PMS moves to GitHub!

[Raptor399]

As people with a keen eye may have noticed, we're in the process of moving from Google Code to GitHub.
The code has already been moved and restructured, and we have been working hard to iron out any wrinkles that might be left.
From now on you will slowly see the information (links, texts etc.) change to reflect the move.

Why move to GitHub?
PMS has a very active and supporting community. That is one of the reasons why it works so well and why we see lots of active members with their own flavored builds. With the move we unleash the social power of GitHub, making it easy to check out or compare different builds, fork new ones, or to create patches and pull requests. All of a sudden contributing will become a lot easier, as will assessing those contributions become for the devs.
At the same time we want more stability and more comparable builds across platforms, so we can provide higher quality releases. That is where Maven comes in; it has already pointed out some flaws we weren't aware of.

What does the move to GitHub mean to you?

Regular user: nothing changes!

• You will still be able to download PMS from the homepage.
• New versions of PMS will keep appearing as they have before.
• PMS will install just like it did before.
• Issues can be reported on the forums or on the issue list.

Developers: quite a few changes!

• PMS code version control in Git instead of SVN.
• Building is done with Maven instead of Ant, i.e. the introduction of "pom.xml" and "assembly-*.xml"
• The standard Maven directory layout has been adopted, i.e. files have been moved.
• Binaries are separated from the source code and will still be available from Google Code.
• The source code in SVN will no longer be actively maintained, except for the separated binaries. The full history has been transferred to GitHub and maintenance takes place there.
• Forking the code is easy on GitHub, as is branching in git. Feel free to experiment!

This may look worse than it actually is. Just follow the installation instructions and you'll be up and running in no time.

Thank you for all your contributions in the past!
We hope this move to GitHub will make you enjoy contributing even more in the future!

[marco275]

I always used the PMS builder tool to get the newest version of PMS.
Does the change from google to GitHub mean PMS builder tool no longer works/builds the newest version?
If so, will PMS builder tool be updated or is there another way to get the files with the latest changes?
I'm not familliar with GitHub.

thnx

[meskibob]

I assume you're talking about http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4449&hilit=pms+builder?
If so then that is correct. You should talk to the developer of that tool if you want it updated. Or you can follow the directions Raptor399 already linked. It's pretty easy to get started, and can be further automated after the initial install.

[marco275]

Ah, I was wundering why the updates stopped at version r1010 on Google code site.
Yes, you assumed right
I read the directions but for me it's not that easy haha.. maybe I have to read it another 5 times or so
Anyways.. I will make a post in the PSM builder tool section, Maybe the developer is so nice to make an update

thnx meskibob.

[SubJunk]

Actually we haven't moved yet, officially.
GitHub is still an experiment and I'm not satisfied that it has succeeded yet.
For now, SVN is still the only official source of the program.

[marco275]

Oke, Yes I noticed that update 1011 showed up there..

Time for me to figure out Github

thnx

[SharkHunter]

I have no problem with GitHub all my code is there. My issues are more with new file structure and changeing build system (maven). Is this truley needed? It will take ages to make the transition (at least for me). So in the short run I think there will be rather few beta builds since both myself and SubJunk have our (separate) issues with the move. I like to produce code with new functionallity not spend loads of time just to make use of a new build system or a new directory layout.

[Raptor399]

I have no problem with GitHub all my code is there. My issues are more with new file structure and changeing build system (maven). Is this truley needed? It will take ages to make the transition (at least for me). So in the short run I think there will be rather few beta builds since both myself and SubJunk have our (separate) issues with the move. I like to produce code with new functionallity not spend loads of time just to make use of a new build system or a new directory layout.

The directory structure has changed, but everything is still there.

In the past six months I have had to make quite a few copies from the old to the new structure and it is all pretty straight forward:

• "net" becomes "src/main/java/net"
• "resources" becomes "src/main/resources"
• All other directories go into "src/main/external-resources".

I think that's it, apart from a couple of loose files in the main directory like "PMS.conf".

Moving pms-mlx went pretty smooth, didn't take ages and taconaut appears to be content with the move.
Let us know if we can help in any way!

[taconaut]

Hehe seems we're not all having the same issues. I've got more issues with the move to GitHub then the use of maven.

I'd like to reiterate what I've said in a private developer discussion. I think it's only worth changing the source control system if we get a noticeable use out of it and if all developers are willing to play along. It would be a shame to loose valuable contributors because of a change like that.
Using maven for the build/release process seems like a good thing. Beside a good dependency management we also get some nice goodies like only having to rename the custom builds in one spot (pom.xml) instead of 20 or so places.

I've now spent about 10h to get a basic understanding of git and maven with the help of the people here; I think this is quite a lot of time that could have been used to do something else. Is everyone willing to take that time?
The pms-mlx repo is now almost functional. The only issue I've got left is the loading of the plugins. These changes make pms point to the correct folder to load the plugins, but the loading fails with a configuration exception for which I couldn't figure out the reason yet (for all pms or pms-mlx plugins).

Then I've still got some behavioural issues:
- I can't cherry-pick most of the latest commits into my fork and don't really understand why. Will have to figure out how to merge these
- I'm not sure how I'll be able to guarantee to always be up to date with ps3mediaser/master. If the builds start drifting apart, I'll have to do the same thing as when using the svn: export the pms source and merge it into my build. If it resumes to this, I won't have a benefit of using git.
- The folder structure should be reworked to include default plugins in the build process. Before having done this change in ps3mediaserver/master, the repo isn't ready. (https://github.com/taconaut/pms-mlx/tre ... _structure)

[SharkHunter]

Like I said my main issues is with maven. I find build systems boring and something that should "just work". Build systems are like regexps "write once read never". Which is why maven is a real headache. Since I like to build in other binaries (since the default once don't work or I found a later build that is better) then today what I need to do is to drop the new exe file in the correct dir and voila all done and it's built correctly. With maven I probably need to update some url and possibly some md5 checksum etc. in some weird xml file. Since I orignally comes from a word of make my knowledge of ant/maven is well thin and since they are make systems I like to spend as little time with them as possible. I just like to type "build" and all should be done. If I need to remove some feature from the build temporary it should be easy enough just to remove a couple if lines from the makefile.

If I like to customize some thing (if I for example like to remove this or that) then maven is not the most easy thing to do this in. I spent something close to 3 days to turn off the PMSEncoder auto testcase that prevented the build to go through. You might argue that if a test fails you got something wrong and you should probably fix the problem. But if all tests fail I know that the problem is in my setup somehow and instead of spending loads of time fixing setup I instead run the code and see that it works. But with maven I couldn't even get the something to run!

Tree management will be no different form svn everybody who works with this needs from time to time synch our own repos with the "central" repo to kep up. svn and git are equally good/bad at doing this just a matter of taste.

All this said I am flexible enough to work with github however it will take some considerable time to get it up and running. In the meantime the code will move and then I'll need to integrate this agian etc. It will be a while until I can produce a new release. Time which I could spend adding cooler features or fixing stuff like IceFIlms....