Please include release plan and status in release announcements

[tlpthx]

First of all, thanks to all the people involved in creating nextcloud, I really enjoy working with it both as a user and an admin.

But I do have a request regarding the announcements of releases:

I do like the marketing-blogs featuring all the crazy new features. But I find it frustrating to read these, and when I get around to testing the update a few days later I find out that I can’t test half of the features because they are not released yet or don’t work yet.
I would really appreciate if these marketing posts were accompanied by a release status and plan, so that both admins and managers have a clear understanding what is available and what not.
Having a big announcement with all the fancy new features while those are only available on the beta channel and some are not even released, yet - that does not seem like very good communication.
I think it’s fine to have the announcement before the actual release, but currently the posts have no indication that the features are not available in a stable release, yet.

[just]

Curious of how you feel this could be partially addressed with annual release within supported majors

[tlpthx]

Having a fixed release-cycle is helpful, but requires even more that the release is planned properly. It would be a disaster if an annual release was not ready to actually deploy to production.

[just]

I think you aren’t understanding the concept of the annual release cycle. It is an extension of the existing stable releases.

Related to your points, it is about very clearly documenting the process of upgrading between each supported stable.

[tflidd]

Regarding the release cycles, stability of features, that is an often recurring topic:

Review - Nextcloud Release Cycle

This is a review of the Nextcloud release cycle. I’ve been testing on NextcloudPi in addition to regular Nextcloud. All with Mariadb, Redis, fpm. I’ve found admins should expect their Nextcloud system to be fully upgraded at a minimum of every 10 calendar months. This is the most conservative release cycle available for general admins. I’ve tested running Nextcloud 15 and 17 for as long as possible. Releases are as follows: Version 13 from 02/06/2018 - 02/29/2019. Thirteen months. Version…

Nextcloud Quality and Release-Cycles

hey, I’m a big fan of NextCloud and always try to help everywhere. I’m noticing more and more that there are fewer inquiries here. Threads remain unanswered, there are thousands of issues on Github and they aren’t getting fewer, and every 3-4 months there is a completely new release from NextCloud. The many issues on Github and the many open, unanswered topics bother many people. We are all aware that everyone can help here and many do it voluntarily, just like myself. Wouldn’t it make sense…

@tlpthx

Having a big announcement with all the fancy new features while those are only available on the beta channel and some are not even released, yet - that does not seem like very good communication

Depends on how you do it. If you say the new version comes with these features …, currently the beta version is out and the final release is planned for xy, I don’t see a problem.

If a new feature does not work, checkout the forum, if others have the same issues, if yes, check to create a new bug report, if it is not or poorly documented, put a bug report on the documentation …

[Sanook]

@tlpthx

I get around to testing the update a few days later

Experience shows that you let others test it first and only try it out yourself after a few weeks instead of a few days.

[just]

@Sanook

Experience shows that you let others test it first and only try it out yourself after a few weeks instead of a few days.

fwiw, I wait for point releases to fix all issues. Usually takes few weeks, and can be followed on Github.

I also spin up a second instance solely for testing upgrades.

[tlpthx]

I’m totally fine with having the big release announcement for a beta or RC release. It would be nice if that was spelled out and somewhat planned out:
“This is what will be in the next release, it it now in beta and planned to be released to stable in … weeks. Here you can find the current status of all the features and this is where you will find the final release announcement.”
I’m also happy to participate in the testing and filing bug reports as needed, I need to test and prepare the prod update anyway. But I think the current form of announcement tends to create different expectations.

[just]

@tlpthx

But I think the current form of announcement tends to create different expectations.

Exactly what I hope could be addressed by adding annual stable documentation, because what it really does is document the change across each stable release more generally.

@tlpthx

Here you can find the current status of all the features and this is where you will find the final release announcement.

Yes please.

[tlpthx]

@just

Exactly what I hope could be addressed by adding annual stable documentation, because what it really does is document the change across each stable release more generally.

Yes, I would expect that to be easier with a fixed schedule. I have no idea if that is doable with way functionality is spread over different addons in Nextcloud. But either way, for these main releases the described release documentation would be very helpful, no matter if the releases are done in regular or irregular intervals.

[Mikhail_K]

Hi! Thanks for sharing your experience.

Is about Hub 9 announcement in particular or it happened to you before? Do you mind sharing a few examples of features in question?

[tlpthx]

@Mikhail_K

Do you mind sharing a few examples of features in question?

