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blog/getting-closer-to-openlp-30.rst

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+.. title: Getting closer to OpenLP 3.0
+.. slug: 2019/02/17/getting-closer-to-openlp-30
+.. date: 2019-02-17 12:00:00 UTC
+.. tags: 
+.. category: 
+.. link: 
+.. description: 
+.. type: text
+.. previewimage: cover-images/getting-closer-to-openlp-30.jpg
+
+It has been almost 2 years since the release of 2.4.6 and understandably we are getting a lot of
+questions as to when the next release will be ready. The answer is always the same: "When it is
+ready". So what does "ready" mean? Currently there are 2 major features that we need to finish
+before we feel we can begin the release process:
+
+* The new renderer engine.
+* The new VLC based mediaplayer framework.
+
+Once these are in place we will release the first Alpha (2.9.1) and then work from there towards
+the final release of 3.0.
+
+So how far are these features from being complete?
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+The new rendering engine is fairly close to being complete, but we need to make sure we have all
+standard use cases (songs, image, etc.) working correctly.
+
+The new mediaplayer framework still needs some work. All the hard ground work has been done (i.e.
+playing videos works), so it is now more a question of connecting the different parts of the code
+to make everything work correctly and ironing out the bugs that have crept in.
+
+But why is it taking so long?
+-----------------------------
+
+The thing is that it requires time to do development, and as volunteers, time is a scarce resource
+when you have full-time jobs and familiies. In fact, within the last year, 3 of the 4 core
+developers have been blessed with babies, which means even less time for OpenLP development.
+
+Another reason for the long wait is that we might have been a bit too ambitious with this release.
+The thing is that when you start adding code to introduce new major features you often see that the
+"old way" of doing things is not optimal for the new features and therefore you want to change the
+old code to better support the new code. Sometimes this can lead to using time rewriting code that
+strictly speaking does not need rewriting, thereby "stealing" time from new features. So while the
+end result is a lot better, it also means longer development time.
+
+License change
+--------------
+
+A few months ago we were made aware that OpenLP's current license is not compatible with the
+licenses of some of the libraries that OpenLP uses. For instance, PyQt5 is under the GPLv3 license,
+which is incompatiable with OpenLPs GPLv2. To resolve this we are planning to relicense OpenLP
+under the GPLv3 license. To do this we have contacted all of the known contributors to OpenLP to
+get their permission to relicense. So far it has been a success, even though it is a slow process.
+Not everybody has replied yet, so if you have contributed in the past but have not been contacted
+about this, please contact us.
+
+Other news
+----------
+
+Around the time of the upcoming release we will also migrate the OpenLP bug tracker and source code
+from `Launchpad.net <https://launchpad.net/openlp>`_ to `GitLab <https://gitlab.com/openlp>`_. This
+also means migrating from `bzr` to `git`.