AbiWord Community Outreach Project

Some terms tossed around on this blog, the mailing lists, IRC, and elsewhere might be confusing to the uninitiated. Hopefully this will help…

In no particular order:

• Ants - Refers to the AbiSource community. This is derived from Abi the Ant, the AbiSource Mascot.
• AbiSource - The community that develops and maintains AbiWord and related projects (wvware, Enchant, our custom link-grammar, etc) Name taken from AbiSource, Inc. the company that did the initial development (pre-1.0) of AbiWord.
• CVS-HEAD - The latest development version of AbiWord. Not a fixed version, but rather a reference to the most updated code for the development series/branch. CVS HEAD generally requires that you build AbiWord yourself (with the exception of nightly builds, only “released” and version-tagged builds are available pre-compiled).
• CVS - Concurrent Version System, the sourcecode storage system that tracks changes to AbiWord and contains all current and past versions of the source code. Sometimes used to refer to CVS HEAD, or more rarely, the CVS Stable tree, both of which are “unreleased” (but still publicly available) versions of AbiWord, from which future releases will come.
• Branches/trees/release series - AbiSource generally maintains two separate codebases for AbiWord in CVS. The stable branch is where stable releases (2.4.x, or future releases with the second digit even) will be derived. Only “safe” bugfixes and other limited patches are commited to this branch. Active development takes place on the CVS HEAD “branch” (not technically a branch), from whence odd-minor-numbered (2.3.x, 2.5.x) development preview releases come. Fixes from CVS HEAD can often, but not always, be backported to Stable. At the release of a new stable series, CVS HEAD will be branched to produce the new stable tree which is used until the next major stable release. (CVS HEAD split after 2.4.0 into STABLE-2-4-0 and the continued CVS HEAD, which will produce 2.5.x. After 2.6 is released, HEAD will again branch, into STABLE-2-6-0 and the continuation of CVS HEAD)
• Stable Series - The source code tree that receives only bug fixes and “safe” feature additions. It is recommended for production/deployment, as opposed to the development series or CVS HEAD, which is recommended only for testing.
• Bugzilla - The bug and feature request tracker. Reporting a problem or suggestion here is the recommended way if your problem is apparently greater than a simple configuration issue. In Bugzilla, issues can be commented on, patched, and resolved. “Reporting” bugs on the mailing lists may result in terse responses about filing a bug - this is nothing personal, it’s simply a statement of the fact that issues in Bugzilla can be handled by QA and tracked by the developers far easier than in the mailing list, where once an email is read it may be easily overlooked.
• Mailing lists - There are two main mailing lists, the user list and the dev list. Development-related discussion and technical debate occurs on the dev list, while user discussion and support occurs on the user list. Users are encouraged not to cross-post to both lists, or post to the dev list after not receiving a reply on the user list, as it makes the archives less useful and does little to bring your issue to the attention of those who can help. If you have continued difficulty, you could try re-posting or replying to your own message after at least a week, or stopping by the IRC channel.
• IRC - Stands for Internet Relay Chat, generally used to refer to the channel (chat room) #abiword on the server irc.gimp.net , the GNOME IRC server. There are generally around 15-20 users “idling” (or logged in but not actively discussing) in the channel at any time. Asking a question here can be a great way to get help. It is a “real-time” support option, but please do plan to stay for an hour or perhaps more - IRC often is a part of users’ “multitasking” routine at work, school, or home, and leaving shortly after a question (unanswered) is asked does not engender respect (as it is seen as impatience).