epel task force? (was: Re: EPEL Meeting: Call for Topics)

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Feb 9, 2008 7:22 AM, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> wrote:
> On 04.02.2008 18:24, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > Any topics for the next meeting?
> >
> > RT3
>
> Xavier seems to do a good in that area. Thx for that Xavier!
>
> > [...]
> > What else can be done?
>
> RHEL5 is now 11 months old iirc, so RHEL6 is still likely more then one
> year away. That seems a long time, but on the other hand I suppose that
> means we'll have the first beta in about 6-9 months and we need to start
> preparing EPEL6 then.
>

I was thinking it would be about 7-8 months away for RHEL-6 (18 month
release cycle between major releases)... plus the fact that it has
sort of been a 3 release cycle (FC-0, FC-3,FC-6,FC-9?).. but that is
probably useless speculation.

> I'd wondering if we should soon start with a preparation for the EPEL6
> preparation by  reconsidering to realize a old EPEL idea.
>
> What I want to say is: When EPEL did its baby steps there was the idea
> to form a "EPEL task force" (or what did we call it?): a dedicated group
> of people interested in EPEL that helps Fedora owners when they need
> help. Here is a example to explain the idea behind that group:
>
> - Fedora owner wants to see his package in EPEL, but has no EL release
> and no interest to run centos in a VM
>
> - Fedora owner nevertheless builds his package in EPEL; the EPEL task
> force (as a group, not as a individual) becomes comaintainer
>
> - if needed (e.g. in case of EPEL specific bugs or a urgent update that
> needs to be tested to quickly get it moved from testing to stable) the
> Fedora maintainer yells "EPEL task force, please help".
>
> - someone from the "EPEL task force" helps
>
> Such a concept could help a lot when EPEL6 gets prepared. We could look
> out for the subset of rawhide packages that we'd really like to have in
> EPEL6. Then mail the package owners that are not participating in EPEL
> yet and tell them something like "RHEL6 is nearly the same as the 'core'
> of Fedora right now, so it's the perfect time to build you Fedora
> package in EPEL6; chances are quite big that it'll just build without
> any modifications. If you want you can ask the EPEL Task Force to become
> official comaintainer; the guys from the task force can then later help
> if you need help with EPEL-specific problems".
>
> The same concept liekly has benefits for EPEL4 and EPEL5 as well, but
> the more Fedora moves on it becomes different from RHEL; as a result it
> becomes harder for people to adjust a Fedora package for EPEL. That's
> why getting lots of Fedora packages into EPEL6 when RHEL6 ships seems to
> be important to me.
>
> Just a idea and just my 2 cent.
>

It does sound good. I was trying to experiment at home with a build
all of Fedora-8/9 for EL-4/EL-5 to see what is possible (sort of a
EPEL-rawhide :)) having it with the EL-6 beta would give it a clean
idea of what is going to work and what won't. Having a team of people
to help do the work with the maintainers is even better.

One last thing to add to the agenda. Marketing issues:
1) Logo
2) Posters
3) etc.

The Fedora art team can help us with this.. but we need to have some
idea of what they should draw.

-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"