Things are coming together for yet another Fedora release. Although this is the tenth Fedora release it is only the third iteration of the new feature process. From my vantage point the process is getting better though the level of confusion and debate about whether something should be a feature or not continues for some folks. For the curious, the guidelines are here.
Feature freeze for Fedora 10 is this coming Tuesday, August 19, 2008. The current list for Fedora 10 is growing with more waiting to go through the acceptance process here. At feature freeze all features must be significantly completed and testable or they will have to wait for Fedora 11.
During this release cycle I collaborated with Paul Frields who greatly improved the documentation explaining the process. We also got help from the Fedora art folks to make the process diagram better. We also changed the categories used to classify feature pages in an attempt to bring greater clarity there.
And like all the past releases if you still don’t like the process and want to do something (besides complaining) give us some constructive, practical suggestions on what can be better.
I am proposing that any changes for the Fedora 11 release be reviewed and voted on at FESCo‘s meeting on Wednesday, October 1, 2008. This way we can get an earlier start on the Fedora 11 features compared to the late start we had for Fedora 10.
UPDATE (2008-08-29): Due to recent infrastructure outages the feature freeze date for Fedora 10 has moved to 2008-09-09. More details here
August 19, 2008 at 1:22 pm
All I am suggesting here is that we do a couple of things earlier than we usually do. I think we are capable of doing them in parallel. There were a few FESCo meetings towards the end of the Fedora 9 cycle and start of Fedora 10 where there was not a full agenda so I think Jeremy is overstating how busy it will be and that FESCo can’t handle it. What I am suggesting only involves FESCo’s time if it is available on their meeting agenda.
1) Revisit the current feature policy… this will be the third time we’ve reviewed it since it started… each time we’ve done it there has been less and less change. I would expect even less this cycle unless someone proposes something really earth shattering.
2) Vote on F11 features…vote on them as time permits. I think this could be a good thing and encourage people to think beyond just the release at hand. In addition we always seem to lose a few weeks at the start of each release before the feature process starts. This gets us in the habit of doing it on an ongoing basis.
August 15, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@stickster: The question is what problem are we trying to solve. And then looking at if the solution to that problem hurts more than having the problem. Just saying “hey, let’s do it earlier so we don’t have the late start” isn’t about solving a problem… or maybe it is, and I’m just not seeing it at the moment.
August 15, 2008 at 4:50 am
Heh, John’s post makes it kind of clear that it’s frustrating hearing a lot of “no” without any alternative suggestions. 😉 I wonder if we couldn’t move this date even earlier — if the feature freeze for Fedora 10 is August 19th, there should be *some* date (August 20th or later) that we can simply start consideration for Fedora 11. John, maybe you could explain in a later post what blockers there might be in the way to stop us from picking, say, September 1st.
August 14, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The problem is that the point at the beginning of October is probably _the_ most hectic for actually getting the release out. So getting cycles to talk about process for F11 means taking away cycles from getting F10 out the door on time.