The announcment ends with “Click below and start using the latest and greatest of Nextcloud Hub today! ”, but the Button leads to the download page and no update instructions. When you simply update Nextcloud, nothing happens. Instead you have to scroll further down in the article to find the link to the guide on how to switch to the beta channel. It is good that this article exists, and it works for the hub update. But it is a few too many steps to find out that the update is not actually released, yet. The update guide starts with “f you don’t want to wait for AIO getting updated to NC30 for everyone in the near future” which is the first indication that it is not ready for production, yet.

The backend for the whiteboard app was not available when I first tested, it would have required a manual installation of the backend. By now it is integrated in AIO and works well.

I could not test the flow engine yet, I think that’s mostly because the app api does not work anymore since the update and I have not been able to fully debug that and post a bug report, yet. But it did not help that the new flow app had no installation documentation, yet, so I was not sure if I was missing something or it just didn’t work.

The AI updates are a bit limited since the context chat backend is not ready for production, yet, and does not work in my (or most) production installations. That is not an issue with the Hub 9 release, though.

Naturally, there are a lot of features I haven’t tested yet or that are not applicable to my case, so those may or may not work, but I have run into no issues with them either way, so that is all good for me.

Overall, if the announcement had been titled “Beta release”, I think the experience would have exceeded expectations. For a beta, it is really well done and most of the features were working out of the box from the start.
For someone who reads the announcement and is eager to hop in and start using the new features, it is a disappointing journey.

That is why I am not mainly complaining that some things are not working, but suggesting to improve the release announcement and documentation. I think that would improve the experience for both users and admins.

[bb77]

Yeah, it would be better if they didn’t say download it right now to get all the new features, and if they explicitly pointed out that AIO usually only marks a new major release as stable when the first point release is out. Btw, baremetal installations are similar, as the update is rolled out in waves, and you usually have to force it if you want it on day one. But then again, marketing is marketing and reality is reality, and there are other strictly commercial products where the difference between marketing and reality is much bigger.

It should also be clear that in reality it’s usually a bit more complicated to get certain more complex features like A.I. up and running than it might seem in a marketing presentation or a release announcement, i.e. they’re often not one-click solutions, and a marketing presentation obviously cannot include an hour-long tutorial on how to set them up.

Also, if the documentation is a bit lacking on day one, or one or two features are not quite ready, we should forgive that imho, and complaining about it seems a bit petty, especially since we get it all completely for free.

And last but not least, a certain DIY attitude is just necessary for hosting a relatively complex application suite like Nextcloud yourself, although it is already made very easy with AIO.

Just my 5 cents on the topic.

[just]

@bb77

they’re often not one-click solutions, and a marketing presentation obviously cannot include an hour-long tutorial on how to set them up.

Actually, that sounds like a great idea. If they cannot do it, the announcement can always kindly request community members or influencers help create such content, such as technical walkthroughs on particularly complex topics on Youtube, etc. Even better is if it helps improve documentation at the same time. My .02

[bb77]

@just

Even better is if it helps improve documentation at the same time. My .02

That would be perfect, of course, but perfect is also the enemy of good, and especially of getting s*** done

By the way, I’m not saying that there isn’t always room for improvement in all areas, but anyone who has ever worked in IT knows that new releases are always a bit rough around the edges, which is why large companies usually only roll out new releases to a subset of users and/or generally wait until the first point releases are out before rolling out new releases.

Or do you really think that when MS or SAP are releasing new major versions of their ‘on prem’ solutions, everything is perfect on day one? Believe me, the opposite is the case. I remember a Sharepoint deployment in a large organisation. It took over a year and in the end they had to buy about 50% more hardware than planned, install countless patches and tweaks to get it to work reasonably well, and sync problems with MS Office were a constant issue and that paricular problem was never a 100% solved.

Just to put things into perspective

[tlpthx]

@bb77

Or do you really think that when MS or SAP are releasing new major versions of their ‘on prem’ solutions, everything is perfect on day one?

That is definitely the expectation and also the bar MS aims for for most software releases. Of course this only applies to standard cases, not for projects, but for the standard cases, the goal and expectation is that it just works. If that is not the case there would be detailed documentation and warning what needs to be done for an installation or upgrade.

The community approach to documentation and tutorials is an integral part of the open source landscape. But the basis for that is basic documentation, which is required to enable content creators to make tutorials efficiently. It is not a viable solution if a YouTuber has to spend weeks figuring out the installation in order to make a video tutorial. So the requirements are the same, there needs to be basic documentation for the standard case, then everything else (like instructions for special cases and issues, video tuturials, …) can be created on top of that.

