[oi-dev] Stable and some processes going forward

[Jon Tibble]

Hi all,

We currently have a bit of a mess with lots of wants and issues 
conflicting with the result that things just get held up.  I'm going to 
outline where I think we are, where we want to be and then propose 
taking on a half way house so others can concentrate on getting us there.

Current status...
We currently have oi_151a in /dev based on the old consolidations with 
their variety of build systems all tied together after build with 
distro-import that sorts it all out.
We then have oi-build based on the SFW replacement userland that is 
currently just that plus a few added extras.  Built packages from here 
get pushed to /experimental.
Currently there are conflicts about a stable release because people want 
to fix stuff but don't want to use the old build system so we're torn 
between wanting to only patch one thing at a time and make sure stuff is 
tested with wanting to do those fixes in a build system that is a 
complete melting pot of large changes with very little test coverage.

Where we want to be...
In the ideal OI world we just want the illumos and oi-build hg repos so 
small fixes are easy to apply and large changes can be worked out in 
testing repos with the same build framework as the repo they're being 
tested to go in to.
Ideally something along the following lines (which I hope shouldn't 
surprise anyone who's been in a dev meeting):
/stable - The destination where only releases and security/stability 
fixes get pushed to.
/dev - This should take snapshots from /experimental and stabilise them 
for a release to /stable.
/experimental - This is the melting pot with the latest and greatest 
where the big collisions can be worked out if necessary.
If people want something between /stable and /dev for a release 
candidate scenario that may make sense and has been discussed but I 
don't remember us reaching a conclusion.

How do we get there...
Having oi_151a in /dev is the first big block to getting the snapshot 
and pushing through repos process going - the other being that 
/experimental isn't yet ready for snapshotting either.
If we want to wait and produce a stable release from /experimental we 
could potentially be waiting a very long time realisticly.

So what I'm proposing is that we follow through with what we've said 
many times and make oi_151a our first /stable so we can both have a 
stable release and clear it out of /dev to free up everything else for 
the new ways.
I'm proposing taking on the stable maintainer role for oi_151a so that 
people can produce patches without the fear of having to touch the old ways.
I'm prepared to take on the distro-import, distro-const, ISO production 
for this.
I think the only consolidation I'm not prepared to get my head round is 
JDS so I'll ask for a volunteer to take those patches and just throw the 
fully built consolidation at me for distro-import.  I think for 
everything else I'm prepared to take patches or the fully built 
consolidation (which probably means I've forgotten about some horrible 
consolidation so please remind me if it sounds too insane).  Talking 
about stable, security and consolidations brings up the topic of what we 
do about Java now we don't have the distribution releases available 
under that license from Oracle - discuss!

Timescales
I'll need a week or two to get organised, for knowledge transfer and to 
make sure I can actually reproduce our current oi_151a.  So I'd expect 
to start taking patches/consolidations off people the week starting Oct 
30th.
I'm open to suggestions on how often to update the repo and how often to 
produce release candidate ISOs.

One point of clarification:  I am not proposing taking on a testing 
role, you test your patch, send it to me and then others test the repos 
and ISOs.

Because we want a stable release I think there should be stricter 
criteria for patches I (or consolidation maintainers) accept for stable 
so I propose the illumos policy of at least two reviewers and an 
approved by in addition to the patch author.

So questions, comments, suggestions...  I want this to be discussed here 
in time for decisions to be voted on in Tuesday's meeting please.

Regards,
Jon