Is this project maintained?
SamMousa opened this issue · 55 comments
Is anyone from the Azure team officially tasked with maintaining this code? And if so, does this person have a time budget to actually work on it?
If not, should we as a community consider just forking it and doing actual development? Even the simplest documentation PRs stay open for > 6 months...
I'm not trying to offend or attack anyone, just asking what our expectations should be.
@katmsft apologies for impolitely pinging you, as a Microsoft employee and the primary committer of this repo you're probably the only one who can shed some light on this!
We were promised quarterly releases but so far, that’s not happened: #207 (comment)
There’s also a similar issue from 2019 still open: #175
Thanks. Guess I'll be forking, or maybe just move away from Azure!
I am interested in taking over this project OR working with someone who wants to fork and maintain a well supported repo.
I have extensive experience with Azure Storage, PHP, Laravel, Flysystem, etc. I have the time and the motivation. I have also written articles about this library: https://www.jhanley.com/laravel-adding-azure-blob-storage/
I guess I could just fork the library, but I would prefer to get several of us working together.
Microsoft has basically dropped PHP development and support and this library is an example.
@SamMousa Back in the day I was also thinking about forking the lib after many many many many questions and promises but then decided against it for various reasons, mostly support. Went with patching instead as documented in
@jhanley-com, I'm already maintaining several open source libraries and don't have bandwidth to add another one. Also, since I only use Azure for blob storage there are plenty of other s3 compatible options that already work with FlySystem so I'm not actually bound to the Azure offering.
@spaze that would have been my preference as well, but few things are as bad for my motivation as trying to contribute to unmaintained software.
@spaze that would have been my preference as well, but few things are as bad for my motivation as trying to contribute to unmaintained software.
I hear you, switching away from the SDK, if you can, is the best outcome. For me, it would be more work than trying to shadow-maintain it myself :-)
@spaze @SamMousa @jhanley-com @ScottHelme guys it seems that MS is not really doing much here. I think its a good idea to take this into our own hands and make it OSS available in a new organisation? Any of you interested in this and able to maintain? Guess the most important is to get it PHP8 ready and securty and to keep it running.
I suggest creating a new organisation where we can really make it community drive. Any of you up for this?
Any of you interested in this and able to maintain?
I've contemplated creating a fork before, even had a name for the forked lib, but eventually decided against it. One time I even wanted to create a package with just patches against the latest published version of the lib.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I personally need this lib, let 5 years worth of patches (mostly to make it work on the latest PHPs) be my evidence 😅 And although I'm interested in creating a fork, I'm not interested in maintaining a fork.
I'll keep doing what I do, provide patches against this repo until I switch to a fork, or a different storage provider :-) Whoever integrates those patches, I'm fine with it.
Hey @XiaoningLiu @katmsft, it it possible to get a response/update/acknowledgement here? We're just being left in the dark...
Hello,
This sdk will be in Community Support and Azure Storage team commits to validate and release every quarter, as long as there are PRs from community. Azure Storage team is unable to continue to add features or provide bugfixes.
Thanks.
Thanks @manumsft for at least some info. The team committed to quarterly releases 2 years ago already but there was no quarterly release since then. Fingers crossed for this time.
When's the new release planned for? The latest release is 9 months old and there are important fixes waiting for many months now.
Hello @spaze.
Am assuming you are referring to these .. can you please confirm. will engage internally get back to on the next release date.. (hopefully it will be quite soon)
Thanks.
Hello @manumsft , yeah, though some of those might be invalid (not those two by me 😅) I've added some comments to some of those PRs back when they were created, might be helpful.
Not providing bugfixes essentially means it is not maintained. Thanks, I'll be moving away from azure...
Hello,
This sdk will be in Community Support and Azure Storage team commits to validate and release every quarter, as long as there are PRs from community. Azure Storage team is unable to continue to add features or provide bugfixes.
Thanks.
Sorry to say but the PR are open for more then a year?
Hello @pimjansen - we are in the process of getting a release out and secondly, we hope to setup & adhere to a quarterly release cadence. will share more soon, hopefully this week.
thanks.
