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Holy blog wars Batman! I can see emotions are running high, so I
thread lightly while writing this... <br>
<br>
For around six months now since I and my cohorts started building out
our grid we've been more or less running off of the trunk. We have a
weekly update process wherein every Sunday after the commit emails stop
flying by I'll shut down, back up, then update everything to that
Sunday's SVN. After the update is complete I'll go around in world,
try a few tests to make sure that everything is in one piece and that
basic functionality is there. So far there have only been a handful of
times that I've had to cancel or roll back an update due to broken
functionality or warnings on the mailing lists that heavy changes were
taking place. <br>
<br>
As far as data and content are concerned, we all realize that this is
alpha software and that certain instabilities may exist from week to
week. So far we've not had any major disasters as far as data and
content save a few mangled, non-persisting, or overly persisting (where
they won't go away) prims. However in most cases workarounds were
available and all users were told how to go about utilizing them. As
an added measure, just in case we rely on the weekly backups as well
periodic dumps of our sims into OAR files. <br>
<br>
My primary reason for choosing this sort of procedure is so that while
we are building, creating, and using the grid we can also contribute
back to OpenSim in the form of bug reports and feedback. (See a draft
copy of our community standards for more on this:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pseudospace.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=60">http://www.pseudospace.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=60</a>)<br>
<br>
Regardless, we do consider our setup to be in quasi-production
regardless of whatever minor glitches exist within the trunk. As well,
we are sure to make it quite clear to the few users that we do have
(albeit not many as we do not yet have any completed or usable
environments other then Ellis) that both OpenSim as the underlying
software and Pseudospace as the service itself are under heavy
development and could be unstable at times. <br>
<br>
Now as a software developer myself (albeit in a completely different
realm then OpenSim as I do small scale database / windows apps) I can
understand the risks of running untested software for production uses,
however in this case I'm unsure as how to proceed. We like
contributing back to the community in whatever way we can, and also
enjoy testing or riding the bleeding edge of the wave, yet after
reading the prior posts I'm suddenly not sure if simply backing up,
exporting, and rolling back is as safe as I thought. From the
standpoint of those who develop OpenSim, would you guys say what I'm
doing is safe?<br>
<br>
Thanks and good karma to you all,<br>
<br>
- John Sheridan / Orion Pseudo<br>
<br>
Frisby, Adam wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:63FAD4F222230A4EA79DE9E8BE66473518FF03D8@winxbeus19.exchange.xchg"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Honestly, I think there's some disconnects between people here that need to be addressed.
There are several different audiences here, and consequently several different reactions. There is the group of users attempting to put OpenSim into production environments - the harsher reactions I have seen tend to fall into this group. There is home users and hobbyists - the more positive reactions are from there.
To the production users, we do as a team find it unfortunate you were badly impacted, however as a group a large portion of work on OpenSim comes from personal developers without sponsorship. As a team, we also make absolutely no guarantees about trunk releases at all (infact we often make the opposite), the best practices we publish on our website very clearly state that production users should stick to a tagged release, and even then you are operating alpha code.
While we have generally been blessed with a reasonably well written and maintained codebase - trunk is not guaranteed to operate. Had there been an accident and the database became corrupted over time due to coding error - the outrage on this list would not have been as loud, however the impacts would have been significantly worsened.
Often, developers need to break code and features in order to improve things, if we cannot make trunk unstable, then the ability to develop and continually improve the codebase is restricted. One recent example was some avatar appearance issues that showed up after the MXP stack - that one I caused by removing code which erroneously assumed an avatar utilized the LLUDP Stack.
The short term result of that change was it broke avatar appearance in certain circumstances for a period of about 24 hours, the long term result was we got one step closer to more protocols, more neutrality and abstracted behaviour - all seen as good things to the codebase -- however another example of why we do not recommend anyone utilize trunk for production - it was still broken for a day, and this is a regular occurance.
For instance, a patch not too long ago adjusted the asset database format - while fine on local systems with small asset counts, in a production environment (specifically osgrid), it caused the entire database to melt. OSGrid accepts that risk since they are a testing grid - but to another operator, you would have applied that same patch just as easily as osgrid did if today's example is the norm.
Now the first response, I expect will be 'this was deliberate/vandalism' - yes there was an april fools joke in the codebase. However, please consider the following:
* The impact was for the most part completely negligible - no permanent changes were made, the code deactivates automatically, a patch is available on mantis (and is no longer in trunk anyway).
* You are running a version of the codebase that is *explicitly marked as 'not suitable for production'*.
* You are receiving a product for free under an extremely liberal license on behalf of the generosity of others.
That april fools joke was /only ever accessible in the developers and testers oriented release/. The intended audience was those two groups - developers and testers. Even the release candidate version had the offending code removed.
If you want to put OpenSim into production, fantastic - we like to see it being used. However when you then do not follow the advice we post clearly on the website in multiple places and put trunk into production, then no - the responsibility for failure rests upon your shoulders - trunk is /not safe for production/.
We do recognize the growing corporate demand for OpenSim - it's one of the reason that people such as Stefan have begun a back-patches version (post-fixes) which incorporates fixes into the last stable version. We spend the time maintaining that version because we recognise the need, it's also the reason we have been as a group moving towards more release-oriented packaging such as the installers and other easy-to-deploy packages.
