On Tue, 2018-06-19 at 16:27 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
The current Product Requirements Document[1] for the Server Edition
is
considerably out of date. Based on discussion in the recent thread on FreeIPA
release criteria[2], it's clear that its existence is actively hampering our
efforts to modernize our deliverables.
I took a look at the PRD with an eye towards modernizing it, but the truth of
the matter is that it basically needs a total rewrite. It is fundamentally
written around a core concept of "Server Roles" that have been entirely
abandoned by the Server Edition efforts. As a result, I feel that the PRD
needs to be archived entirely and not relied on as a source of truth.
What I propose is this:
1) Archive the Server PRD, noting that in broad strokes it describes our
aspirational goals but differs entirely on implementation.
2) Update all items on the Fedora Release Criteria so that they no longer
reference the PRD. Any requirements that Server SIG wishes to retain must be
moved to the Release Criteria wiki pages and treated as the canonical source of
truth.
I feel that this will be better for the Server Edition in the long-term, as the
Release Criteria pages are much better maintained than the PRD and we can be
both more flexible and more visible with changes.
Thoughts?
I'm opposed to this. The purpose of the PRD is to define, at the high
level, what the Server edition is meant to be and do. This is *not*
(and should not be) the purpose of the release criteria. The release
criteria were written with reference to the PRD, and this was a good
system. Trying to write the actual definition of what Server should be
*as* release criteria, with no reference to work from, seems to me a
nightmare that's likely to result in text that doesn't work very well
as release criteria *or* as a definition of Server's intent.
IIRC, at the time the whole Fedora.next proposal was discussed and
ultimately approved, whoever was in charge (was it still the Board at
that time, or already the Council?) actually required that the editions
(whatever we were calling them at the time) write a PRD and a tech spec
(and then reviewed and signed off on them). I think it would be clearly
against the spirit of the system for us to just unilaterally decide we
no longer need a PRD and are going to shoehorn everything into the
release criteria. So I also suggest it would at least be *clearly*
wrong for us to do this without requesting approval from the Council.
It honestly seems kinda bizarre to me to say "well, it seems we need to
completely rethink the fundamental approach of the Server edition...so
let's not do that properly but just throw away the document that's
supposed to do that work and try to write it all up as release criteria
instead!" Surely if we need to rethink how we conceive of Server from
the ground up, writing a new PRD would be *exactly* the right way to do
that?
I'm happy to help draft revisions to the PRD, but I don't think it's a
job for a single person to do, honestly, because it's not just a case
of writing down something we already know and agree on, is it? It seems
clear that "Server roles" as currently defined/implemented are going
away, but it's not clear - at least to me - what we actually want to
replace them with. I'm happy to work on the text that describes the
plan, but I'd like to know what the plan *is* first, and be clear that
we all agree on it.
Thanks.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net