new RPM version and Feature process

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 16:33 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:
> Thorsten Leemhuis said the following on 07/09/2008
> > So is the most of the Feature process (and especially FESCo's approval) 
> > useless overhead? It looks to me that the answer tends to be "yes" as 
> > long as big features like this can easily creep in without going through 
> > the established approval process, as long as the feature gets added to 
> > rawhide early enough in the devel cycle.
> 
> I think you've overlooked some of its benefits: 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Policy#Background
> 
> including the HUGE amount of equivalent marketing dollars the pages help 
> drive which Paul mentioned at FUDCon.
> 
> I'd argue the return on investment is there.

On top of the measurable part, there were a very large proportion -- I'd
say it was fully half, out of more than a dozen interviews I gave for
the Fedora 9 release -- where journalists asked direct questions about
specific features.  They almost always prefaced it by saying, "I read
the feature pages on the wiki, which were really good.  I was hoping you
could explain further...".

> > Just wondering. No, I really don't want to stop the new RPM; there are 
> > likely other examples (say OpenOffice 3.0) in rawhide (but going 
> > backwards there as hard as with RPM). But I'm more and more wondering if 
> > the complex Feature process is worth all the trouble and effort. The 
> > best thing that came out of it in F9 IMHO were the good release notes 
> > and great "whats new" pages. But I'd say we can have that easier.
> 
> I'm all ears.  What are your specific ideas for a more effective process 
> so it is worth all the "trouble and effort"?
> 
> We've spent a lot of time up until now trying to get to a useful 
> process, including the public reviews of the process we have at the 
> start of each release.  More participation and concrete suggestions from 
> people like you would be greatly appreciated :)


-- 
Paul W. Frields
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  http://paul.frields.org/   -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
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