[mythtv] MythTV life-cycle support intentions

[Kevin Kuphal]

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Anthony Zawacki <azmail at thezawackis.com>wrote:

> > On 08/22/2012 09:01 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>
>> On 08/22/2012 07:36 PM, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
>>> Ultimately, this goes back to my point that if downgrading were painless
>>> (including inserting between-upgrade-and-downgrade recordings back into
>>> the downgraded database), you'd get a lot more people willing to test
>>> pre-GA.
>>>
>>
>> It's not. It wouldn't be painless for us to make it painless (and
>> forever be stuck trying to keep all our future changes such that we
>> could support upgrades and downgrades)***. So the best we can offer,
>> currently, is "stick those recordings in Video Library until you watch
>> them."
>>
>>
> Perhaps my background colors my thinking (I am a developer,) but rolling
> back is not a normal course of action.  The idea that recordings that were
> made by the "new" system are not listed as recorded by the "old" system
> makes perfect sense.  You rolled back the transaction, now the system
> doesn't know anything about the recordings.  I don't think it's unnatural,
> and I don't think it would make sense to try to support it. it should be a
> rare occasion, and you should be knowing what you are getting into before
> you upgrade / rollback, and you should be prepared for the results.
>

As a developer you can also appreciate that it is quite trivial to code
something that would import a given recording into the system.  Such
scripts have existed for MythTV for a while but they either lacked good
metadata options or became outdated as the schema progressed resulting in
broken imports.  If someone were to maintain such a script, perhaps even
using the internal metadata support for MythTV, it would solve this issue
entirely allowing for "orphan" recordings to be reimported back into the
system with some type of metadata.  An adventuresome soul could even get it
to read the database prior to rollback, extract all the necessary
information, and then properly re-import it into the older version using
the correct schema.  It's just simply a matter that the current crop of
developers haven't had the time/inclination/desire/energy to code up such a
system and maintain it.  Maybe you'd be interested since this is an itch
you need scratching...

Kevin
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