<rant target="the Fedora build system in general" non-target="msuchy for giving a useful idea">

Get pungi and all the other tools in the build system which touch the repos and expect things to be done in a certain way to not break, corrupt or make releng's life a daily nightmare and you are golden.

Remember the Fedora build system is a Rube Goldberg machine[1] where every group who has a new idea about how to make Linux easier to compose/consume/etc have stuck something in. None of them have been designed really to work with each other and various parts are completely running on luck and mad patching (hi PDC). Everytime someone says 'just do this one thing' it turns into a cascade of broken bits where everyone spends a month or 2 blaming (1) releng for adding in one more thing and (2) every other group for messing with their perfect tool. Since we usually have 1-2 months to get something in place before the next release.. that means we have whatever time left over from the poop-throwing festival to monkey-patch it for another release and then live with the system breaking daily for a couple of months. [Then watch Kevin and Mohan grow more Stockholm syndrome to say that the system is fine.. just like the previous release engineers who have departed from Fedora.]

 

Patches, ideas and fixes are indeed helpful, but what would be more helpful is getting everyone with a say on the build system and their one thing that they want from Release Engineering in a room to work out what the entire developer and build system experience should be with an idea of how to make it more manageable and more able to slot in things in and out versus 'aaaaah {'mass rebuild','beta release','final release','2 week holiday'}  is in 2 days get that tool working'

</rant>

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine