep-2008	Upgrades and additions to shared/common jar files and tools (e.g., java, maven, dbcp, spring, hibernate, tomcat) are completed.	Project Teams
Tool Status being replaced with Scorecard Approach.	Tool Status Freeze	18	15-Sep-2008	Decisions are finalized on promoting and retiring tools. Project teams begin work related to status changes.	Community Project Teams
Some exceptions granted up to a week.	Code Freeze	16	29-Sep-2008 8am Eastern	All changes to code completed, including sakai.properties settings, appropriate default permissions, work related to tool status changes, database upgrade/conversion scripts, help documentation, etc. Begin determining what features are incomplete and removing them from the release in time for the Test Freeze.	Project Teams
Pushed as we don't have clear specifications on what is in/out of the release yet.	Test Freeze	15	06-Oct-2008	Complete the removal of unfinished features. Final specifications are published in full and summary forms. Formal QA begins; informal QA, such as verifying Jira's, is likely to have been going on for awhile prior to this. Generally only bug fixes are allowed past this point.	Project Teams QA WG
	Branch Freeze	10	06-Oct-2008	2.6 branch for release is cut from trunk. Changes after this point will require merging from trunk to the release branch by Branch Managers.	Branch Manager
Delayed to 22-Oct-2008 while kernel release candidate was completed.	Alpha tags	15	06-Oct-2008	Begin tagging alpha (QA) releases.	Branch Manager
	Beta tags	10	10-Nov-2008	Begin tagging beta releases.	Branch Manager
	String Freeze	8	01-Dec-2008	No more changes in UI text, so the Internationalization WG can create translations and the Help WG can update documentation. Implementors can also begin updating their local documentation. (If you're tool will be ready prior to String Freeze, please let the community know, so that work can get started early on translations and help documentation. See Sakai 2.6 Translations.)	Project Teams Internationalization WG Help WG
	Release Candidates	6	15-Dec-2008	Begin tagging release candidates.	Branch Manager
	Official Release	0	02-Feb-2009 [Tentative]	Software is officially released.	Everyone

What's in Sakai 2.6?

Overview

Sakai 2.6 Overview

Possible Release Bundles

There has been discussion about offering more than one type of release for Sakai in the 2.6 timeframe. Such types might include:

• Essentials - a suite of production-ready tools and services that deliver the essential set of functionality necessary to use Sakai as a CLE. (Similar in content to past releases.)
• Developer - a stripped-down suite of tools and services that provide a developer with a minimal environment suitable for most Sakai development contexts. (Similar in content to the Programmer's Cafe build or mini.)
• Demo or Futures - a wide-ranging collection of tools and services, including those of the essentials release, plus Contrib projects that may not be production-ready yet, but which offer important additional functionality; also includes sample data to help demonstrate its feature set. (Goes beyond our demo releases of the past by including Contrib projects.)

Jira Filters

• Sakai 2.6 Overview
• Sakai 2.6 Enhancement List
• Sakai 2.6 Bug List

Other 2.6-Related Planning Information:

• 2.6 Proactive Roadmap
• Sakai 2.6 and 3.0

sakai.properties Changes

Please Document sakai.properties Changes! If you are adding or modifying a sakai.properties setting for 2.6, please make sure it is also documented in the sakai.properties file in reference.

Jira	Summary	sakai.properties Setting and Default Values	In references sakai.properties?	Notes
SAK-6545	Enable control over which and in what order pages appear for Preferences.	preference.pages = prefs_tab_title, prefs_noti_title, prefs_timezone_title, prefs_lang_title, prefs_privacy_title If not set, then default pages and order is Customize Tabs, Notifications, Timezone and Language; Privacy is not displayed.		enable.privacy.status setting is no longer honored.
SAK-10612	Allow any (matrix/wizard) reviewer to view members independent of group membership	osp.reviewer.groups.allowall.global=false
SAK-13431	Create a property to turn the edit title function on the Site Tool Order page on or off	org.sakaiproject.site.tool.helper.order.rsf.PageListProducer.allowTitleEdit=false
SAK-14039	Specifies which servlet container / application server Sakai is deployed on. To deploy Sakai on WebSphere, this option must be set to "websphere".	servlet.container By default this is commented out, for non-WebSphere deployment (including Tomcat).		Can be used for other app servers in the future.
SAK-14206	Enable/disable caching for rendering of portfolios.	cache.osp.presentation.data=true
SAK-14382	Include sender's campus e-mail address on "From" line.	msgcntr.notification.user.real.from and msgcntr.notification.from.address By default these are set to the value of defaultEmail.
SAK-7924	Specifies which roles can switch to student view	studentview.roles		Admins must be careful when configuring this option as the possibility of elevate permissions exists

