F39 Change Proposal: No fedora-repos-modular in default installation (System Wide Change)

[Aoife Moloney]

== Summary ==
No longer include `fedora-repos-modular` in default installations.

== Owner ==

* Name: [[User:Petersen| Jens Petersen]]
* Email: <petersen(a)redhat.com&gt;



== Detailed Description ==
The main motivation for this change is to improve the everyday speed
of dnf experienced by Fedora users.
dnf invocations frequently check for and pull down last repo metadata
and the yum modular repos which are seeing less use and content
nowadays have been exasperating this problem.
The proposed solution is just not to install the Fedora modular repo
configurations any more by default.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/No_default_fedora-repos-modular

This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

== Feedback ==
Some initial discussions:
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail].o...

== Benefit to Fedora ==
This change will improve the user experience when updating or
installing packages
since the less-used yum modular repos will no longer be on by default
for all users.

(cf [https://web.dev/why-speed-matters/ why-speed-matters])

== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
** update F39 comps @core group to not install fedora-repos-modular by default
** update fedora-container-base.ks to not install fedora-repos-modular
** update fedora-common-ostree-pkgs.yaml to not install fedora-repos-modular
** propose Fedora coreos also drops fedora-repos-modular

* Other developers:

** Spin owners may want to check on any possible impact on their
release artifacts

* Release engineering: [https://pagure.io/releng/issue/11426 #11426]


* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)


* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)


* Alignment with Community Initiatives:


== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
<!-- What happens to systems that have had a previous versions of
Fedora installed and are updated to the version containing this
change? Will anything require manual configuration or data migration?
Will any existing functionality be no longer supported? -->

Any existing modular repos will remain in place and updated normally.
This is also a reason for not changing the modular.repo files themselves,
since disabling the modular repos by default their would cause
upgrades to turn off modular repos.

== How To Test ==
* run dnf upgrade commands etc and check that modular repos are not
active, ie modular repo metadata not checked/downloaded.
* check that fedora-repos-modular is not pre-installed.

<!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->


== User Experience ==
Users of new Fedora installations will no longer have the Fedora
modular repos setup and enabled by default,
resulting in a noticeable speed up executing dnf commands.
They can install fedora-repos-modular to activate the modular repos on
their system.

<!-- If this change proposal is noticeable by users, how will their
experiences change as a result?

 This section partially overlaps with the Benefit to Fedora section
above. This section should be primarily about the User Experience,
written in a way that does not assume deep technical knowledge. More
detailed technical description should be left for the Benefit to
Fedora section.

 Describe what Users will see or notice, for example:
  - Packages are compressed more efficiently, making downloads and
upgrades faster by 10%.
  - Kerberos tickets can be renewed automatically. Users will now have
to authenticate less and become more productive. Credential management
improvements mean a user can start their work day with a single sign
on and not have to pause for reauthentication during their entire day.
 - Libreoffice is one of the most commonly installed applications on
Fedora and it is now available by default to help users "hit the
ground running".
 - Green has been scientifically proven to be the most relaxing color.
The move to a default background color of green with green text will
result in Fedora users being the most relaxed users of any operating
system.
-->

== Dependencies ==

None



== Contingency Plan ==

* Contingency mechanism: (What to do?  Who will do it?)
** Change owner(s) will revert the changes and re-enable the modular
repos as needed
* Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
* Blocks release? No

== Documentation ==

None

== Release Notes ==

* The Fedora modular repos are no longer setup in new installations by
default as of Fedora Linux 39.
* Users can easily enable them with by installing the
`fedora-repos-modular` package.


-- 
Aoife Moloney

Product Owner

Community Platform Engineering Team

Red Hat EMEA

Communications House

Cork Road

Waterford

[Aoife Moloney]

This proposal has now been submitted to FESCo https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3007