what do you want to know about EPEL?

[Karsten Wade]

I'm doing the final work on my presentation on EPEL[1] at the Red Hat
Summit, and I'm wondering if there any questions you all have I should
address?

Generally, the approach is to describe what EPEL is (and what it isn't),
and the various reasons why it is an important enough goal to warrant
doing whatever it takes to get software in to RPM.

Also, I'm going to touch upon some of the new work we are doing to
enable ISVs to be successful -- this SIG, the other sessions at the
Summit and FUDCon, etc.

Let me know if there is anything you'd want to hear more of, less of,
etc.

thx - Karsten
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
-- 
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

[Lee Faus]

When is you talk?  

1) How do appliances fit into EPEL?
2) Is RPM a requirement for EPEL?
3) If we deploy to EPEL, do all of the packages we depend on need to be in EPEL as well?
3a) If so, who is responsible for getting those packages into EPEL?
4) How is Fedora/Community prepared to help getting business applications into EPEL?
4a) Are there FTEs devoted to getting business applications into EPEL?
5) Do you need to go through Fedora to get to EPEL?

Lee
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karsten 'quaid' Wade" <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt;
To: fedora-isv-sig-list(a)redhat.com
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:08:37 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: what do you want to know about EPEL?

I'm doing the final work on my presentation on EPEL[1] at the Red Hat
Summit, and I'm wondering if there any questions you all have I should
address?

Generally, the approach is to describe what EPEL is (and what it isn't),
and the various reasons why it is an important enough goal to warrant
doing whatever it takes to get software in to RPM.

Also, I'm going to touch upon some of the new work we are doing to
enable ISVs to be successful -- this SIG, the other sessions at the
Summit and FUDCon, etc.

Let me know if there is anything you'd want to hear more of, less of,
etc.

thx - Karsten
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
-- 
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

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[Bryan Kearney]

Summarizing what Lee Said.... Walk them through how they could get into 
EPEL, showing people from Fedora, Red Hat, the community as a whole, and 
ISV.

Reading into what Lee said.. I see a possible assumption embedded in (3a 
and 4a) that it is not the ISV. Is this true, or not.

Also.. explain how changes submitted to the EPEL code may or may not 
make it back upstream. I think there is a misunderstanging between what 
code is unique to EPEL, and what is pulled from upstream. Building on 
above, perhaps you walk them through initial inclusion and first bug.

I would also address the common stumbling blocks, and how to work around 
them.

--bk


Lee Faus wrote:
>  When is you talk?  
>  
>  1) How do appliances fit into EPEL?
>  2) Is RPM a requirement for EPEL?
>  3) If we deploy to EPEL, do all of the packages we depend on need to be in EPEL as well?
>  3a) If so, who is responsible for getting those packages into EPEL?
>  4) How is Fedora/Community prepared to help getting business applications into EPEL?
>  4a) Are there FTEs devoted to getting business applications into EPEL?
>  5) Do you need to go through Fedora to get to EPEL?
>  
>  Lee
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Karsten 'quaid' Wade" <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt;
>  To: fedora-isv-sig-list(a)redhat.com
>  Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:08:37 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>  Subject: what do you want to know about EPEL?
>  
>  I'm doing the final work on my presentation on EPEL[1] at the Red Hat
>  Summit, and I'm wondering if there any questions you all have I should
>  address?
>  
>  Generally, the approach is to describe what EPEL is (and what it isn't),
>  and the various reasons why it is an important enough goal to warrant
>  doing whatever it takes to get software in to RPM.
>  
>  Also, I'm going to touch upon some of the new work we are doing to
>  enable ISVs to be successful -- this SIG, the other sessions at the
>  Summit and FUDCon, etc.
>  
>  Let me know if there is anything you'd want to hear more of, less of,
>  etc.
>  
>  thx - Karsten
>  [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

[Tom Callaway]

I'll take a shot at this. Note that I don't speak for the EPEL Steering
Committee. :)

On Thu, 2008-06-12 at 16:18 +0100, Lee Faus wrote:
>  1) How do appliances fit into EPEL? 
I'm not sure this is relevant. EPEL is a repository of RPM packages
built against RHEL 4 and 5. If your appliance can make use of those RPM
packages, then it would seem that EPEL is a good fit for that appliance.