Hello @pimjansen - we are in the process of getting a release out and secondly, we hope to setup & adhere to a quarterly release cadence. will share more soon, hopefully this week.
thanks.
If Microsoft is not able to manage this, then please let OSS partially take over to handle this stuff like releases and such.
Get releases out once it has something useful instead of quaterly
@ScottHelme (et. al.) I've been in contact with @manumsft, and he reached out to you via email on July 18. I haven't seen any activity on the thread since he reached out. Did you receive that email? Have you had a chance to respond?
Hey @craxal, I got the email yeah but it didn't really need a response, it was just to let me know that there'd be an update about what's happening. I haven't heard anything else since then and we're still waiting :)
FYI just to make sure I get notifications, it's @ScottHelme to tag me! (people always miss the 'e' off the end of 'Helme')
Apologies @pimjansen . I am still working through our internal folks to get a release. please bear with us. Thanks.
I will also explore internally if OSS could take over to get release out as necessary.
Apologies @pimjansen . I am still working through our internal folks to get a release. please bear with us. Thanks.
I will also explore internally if OSS could take over to get release out as necessary.
Another dead week passed. I don't really feel you guys are even taking things seriously with this lib you published?
Hello @pimjansen , I hear your frustration. We are making effort to get resource for a release out this month. Additionally, we are discussing how to put a release cadence and share it with you all, so that release timelines are predicatable. Current resource crunch across industry and our company is having an impact on this item. Thanks.
Best thing to do is to move away from azure storage regardless. Response times regularly exceed 3 seconds. Move to any other storage api provider you get a cheaper, faster API and a better sdk.
Hey @SamMousa can you please reopen the issue so that folks interested in the SDK spot it and possibly read it when they check open bugs before using the lib for example? Thanks!
@manumsft any update you can share? We have 1 week left until the promised end of the month and i'd rather do not have any open gaps here
hi @pimjansen , we are actively working on getting a build ready this month. Thanks.
hi @pimjansen and others, our team is actively working on the release and we hope to be done by friday September 2.
thanks.
List of Pull requests which will be included are :
Check $copyProgress is not null before using it in strpos on PHP 8.1 #321
Remove EOL from Content-Type header #328
Update README.md #332
Fix link to samples folder #333
hi @pimjansen and others, our team is actively working on the release and we hope to be done by friday September 2.
thanks.
List of Pull requests which will be included are :
Check $copyProgress is not null before using it in strpos on PHP 8.1 #321
Remove EOL from Content-Type header #328
Update README.md #332
Fix link to samples folder #333
Good to hear there is progress. Can you also shed some light on how to continue future wise? I understand that its a Microsoft managed lib where it is in the Azure organisation but i guess it would be good to let some community people assist here so we can keep stuff going (besides releasing and final approvals and such).
Will safe time for all parties involved
Thanks @manumsft. What's the plan for the following releases? Regarding the predictability, do you have a roadmap, plan, timeline or something? Something more concrete than "quarterly releases" (which haven't worked so far)?
hi @pimjansen and @spaze - We internally are discussing the topics you both highlighted. We hope to finish the discussion and share updates on roadmap, plan and expectations by end of September. Thanks.
Hello All, A new release of blob and tables is available now. Thanks for your patience.
We target to publish a roadmap and what to expect by end of September. thanks.
Any news on the future?
hi @pimjansen and others,
We will need a bit more time to get back with our plans and roadmaps. We are pulled into some unforseen situation and this is going to be a few weeks delayed.
I commit to post an update next Friday October 7.
Thanks for your patience.
I like your persistence @pimjansen! I'm gonna unsubscribe and finish my move away from azure block storage. Good luck.
I like your persistence @pimjansen! I'm gonna unsubscribe and finish my move away from azure block storage. Good luck.
Thanks haha! But seems needed. 7th of oct till now is a long time @manumsft
But yeah we are used by now to be left alone by the Microsoft company in general!
I got an email from Microsoft Azure.
Retirement notice: The Azure Storage PHP client libraries will be retired on 17 March 2024
On 17 March 2024 we will retire the Azure Storage PHP client libraries.
Customers using the Azure Storage PHP client libraries can call the Azure Storage REST API directly.
