Extras package submissions and general thoughts

[Michael Schwendt]

Hi everyone, in particular those involved at fedora.us and pre-Extras!

While Fedora Extras is still being prepared, here are some thoughts which
accumulated over the past few days:

PACKAGE SUBMISSIONS

  The official package submission policies and workflow for Fedora Extras
  are not known yet. Those who have submitted new packages at
  bugzilla.redhat.com instead of bugzilla.fedora.us are too early. At
  fedora.us we've had at least a documented procedure. In bugzilla at
  redhat.com we don't. But as some form of guidance, please do not ignore
  existing fedora.us documents completely. There's a good bit of
  information included with regard to package QA and packaging hints.

PACKAGE REQUESTS

  Every package in Fedora Extras needs at least one maintainer (read:
  package owner). It is beyond the existing project resources to pick up
  arbitrary packages found on web sites. If you have a wish list of what
  ought to be included, discuss this on fedora-extras-list please and
  maybe somebody steps up as the package maintainer. Naturally, those
  fine people who support upstream projects with Fedora Core specific
  packages, are likely the candidates who would also like to maintain
  a package in Fedora Extras.

UNMOTIVATED PACKAGERS

  It is a pain trying to support new contributors and their package
  submissions, when someone doesn't reply to feedback or seems to drop off
  after a first submission.  If you decide to stay away or not maintain
  your included package anymore, please be so fair and inform the project
  members and the community, so an unmaintained package can be removed or
  taken over by somebody else.  Included packages at some point of time
  had been reviewed and approved. It would be a pitty to lose them.

  Whether due to impatience, whether due to disappointment of Fedora
  Extras progress, whether due to intricate procedures and workflow
  management, please only join and submit packages or contributions if
  you are serious about supporting the project, even during somewhat
  difficult times.

  It should be clear that with limited infrastructure (such as type of
  build system and access to it, bugzilla upload procedures instead of
  direct CVS access), it would be necessary to bridge the period of time
  till Fedora Extras provides superior infrastructure.

EXISTING PACKAGE SUBMISSIONS, http://fedora.us/QA

  With regard to the many packages in the queue, there has been no
  slavedriver at fedora.us who forces contributors to review arbitrary
  packages. At fedora.us we're all volunteers. But the package submission
  policies recommend that in order to gain experience and trust, packagers
  should exchange reviews with eachother. Where that doesn't happen and
  where nobody reviews a package, no progress is made.

PACKAGE UPDATES, Fedora pre-Extras

  Since only a handful of project contributors outside Red Hat have
  write access to the Fedora Extras CVS till official ways for getting
  access are announced, it would be necessary that existing package owners
  approach one of these when they want to commit updates. You should be
  able to do that via bugzilla Cc or private mail. If I'm informed
  correctly, the six people (and their bugzilla e-mail addresses) are:

    Damien Nade <anvil at livna.org>
    Phillip Compton <pcompton at proteinmedia.com>
    Matthias Saou <matthias at rpmforge.net>
    Michael Schwendt <bugs.michael at gmx.net>
    Ville Skyttä <ville.skytta at iki.fi>
    Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas at apestaart.org>

  The list of current package owners can be displayed in bugzilla.

PACKAGE UPGRADES, Fedora pre-Extras

  Where version upgrades are requested or suggested by users, we need to
  find new ways of doing QA. For instance, library upgrades affect all
  existing dependencies, and these are not always maintained by the same
  person. If not in bugzilla, communication channels outside bugzilla
  (e.g. on fedora-extras-list) need to be established.

Michael

-- 
Fedora Core release 2 (Tettnang) - Linux 2.6.10-1.9_FC2
loadavg: 0.38 0.98 0.95
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