>  2) Is RPM a requirement for EPEL? 
Yes.

>  3) If we deploy to EPEL, do all of the packages we depend on need to
>  be in EPEL as well? 
Yes.

>  3a) If so, who is responsible for getting those packages into EPEL?
Someone? Anyone? There is no requirement that anyone in particular do
it, but they do need to be there. You can't put the cart before the
horse, but we don't care who maintains the horse (as long as someone
does). :)

>  4) How is Fedora/Community prepared to help getting business
>  applications into EPEL? 
This is a good question. I suspect that individuals who are interested
in these applications will be motivated to help. Some of the rest of us
are just interested in helping FOSS companies get more exposure and are
volunteering our time and resources to assist. We won't really have a
good idea until we get the ball rolling forward.

>  4a) Are there FTEs devoted to getting business applications into
> EPEL? 
I'm not tasked for this as my only role as a FTE for Red Hat, but as the
Fedora Engineering Manager, I'm volunteering quite a bit of my time to
assist with this process. So, you've got at least 1/4 of 1. ;)

>  5) Do you need to go through Fedora to get to EPEL? 
So, the answer here is "sortof". EPEL uses the Fedora Packaging
Guidelines, so if your package meets the criteria for acceptance in
Fedora, it is also ok for EPEL. The maintainer will also need to agree
to the Fedora CLA (or negotiate a separate corporate contributor
agreement) and have a Fedora account, in order to maintain the packages.

However: If you really don't want your package in Fedora, just EPEL, we
can do that.

I hope that helps,

~spot

[Matthew Dahlman]

Karsten,

I'm a little late to the thread here, but I have a few thoughts to add.

The approach that you've described sounds good. Explaining why one would
want to do "whatever it takes to get software in to RPM" would be really
useful for me. Likewise, it will be very useful for me to understand not
just 'why' but also 'how'. The details of how to get software package X
into RPM form are clearly beyond the scope of one session, but learning
the high-level version of how to do this and documenting where to get
further info would be great.

I'd also like to learn clear definitions of what it means for a package to
"be in EPEL" and to "be in Fedora". It seems simple enough... but then
I
try to explain it to someone else and find that I can't explain it
precisely. If I can't explain it well, then I guess I didn't know it well
in the first place. 

Actually, it's perhaps useful if I explain my position. Maybe others are
in similar situations. My company has relatively little experience with
Fedora, but we're very interested in learning about getting our
JasperServer product into EPEL. I'd love to get a better feel for what
skills we need to do this. I don't have RPM experience, what sites or
books might help bring me up to speed quickest in this area? Our app needs
an app server; how should I lookup what app servers are already supported
in Fedora? Same for databases. 

I guess by the nature of your talk you would start with questions like,
"What is EPEL?". For me, I'd certainly like it if you start with simple
questions like this just to make sure that we all have the same
foundational knowledge. I began by reading "(EPEL) is a volunteer-based
community effort from the Fedora project to create a repository of
high-quality add-on packages that complement ..." While this is no doubt
accurate, I didn't find it intuitively clear. Covering basic things like
this in the session would be great.

Regards,
Matt Dahlman
JasperSoft
 

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-isv-sig-list-bounces(a)redhat.com
[mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Karsten
'quaid' Wade
Sent: Thursday, 12 June, 2008 8:09
To: fedora-isv-sig-list(a)redhat.com
Subject: what do you want to know about EPEL?

I'm doing the final work on my presentation on EPEL[1] at the Red Hat
Summit, and I'm wondering if there any questions you all have I should
address?

Generally, the approach is to describe what EPEL is (and what it isn't),
and the various reasons why it is an important enough goal to warrant
doing whatever it takes to get software in to RPM.

Also, I'm going to touch upon some of the new work we are doing to enable
ISVs to be successful -- this SIG, the other sessions at the Summit and
FUDCon, etc.

Let me know if there is anything you'd want to hear more of, less of, etc.

thx - Karsten
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL
--
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2008-06-12 at 16:18 +0100, Lee Faus wrote:
>  When is you talk?   
Sorry, missed that I still had a question out there. :)  I'm
scheduled[1] for Thursday, 2:45 pm, in the OSS track.

Thanks for the input everyone.

- Karsten

[1] http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2008/agenda/schedule.html
-- 
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41