[Zope-CMF] Re: RFC: backporting including python-package-product support to support Zope 2.8

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Martijn Faassen wrote:
>>> Is Plone 2.5 still targeting Zope 2.8?
>>
>> Yes.
> 
> 
> Yes to which question?

Yes to "Is Plone 2.5 still targeting Zope 2.8".

>>> Perhaps these use cases aren't
>>> driven by Plone/CMF core and some other packages would like to use
>>> this in Zope 2.8? Can they be identified?
>>
>>
>> The general use case is to stop having to put things in Products. When
>> now writing Zope 2 software, a lot of code basically expects stuff to be
>> in Products, Rocky's modifications make that go away and add a ZCML
>> directive to let Zope 2 pick up packages from outside Products (so that
>> they will still receive the same initialization features and an entry in
>> the Control_Panel, etc.).
> 
> I know what the modifications allow you to do.
> 
> It's a fundamentally different way of developing and installing
> products. Therefore it's good to ask why we would want to expose such a
> fundamentally new feature for Zope 2.8. Do we really want to start
> explaining to people that "My product is special, you need to install it
> like this, unlike what you're used to" when what we're dealing with is
> not even the most recent stable release of Zope?
> 
> To be clear: I realize that this effort is to make things *less* special
> for Zope on the long term, and I support it's overall it with some
> reservations, but we have to think about the tactical short term too.

Fair enough. It seems to several people, though, that explaining to
people how Python packages are installed and then how you hook up these
packages into your instances is easier than explaining all the magic
that revolves around Products to them. Because in the end you won't have
to explain how to install Python packages at all because it's the same
all the time...

As somebody who's somewhat involved in Zope documentation, I am one of
those above mentioned people.

> For how long do we intend to evolve new features for what is not the
> most recent stable release of Zope? I.e. we can make the argument that
> this should be in the hands of the people soon for just about any new
> feature in Five.

Good point.

> How urgent is it that all of this works with Zope 2.8? I guess it's
> urgent if you want to sell it to the Plone community, which will only
> switch to Zope 2.9 or beyond by next year or so, I expect. How much more
> often is this kind of thing therefore going to happen?

Given Plone hasn't adopted time-based releases yet, I'm not sure. AFAIK
they want time-based releases, 6 months apart like Zope. Just yesterday
I suggested they make them 3 months off to the Zope releases. That way
they can keep on track with Zope releases and not lag behind all the time.

>> The reason for doing so is simple: Products is bound to go away. It
>> gives a lot of people a lot of pain. With a lot of Zope 3 technology
>> entering many Zope 2 projects, it would be good to get a clean slate
>> early on: put new stuff on Product-less packages.
> 
> 
> You can turn that around; for consistency of installation experience in
> Zope 2.8, it's important that people don't get a new way of installing
> products, confusing innocent individuals installing Zope software. For
> the "cutting edge", Zope 2.9, that argument is slightly different.
> 
> I want to identify the reasons why it is so important that this change
> happens with Zope 2.8. The main reason I can identify is Plone, correct?

I let Rocky take this one.

I don't really feel strongly about having this available in Zope 2.8.

Philipp