Draft Proposal: Spin Submission and Approval Process

[Jeff Spaleta]

This draft covers how new spins will be developed and released.  It
does not yet cover the issue of updated spins which incorporate
updated packages.

:::Kickstart Pool:
This is a community peer reviewed space of kickstart files. These
kickstart files have Board approval to use the Fedora trademarks, and
can be used with livecd creation tools by individuals in the Fedora
community to produce live images on an as-needed basis.

The Kickstart Pool is where all new Spin concepts go first to be
reviewed and tested by a peer group of Spin Maintainers for Spin
Guideline compliance and technical quality.   Once the peer group has
reviewed and tested the spin concept, the spin proposal is sent to the
Fedora Board for review.  If the Board grants trademark usage, the
kickstart file can then be added to the Fedora CVS and listed on in
the fedoraproject websites as a community contributed spin.
The Board will be relying primarily on the technical judgment embodied
in a set of codified in the Spin Guidelines, but reserves the right to
reject a spin concept on grounds not covered in the technical
guidance.  If this happens, the Board will state the arguments for
rejection in the f-a-b list for public discussion.  In circumstances
where the Board finds a technical issue with a proposed spin that is
not covered in the Spin Guidelines, the Board with work with the Spin
Maintainers to address the issue by adapting the Spin Guidelines.

The Fedora community will have access to approved kickstart files so
that they can make local builds of the spins as needed (through cvs,
website, and perhaps as a package).  If a spin maintainer has the
ability to host their own spin binary images, they will be allowed to
link to such binaries (and signatures) from the community contributed
spins once the peer group of Spin Maintainers certifies that the
signatures for the binaries are correct.

:::Spin Maintainers:
In order for the Kickstart Pool concept to work, a new community group
must be established to review new Spin proposals and to work on an
evolving set of Spin Guidelines which can be used to set a minimum
level of technical quality for the kickstart file and resulting spin
images.  Ideally this will be a group of peers, made up primarily of
people maintaining existing spin kickstart files and others who are
experts in kickstart usage.

:::Spin Guidelines:
All of the spins in the Kickstart Pool must meet or exceed a set of
community Spin Guidelines (similar to the Package Review Guidelines.)
As part of the Spin Guidelines a naming scheme for these spins must be
adopted so that they are easily distinguishable from Released Spins.
This will be an evolving set of Spin Guidelines, and as the breadth of
community contributed spins grows, the Spin Guidelines will need to be
enhanced to cover new situations.

:::Pre-Approval Testing:
  The peer group of Spin Maintainers are tasked to do at a minimum the
following testing.
  1) Ensure the image builds
  2) Ensure the built image boots
  3) Test installation from the image
  4) Spin Guideline Compliance
  4) Other image-specific testing


:::Release Selection and Released Spins:
Released Spins is a tightly controlled space of releng vetted spins
that are available for download in binary form as part of the Fedora
release process(centrally managed torrent and/or mirrors).  The
purpose of this space is to make best use of available project
infrastructure to provide a diverse selection of high quality spins
for easy consumption by end users.  Because hosting space is finite,
Release Selections may change from release to release.  Additionally
releng may require technical changes to candidate spins beyond what is
allowed in the Spin Guidelines.  When appropriate releng will attempt
to codify these additional technical requirements, when they are known
to impact multiple spins in the Kickstart Pool.

Spins in the Kickstart Pool may request to be reviewed for Release
Selection as part of the Fedora release process (similar in timing to
how the Feature process works). releng has the option to allow a spin
to be released late (relative to the Fedora release date), at their
discretion.  But in general, the Spin Release Selection process should
aim to be completed such that all Released Spins are available at the
time of the next Fedora release.


-------
Question for Spin Maintainers:
What is the best way of generating the manifest of SRPM's used in the
packageset that makes a Spin?  And can we do it in a web friendly way
that links back to packagedb information?

Questions for the Board:
Do we need export approval for each spin in the Kickstart Pool?

-----
If this draft becomes policy, here are the items which must happen
before the Board can approve any more spin concepts:
1) We need to put together the peer group of Spin Maintainers and
interested parties to start crafting a set of Spin Guidelines
2) We need to create a space in cvs for contributed kickstart files
3) We need a way to cleanly distinguish between Released Spins and
Contributed Spins in our webspaces  such as spins.fp.org


----
My comments:

I think people on the Board/releng can probably help create an initial
document for the Spin Guidelines and hand it to a working group of
Spin Maintainers to use initially is possible to prevent an
unnecessarily long block on the creation of an intial Spin Guidelines.
 But a working group of Spin Maintainers who are invested in doing
peer reviews of spin concepts is key.

The hardest thing, and the thing that can end up being the longest
blocker is 3).  It's not clear that there are a group of people with a
strong investment in reconfiguring spins.fp.org.  I know people have
been looking at a redesign, but I'm not sure if its a high enough
priority on anyone's todo list to block on it.  But something that
needs to happen, if we want to give community contributed spins a web
presence inside our project space.

-jef