major change release management for former Extras packages?

[Alex Lancaster]

>>>>> "JK" == Jesse Keating  writes:

[...]

>> To the outside packager/contributor who isn't being paid to monitor
>> all this traffic, however, all this tacit knowledge needs to be
>> made *much* more explicit because it's a world of difference to how
>> Extras has worked up until now and I'm sure I'm not the only one
>> who is somewhat confused by the new processes.

JK> These things are not posted as we're not done merging yet.  Please
JK> have some patience.

OK, fair enough.  I guess I thought that merge was more or less
complete now that the build system was back up. ;)

My main concern with the new process (at least as described in
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/DevelFreezePolicy) is
that it could become somewhat of a disincentive for contributors.

For example, with Extras <= FC-6 you can simply update the package and
build it and it will generally go into the repo in a few days.  While
I complete understand the need for and approve of a QA process for
packages (especially in the merged world), I am concerned that the new
extra (sic) step involved in rel-eng not be too onerous.

For example, currently there is a steady stream of updates to Extras
packages every day, and if even fairly minor changes need to be
approved by a committee then I can see the queue rapidly becoming
full.  In addition having to justify each change (even for "leaf"
packages which don't depend on or otherwise affect any other packages)
and waiting longer for approval, or disallowing version upgrades (even
if they don't break binary compatibility), could potentially
discourage contributors because the rapid release cycle of Extras
packages (compared to Core) is part of what made being a contributor
to Extras appealing in the first place.

Of course, this may all be moot if the final policy for updating
packages (after F7 is released) differs somewhat from that described
in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/DevelFreezePolicy
but those are some potential issues I can see with the release process
as I currently interpret it.

Alex