I got an email from Microsoft Azure.
Retirement notice: The Azure Storage PHP client libraries will be retired on 17 March 2024
On 17 March 2024 we will retire the Azure Storage PHP client libraries.
Customers using the Azure Storage PHP client libraries can call the Azure Storage REST API directly.
That is quite unfortunate.
I got an email from Microsoft Azure.
Retirement notice: The Azure Storage PHP client libraries will be retired on 17 March 2024
I have seen the same email. Honestly, it seems like the lib was already retired 3 or 4 years ago 😅 At least you don't need to keep asking for a new release or plan.
Anyway, thanks Microsoft for building the package (I mean it, not being ironic). I'm quite sure somebody will fork it and maintain it further.
Unfortunately, our ability to continue to service this SDK has become more difficult over time especially with Azure itself deprioritizing PHP. The Azure SDK for PHP was retired in February 2021.
As noted above, customers with known usage were informed via email multiple times prior to this announcement. We also have a post on Azure Updates at https://aka.ms/AzStoragePHPSDKRetirement which contains additional details (the contents of the Azure Updates post mirrors what was in email notices).
This repository will continue to exist and will not be deleted. It can be forked/updated to integrate new functionality in the Storage platform but will no longer receive updates from Microsoft.
Another class move from MS, which just treats Open Source as a bunch of mugs to be onboarded to their system and then abandoned once people have got to a point of no return with projects. Compare with AWS weekly updates to PHP SDK.
Hey all who are still in this thread. We still use this in our company projects so continuity for us is key. However im not a fan of taking this in our own hands only.
Is there anyone open in forking this into a new OSS organisation where we can put these services? Im happy to help but rather do it with a few people together and the community
Please let me know what you think since MS itself is not doing much
Hey @pimjansen, sorry but personally I don't use Azure Storage & the SDK anymore, I'm just nostalgically observing the snafu here. Good luck though!
Hey @pimjansen, sorry but personally I don't use Azure Storage & the SDK anymore, I'm just nostalgically observing the snafu here. Good luck though!
Switched to different services or what did you do?
Stopped working on a project using Azure Storage. Otherwise I'd be already forking it. Honestly speaking, from what I remember when I was contributing to this lib, I sort of liked the code and the design and I'd focus on making it work on newer PHPs and maybe drop the 5.6 support and add type hints which would solve some of the issues as well.
You know what, I just remembered I even had a name or two for the fork: LapisLazuli or Ultramarine. Because name is the most important thing together with a logo 😅 If you're going to fork it, and would need a name, feel free to use one of them 😁
Stopped working on a project using Azure Storage. Otherwise I'd be already forking it. Honestly speaking, from what I remember when I was contributing to this lib, I sort of liked the code and the design and I'd focus on making it work on newer PHPs and maybe drop the 5.6 support and add type hints which would solve some of the issues as well.
You know what, I just remembered I even had a name or two for the fork: LapisLazuli or Ultramarine. Because name is the most important thing together with a logo 😅 If you're going to fork it, and would need a name, feel free to use one of them 😁
Hahaha thanks. Well for sake of the community i would probably just use an organisation called AzureOSS or something
I also create a Slack team for further discussion so feel free to join https://azure-oss.slack.com
Guess GitHub discussions would also be useful (maybe instead of Slack too).
Happy to help via https://github.com/Azure-OSS/azure-storage-php
If we can get a small consensus and community approach going, then hopefully we can avoid a scenario where there are 400 different versions of the original package!
I resent saying it, but Discord may be friendlier for multiple collabs, as for example I can't get to your Slack!
Happy to help via https://github.com/Azure-OSS/azure-storage-php
If we can get a small consensus and community approach going, then hopefully we can avoid a scenario where there are 400 different versions of the original package!
I resent saying it, but Discord may be friendlier for multiple collabs, as for example I can't get to your Slack!
Join me on Slack -- it’s a faster, simpler way to work. Sign up here, from any device: https://join.slack.com/t/azure-oss/shared_invite/zt-1x2k46uf5-Y~wT9ZuZoRwHztmG~Yw~HA
I also enabled github discussions but they dont exclude eachother since direct chat could be easier a lot of times