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Erlang 22

Summary

Update Erlang/OTP to version 22.

Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

Upgrade Erlang to version 22 which brings a lot of changes. Just a few highlights:

  • Better and faster compiler. Faster string operations which Elixir users will benefit.
  • A new experimental low-level socket API.
  • Even faster SSL/TLS operations.
  • Improved Erlang Distribution Protocol handling when it comes to a huge messages (splitting into smaller ones, no longer blocking).


Aside from this, we plan to improve quality of Erlang and related packages. These are shortcomings we want to address:

  • Every daemon written in Erlang has its own logging solution which doesn't use neither syslog nor Journald. We should start switching them to Journald.
  • We should add ability to use D-Bus via erlang-dbus library.
  • Further improve Erlang Packaging Guidelines and promote it as the official guideline.
  • Switch to rebar3 as a main build tool.

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora users, both developers and end-users, will have visible benefits from using Fedora-provided packages. Namely:

  • Improved logging, better unified with the rest of system.

Scope

Upgrade/compatibility impact

  • Every Erlang upgrade requires the rebuilding of modules which contains ports or NIFs, and we will rebuild all such modules in Fedora. However if a user has some additional modules not available in a Fedora repository, then these modules must be rebuilt manually.
  • So-called HiPE continues to deteriorate. In this version it's barely functional and likely is going to be removed in the next one.

How To Test

  • Ensure that high-grade Erlang applications are still working:
Name Tested
couchdb No
ejabberd No
elixir No
mochiweb No
rabbitmq-server No
riak No (package was retired :( )
wings No
  • Collect feedback from volunteers regarding their experience with this Erlang/OTP version

User Experience

Users will get more robust, scalable, and fast Erlang applications.

Dependencies

The following packages must be rebuilt:

Name Rebuilt
couchdb No
erlang-basho_metrics No
erlang-bitcask No
erlang-cache_tab No
erlang-cl No
erlang-ebloom No
erlang-eleveldb No
erlang-emmap No
erlang-erlsyslog No
erlang-esasl No
erlang-esdl No
erlang-esip No
erlang-fast_tls No
erlang-fast_xml No
erlang-fast_yaml No
erlang-hyper No
erlang-iconv No
erlang-jiffy No
erlang-js No
erlang-lfe No
erlang-riak_ensemble No
erlang-sd_notify No
erlang-skerl No
erlang-snappy No
erlang-stringprep No
erlang-xmpp No

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: None necessary. Instead of falling back to the previous version we should fix existing packages in order to help the Community. We should also monitor upstream development process for potentially discovered issues and proactively apply patches (as we already did with Erlang R14, Erlang R15, Erlang R16, Erlang 17, Erlang 18, Erlang 19, Erlang 20, and Erlang 21). It should be noted that this change consists from an independent or loosely coupled smaller changes. If we fail to deliver some changes in time, we should reschedule these exact changes to the future Fedora release while keeping already implemented ones.
  • Contingency deadline: N/A
  • Blocks release? N/A
  • Blocks product? N/A

Documentation

Release Notes

Erlang/OTP 22.0 is available in Fedora 31.