It was a close race to the finish -- or rather the beginning -- of the Drupal 7 code freeze process a couple of weeks ago. Now that we're in the middle of the code freeze, I wanted to update everyone on the current status of the freeze, and provide some guidance about where we go from here.
First and foremost, I know that both Angie (my Drupal 7 co-maintainer) and I want to express how excited we are about how everyone really pulled together as a team at the end, and who, by working together, got a lot of great stuff in before the deadline for the "code slush" passed. Of the exceptions we had previously noted (see slides for details), eight of the ten made it in. The two stated exceptions that didn't are (1) allowing user profiles to use the field API, and (2) the administrative overlay. Since the overlays patch got incredibly close, Angie and I are committed to having this as part of the final release. There is now a further exception for getting overlays in, and I encourage everyone to keep working on it as fast as possible.
Other than changes necessary for the overlay, and a few left-over patches that were ready by the 10/15 deadline, we have now entered the next phase of the code freeze: no more API changes and no additional features. At this point, we focus exclusively on usability, accessibility, and performance. (If a performance, accessibility, or usability patch requires an API change, webchick and I will make a decision on a patch by patch basis.) This current phase was originally said to be four weeks from API freeze, but we're extending it to six weeks instead. The new deadline is December 1st, instead of November 15th.
My guidance at this point: depending on your strengths, and how involved you've been with the various issues in the past, please devote some time to the overlay patch, to D7UX issues and Usability issues, to accessibility issues, or to performance-related issues. For the remaining five weeks, that's where the action is. Get involved now!
Comments
overlays
I second the invitation to come work on overlays! There are a bunch of individual issues, and I keep adding more, so you don't have to take on the whole overlay project in order to help. CSS gurus are especially needed -- there are a lot of little niggling layout-type issues. Detailed instructions on how to contribute are at http://drupal.org/node/610234#comment-2193282, or feel free to ping me in #drupal (ksenzee).
Would also be nice to have
Would also be nice to have the Drupal 6 to 7 core upgrade path working asap, it's currently quite a bit broken since we don't have automated testing for that - see http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=D7%20upgrade%2... for all the current issues.
ETA on usability
Hi,
Thanks for the status update - just wondering if you have any ballpark eta on when Drupal 7 might be ready to use in production?
Thanks!
Oooh! I know, I know!
(All together now) When it's done!
By definition, Drupal 7 is released when the 'Critical Issues' number has dropped to Zero. As of this moment, it's at 403. That number is over in the right column in the 'Contributor links' block on this page and others.
Part of the question is also about when key contributed modules will be ready for use in production sites, and that looks to be very different than with Drupal 6 (which was somewhat of an anomaly in that regards). The Drupal community, as usual, has stepped up to make things better and there is a very strong movement, #D7CX, to have contributed modules ready to go on the day Drupal 7 is ready. You can see that list of modules at http://drupal.org/project/modules?solrsort=sort_title%20asc&text=d7cx&di....
You might also want to check out the recent Lullabot Podcast on the subject, which talks about Drupal 7 as a whole and also includes Angie/Webchick's reaction to that exact question: http://www.lullabot.com/audiocast/podcast-79-drupal-7.
As to when it's ready for production sites, though, that depends a lot on what 'production' means to the person/organization asking the question, how particular their needs are and how much time/process it takes to get there.
Based on previous experience, many smart, insightful people are mentioning the first few months of 2010 as plausible release dates for Drupal 7. I personally think it will be truly ready for production use shortly thereafter (within a few weeks).
The opinions provided in this comment are complete conjecture and not to be read or construed as knowledgeable advice. dgorton doesn't really know.
...
Core does not wait on contrib. So, when the critical issues drop to zero for whatever length of time it is, it's released.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Yes, but he meant that for
Yes, but he meant that for production use, you typically need some contrib modules (Views e.g.). So even if Drupal 7 is _released_ then, it doesn't mean that you can use it for everything. And he says it will be different in regard to D6, because we now have D7CX. Makes sense.
Can CSS overhauls still go
Can CSS overhauls still go in? They are partially related to accessibility like text-only zooming ...
It is a pity the profile
It is a pity the profile upgrade did not make it in. Does that mean we are left with the current core profile module?
Was there a lack of developer interest and consensus in building it?
My Drupal sites:
I second that. It's really a
I second that. It's really a pity. It was a complicated issue as I understand, though.
Have a look at these issues and judge for yourself:
http://drupal.org/node/394720
http://drupal.org/node/501408
I third that, I almost cried.
I third that, I almost cried. Such a shame to be stuck with profile module.
Profile Issues
Profile module is a lot more than just fields. There are field groupings and private fields. The fields that are in core cannot do these two things in core. These features didn't make it in as part of the D7 fields in core work. So, Fields cannot replace the functionality of Profile module, yet. Hopefully this will change for Drupal 8.