If you are a corporate user putting OpenSim into production, make sure you have the following preparations:
1. Have a stable revision handy - currently that is 0.6.3-postfixes. Sometimes bugs show up randomly and break things badly. You should always have a backup system when working with OpenSim.
2. Use our postfix releases normally - sometimes a feature patch is very tempting to upgrade to, but then ask yourself what the cost might be? If stick figure avatars are going to cause you to have issues with clients - ask yourself what random object destruction might cause. It's happened in the past on trunk - I have no doubts major unintended bugs will sneak into trunk in future.
Only upgrade past post-fixes if you keep a very keen eye on SVN commit logs and are capable of testing hardened revisions.
3. Keep backups. Too many OpenSim installs do not do this. OAR works well for content, however a full database backup is recommend (this varies from tool to tool, know your system.)
4. Slow and steady is the name of the game. We actually keep several of our clients on a r6XXX release since we're able to confirm it works for their uses in the majority of cases and doesn't have unknown factors.
Regards,
Adam
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">-----Original Message-----
From: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:opensim-users">mailto:opensim-users</a>-
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bounces@lists.berlios.de">bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>] On Behalf Of Teravus Ovares
Sent: Wednesday, 1 April 2009 2:57 PM
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users@lists.berlios.de</a>
Cc: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com">jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com</a>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Fw: Re: [SLED] Linden Lab Sells Second
Life!
One more reply to this. Have a look at some positive responses.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://osgrid.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1051&start=10">http://osgrid.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1051&start=10</a>
Sincrerely
Teravus
On 4/1/09, Teravus Ovares <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:teravus@gmail.com"><teravus@gmail.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Now now, lets be reasonable. It's one thing to get April fooled..
it's another to gloat about it. Generally, I don't think it's a
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">good
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">idea to gloat. It is what it is .. and we learn and continue on.
Sincerely
Teravus
On 4/1/09, Skidz Tweak <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:skidz.tweak@gmail.com"><skidz.tweak@gmail.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Don't let the door hit you in the butt!
Everyone bitching about this only has theirselves to blame!
If you can't live with that fact, keep making up crap in your head
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">saying it
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">was someone else fault. That's it... the sweet feel of denial.
-----Original Message-----
From: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de">mailto:opensim-users-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>] On Behalf Of
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Jonathan
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Greenlee
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 4:07 PM
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users@lists.berlios.de</a>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Fw: Re: [SLED] Linden Lab Sells Second
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Life!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
I want to make sure you understand why my company is now
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">withdrawing our
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">good will and support toward OpenSim,
And why we are withdrawing our financial support from several
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">OpenSim Grids
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">we were supporting with our business.
--- On Wed, 4/1/09, MW <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:michaelwri22@yahoo.co.uk"><michaelwri22@yahoo.co.uk></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">From: MW <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:michaelwri22@yahoo.co.uk"><michaelwri22@yahoo.co.uk></a>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Fw: Re: [SLED] Linden Lab Sells
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Second Life!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users@lists.berlios.de</a>
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 4:03 PM
While
Teravus did the april 1st joke, all of core (or certainly
most of it) knew about it. And we fully supported him
applying it. As he said it was never in a tagged version.
--- On Wed, 1/4/09, Teravus Ovares
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:teravus@gmail.com"><teravus@gmail.com></a> wrote:
From: Teravus Ovares
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:teravus@gmail.com"><teravus@gmail.com></a>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-users] Fw: Re: [SLED] Linden Lab
Sells Second Life!
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com">jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com</a>,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:opensim-users@lists.berlios.de">opensim-users@lists.berlios.de</a>
Date: Wednesday, 1 April, 2009, 9:59 PM
FYI, the avatar stick bug April 1 joke was my idea.
Also, I think it's really important to note that all of
the developers
of OpenSimulator have, since day one told people to avoid
SVN for
something that is production. That includes anything that
you want
to work.
April 1st is a tradition in OpenSimulator and on April 1st
a sense of
humor is required when using SVN. We made sure that all
releases and
tags did *not* have the April fool's joke in it for
this very reason.
We make releases and tag revisions not for our benefit,
but for
yours.
I know some people on this list don't spend time on
IRC, however, it's
been hinted upon since February that there would likely be
an April
fool's joke there. For those that argue that most
people don't sit in
IRC, see two paragraphs up.
Now, if despite our warnings and hints, you continued to
use SVN, then
likely your avatar were stick-bugged.
I reiterate what has been said all along. Direct SVN
revisions are
risky. They've always been, and it's always bad
practice to use them
unless you've thoroughly looked them over. A lot of
people thought
it was funny. The people who did not were in
the far minority.
Sincerely
Teravus
On 4/1/09, Jonathan Greenlee
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com"><jonathangreenlee@yahoo.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
This was funny.
Vandalising everyone's avatar was not.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 3:59 PM, S Collingwood
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:collingwood.7@osu.edu"><collingwood.7@osu.edu></a>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">wrote:
This is really BIG. A takeover! We can expect
panzer tanks rolling into shopping malls --
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">uniformed guards at sim
crossings
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">-- dogs and cats living together -- it's the
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">END!!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Linden Lab Sells Second Life!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.secondlifeupdate.com/news-and-stuff/linden-lab-sells">http://www.secondlifeupdate.com/news-and-stuff/linden-lab-sells</a>-
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">second-life/
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">--
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
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</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users">https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users</a>
</pre>
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