And again, it is fine to do all that in the beta phase. People just need to know up front that it is a beta.

[bb77]

So you’re saying that proprietary software has no bugs and is perfectly documented down to the last detail on day 1. But then why are they constantly releasing patches if everything was already perfect since day 1?

Nextcloud 30 is no longer beta. But it certainly still has bugs otherwise there would be no need for a 30.0.1, 30.0.2 etc.

At the presentation, however, various additional features were presented, some of which require additional apps and separate backends to work, and yes, some features, and especially their documentation, were not fully complete at the time of release, and some are still not.

However, when making such comparisons, you always have to bear in mind that Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar corporation, where a single team that is only responsible for a subset of a particular application is likely to be larger than Nextcloud GmbH has employees in total.

And of course you also pay Microsoft a ton of money for licences, support, access to extended technical documentation, have your employees certified, etc. You can have this with Nextcloud as well, including consulting and extended documentation: Nextcloud Enterprise: Content collaboration software for enterprises

[just]

@bb77

but anyone who has ever worked in IT knows that new releases are always a bit rough around the edges, which is why large companies usually only roll out new releases to a subset of users and/or generally wait until the first point releases are out before rolling out new releases.

I’m honestly unsure of why you mention this. Or, maybe you are speaking more generally… I’m confused why this is being brought up when the point you quoted is about encouraging better documentation. The documentation regarding point releases to ease the very sort of frustration that started this topic.

@tlpthx

I would really appreciate if these marketing posts were accompanied by a release status and plan, so that both admins and managers have a clear understanding what is available and what not.

This is the part I would hope can be improved.

@tlpthx

posts have no indication that the features are not available in a stable release, yet.

So maybe there is room for improvement.

@tflidd

If a new feature does not work, checkout the forum, if others have the same issues, if yes, check to create a new bug report, if it is not or poorly documented, put a bug report on the documentation …

This would be how things are now.

@tlpthx

Overall, if the announcement had been titled “Beta release”, I think the experience would have exceeded expectations. For a beta, it is really well done and most of the features were working out of the box from the start.

I agree. This would fall in-line with how Matrix handles their “labs” of features being tested and refined.

@tlpthx

I am not mainly complaining that some things are not working, but suggesting to improve the release announcement and documentation. I think that would improve the experience for both users and admins.

This is why this is worth considering, rather than disregarding entirely.

@bb77

Just to put things into perspective

Somehow you completely missed what I was saying altogether.

@bb77

generally wait until the first point releases are out before rolling out new releases.

So, can we actually document that this is the way, rather than pretending it isn’t.

@bb77

do you really think that when MS or SAP are releasing new major versions of their ‘on prem’ solutions, everything is perfect on day one?

This is about improving relations within the community through documentation. “Perfect” only relates to the discussion if you are satisfied enough to see no ways to improve documentation or community around the current and future releases.

@bb77

That would be perfect, of course, but perfect is also the enemy of good, and especially of getting s*** done

Doing better is exactly about getting things done. It is not only a good thing, but laudable. Good news is we don’t have to agree and nothing has to change if we choose to do nothing.

[bb77]

Well, let me put it this way, you shouldn’t just click on the upgrade button without first consulting the documentation of the corresponding extensions and apps and of course the Nextcloud documentation itself, based on a marketing blog article, and then be surprised that not everything is automagically just there and working, and I really hope that the IT people in companies don’t work like that these days. On the other hand, that would explain lot of the IT mishaps you can read about in the news almost everyday…

Oh, and by the way, other companies’ marketing blogs do not contain separate links to the documentation for each individual feature or plugin either, or often they don’t contain any instructions for admins or users at all. Instead, there is separate user and admin documentation, which is often not publicly available for commercial products.

The documentation for Nextcloud is on docs.nextcloud.com, which contains also sections for appliances which often link to specific documentation on GitHub wikis or somwhere else. And yes, documentation can of course always be improved, but the marketing articles are marketing articles. A showcase of what is possible. Nothing more, nothing less.

[just]

@bb77

you shouldn’t just click on the upgrade button

This is precisely how it is being documented and presented. There is not a single documented place that explains an admin should not upgrade to whatever stable release the instant it becomes available. If there is, I would love to be proven wrong.

@bb77

I really hope that the IT people in companies don’t work like that these days

This is how community admins running Nextcloud are being encouraged to act, even if unintentionally.

@bb77

when MS or SAP are releasing new major versions of their ‘on prem’ solution

Could we please use examples that are developing open source solutions, so they can be more directly related to Nextcloud as part of the discussion.