We are left with the current profile module for now. But, savvy developers can easily turn on CCK style fields for users as well.
The same shortcoming of
The shortcomings of profile module are propagating through releases. Hopefully they will be solved by contributed modules.
Bmmr
I saw that slide in a ppt at Drupalcon that showed a gravestone reading "R.I.P. Profile Module". Another 14 months...
Good we have another two
Good we have another two weeks to work on some of the more important UX-related issues.
For those wanting to jump in, a prioritized list of UX issues is here: http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/drupal-core/usability
A very nice logic that
A very nice logic that increases the performance.........
upgrade
How easy it will be to upgrade from 6 to 7??
Exciting stuff! I hope I
Exciting stuff!
I hope I learn enough some day to contribute.
recommendation on waiting for D7?
I'm a Drupal newbie and really loving the tool. I've got a couple of smaller projects with fairly soft deadlines and am wondering if folks would recommend waiting for version 7 before starting a new build or to go ahead with 6 and upgrade later. Having never done an upgrade I'm unfamiliar with how easy/painful that is. Thanks for any insight.
What are the deadlines? D7,
What are the deadlines? D7, I'd say won't be released til late first quarter of 2010. And then you have to wait for contrib to catch up, and that can take a while too, so perhaps second quarter 2010.
I guess I've got the answer
I wanted to get these out the door by the end of January at the latest. Based on what I am reading here it sounds like Drupal 6 is the way to go.
That long? I've been waiting
That long?
I've been waiting to start seriously using Drupal, because I keep thinking v7 is just around the corner. But if it's going to be that long, I should start with either the latest v6 or the latest (unreleased) v7 and upgrade when v7 is released. But which one? It's just my personal site, so I don't mind if it's not perfect, so long as I'm not losing lots of data and I have an upgrade path to final release. Is v7 gonna be OK for that, or is it really so bad that I should use v6?
Use 6 now. You can do
Use 6 now.
You can do literally anything with it.
And their will be a massive amount of knowledge carry over
Right and I guess that's my
Right and I guess that's my default position. But if D7 is close, I could use it? I'm primarily interested in making some static pages, some blog-like postings (just a handful), and having a few users (again a handful) with comments. That's it for now. Surely that should be working in D7, and upgradable to final release?
...
Drupal 7 doesn't have a full array of contrib modules yet - inevitably you will start with D7-dev and then learn that the perfect module you need doesn't have D7 compatibility.
Unless you are a sucker for punishment and thrive on pain. Know up front that there are 400 critical bugs living in your software.
Now, if you wanted to work on fixing bugs for D7 then you'll help bring it to market that much sooner.
There's also no guarantee
There's also no guarantee what will happen with trying to upgrade a pre-release D7 to the final D7. Since you stated you don't want to lose data, don't use D7.
Agreed
Follow the warnings on the label, it's not ready for production.
OK understood thanks.
OK understood thanks.
Well I'm still with v5 and
Well I'm still with v5 and everything works ok. I didn't dare to move forward to v6 because in the beginning it didn't have most of the modules I needed and I'm not sure whether it will have them now. Drupal5 is still updating and moving to a new version can be much of a pain when you have personalized a lot your installation.
So I'm thinking of jumping from 5 to 7 as soon as v7 gets the release status and has the appropriated modules running on.
Not too crazy, is it?
It looks like D5 support will
It looks like D5 support will be dropped after D7 is released and it will take a fair amont of time until most of the modules are ported to D7 after D7 is released, so your D5 will not be supported during that time.
...
It's probably easier to update to D6 from D5 now. And I recommend you do it since D5 will no longer be supported once D7 is released. You might not find any more security releases or module improvements for D5 in the future.
always want the new stuff
Yep, I am one of those people too.. Just have to jump in early, what the heck, I will deal with it as it grows..
That is not really the best approach in every case.
Thinking back to May and June of 2008 when I decided that D6 was the way to go. My site had 80 some modules with in a few weeks and grew to over a hundred within a few months which was fine. I do not regret my decision, but it cost me many hours of additional work.
The upside was that I learned a lot about Drupal as issues arose and modules were brought to maturity.
The downside was a constant upgrade cycle with the contributed modules as they were brought up to speed with D6. And there were many functions that just didn't work quite right, but now are just fine. And I learned the value of running a test site after crashing my site many times with upgrades that still had lingering issues.
Yep, you bet, I will have a D7 site up the day it's released to get familiar with the new changes and a place to keep my 'have to have the new stuff' under control until modules catch up.
I am looking forward to D7 and will upgrade from D6 when the time is right after running a full test of all modules that will be used. Learn the hard way once and do it the right way the second time.
D7 looks really neat, It's been said before, Drupal Rocks!
Code freeze December 1st?
Have someone any information about current state of code freeze? Is / was it 1st december yet or moved it to another date?
thx Gos77
1. D8 project: WoW Channel
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