[EPEL] EPEL -- the way forward

[Karsten Wade]

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 19:41 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> The idea to build Fedora (Extras) Packages for RHEL and compatible
> distros like CentOS in the scope of the Fedora Project is over half a
> year old now, but didn't really take of yet. This mail (and some other
> work in other places like the wiki) tries to actually get the idea
> running a bit more faster now in the hope that the project actually
> takes of soon.

Thanks for stepping up and organizing us this far.  It's really helping
make EPEL happen.

> -- the package needs to be supported until the End Of Life (EOL) of the
> Distributions they were build for -- round about seven years. Sure,
> nobody of us knows if he still be around then. But you should not build
> packages for EPEL if you plan to moe oer to other stuff soon or find
> packaging really annoying

One idea we want to promote is making the packaging into a job role
instead of a personal side-project.  This is possible and useful where
your employer or other outside organization benefits from your package
in EPEL.  For example, your infrastructure requires package Foo be
rebuilt in EPEL.  If you make package maintenance part of your job role,
you gain:

* The ability to pass on package maintenance when you move job roles or
leave the organization
* Protection of the longevity of the package
* More institutional knowledge of why it is a Good Thing to maintain
packages in Fedora
* A small portion of your compensation now covers working on Fedora (!)

To that end, I have this first draft of a 'job description'.  It is
designed to be generic enough that it can be adjusted to fit into other,
existing job descriptions.  We need your help to make sure the job
duties are complete and accurate:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/PackageMaintainer/GenericJobDescription

When it has improved some, I'm going to run this by folks who deal in
job descriptions for a living.  This should help make it easier to use
it in your organization.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor    ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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