Database Conversions

Those updgrading from a previous installtion of Sakai will likely need to run the db conversion scripts listed below.

(It may get tricky if there are also 2.5.x changes to the same schema, such that it becomes important which version of 2.5 you are upgrading from; might need to offer multiple options and script IDs for those.)

See also the Sakai 2.5.x Maintenance Branch db conversions.

Kernel

The Sakai 2.6.0 release is based on Kernel 1.0, which is currently at version 1.0.0. If bugs are uncovered in the kernel whose fixes are deemed appropriate for 2.6, then they will be merged to the Kernel 1.0.x maintenance branch, and a Kernel 1.0.1 maintenance release will subsequently be tagged for use by Sakai 2.6.0.

Candidate Jiras for Kernel 1.0.x merging and a Kernel 1.0.1 maintenance release:

• KNL-68 (formerly SAK-14502): NotificationCache.put doesn't check for null
• KNL-70: sakai.properties file needs to be moved out of /kernel and back into a main sakai directory.

Tool Promotions/Retirements

Typically for each release nominations are sought for the promotion or retirement of tools in that release. In the past this centered on the tool's status (Core, Provisional, or Contrib), however, that simple approach wasn't serving all the needs of the community, so a working group was formed at the Paris Conference to improve this system. The goal of this Scorecard Working Group is to provide a comprehensive "scorecard" for tool and service evaluation. While this group is actively working on the new scorecard, however, we still need to start discussing what tools and services (and level of availability) are appropriate for Sakai 2.6, and the table below is intended to capture the tools and services for which folks are interested in seeing changes. (Note that the possibility of offering multiple types of releases is also under consideration for Sakai 2.6; see above.)

If you have a tool or service you would like to see added to the list, please contact the Sakai Project Coordinator (Peter A. Knoop). Discussion on the tool and services role in the release will be carried out on the management@collab.sakaiproject.org list.

Tool	Proposed Action	Related Jira Issues	Decision
Email Template Service	Add the Email Template Service to the release as a stand alone service (not part of kernel). Will enable some tools, such as Worksite Setup/Site Info and Reset Password to implement desired functionality for 2.6 (SAK-1295, (SAK-11324). (Vote called for 27-Aug-2008 on sakai-dev list.)	SAK-13900	Included.
Hierarchy Service	Add the Hierarchy Service to the release, though disabled by default, so that tools can begin using it going forward.		Not ready.
MessageCenter	Has been deprecated for both the 2.4 and 2.5 release, since its functionality was split into two independent tools: Messages and Forums tools. For 2.6 it is proposed to remove it from the release simply by removing its tool.id, etc.	SAK-13670	Combined MessageCenter tool will be removed from configuration files. (Functionality is of course still there, split into the Messages and Forums tools.)
Presentation	Leave the code in trunk, but do not include it with the 2.6 release.		Still to be determined, 23-Oct-2008. (In? Out? Stealthed?)
Mailtool	Leave the code in trunk, but do not include it with the 2.6 release. (A newer, re-written version of the tool is available in contrib.)		Still to be determined, 23-Oct-2008. (In? Out? Stealthed?)
Conditional Release	Include at least the service from contrib, and perhaps the GB-Resources integration as time allows.		Not included.
CalDAV support	Include service to allow for site events to be published to CalDAV store, off by default.	SAK-13277	Not included.

Contrib Project Compatibility

This area is for compiling a list of which (and when) Contrib Projects will have a version that is compatible and easy to deploy for Sakai 2.6.

QA

Please visit the QA Working Group space.

Adopter Timlelines

Tentative adoption timelines for Sakai 2.6.