proposal: move Data Corruption criterion from Final to Beta

[Kamil Paral]

I propose we move the existing Data Corruption criterion from Final to
Beta. The criterion sounds like this:
"All known bugs that can cause corruption of user data must be fixed or
documented at Common F34 bugs."
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_34_Final_Release_Criteria#Data_corr...
(see footnotes for some additional details)

The reason for this proposal is this bugzilla [1] and this blocker ticket
[2] where we discussed whether we should ship an older Firefox on F33 Beta
media, which was known to completely wipe the whole user profile on
upgraded systems. We didn't (and still don't) have any release criterion
which says that this situation should not occur. Fortunately, in the F33
Beta case, we managed to ship a fixed version of Firefox in time, and so we
didn't really need to make a decision back then.

I talked about this problem in general in [2], and I said:
"I support moving the Data Corruption criterion to Beta, with the rationale
that we also require system upgrades to be fully working at Beta, and that
puts testers into a tough place where they are recommended to upgrade but
might lose personal data. It seems to me that those two things should be
coupled together, for important cases (like this one, IMO). The corruption
criterion allows us to decide when we want to demand the fix and when it's
enough to have it documented. If e.g. all my history+bookmarks+passwords
get purged from Firefox or if e.g. my ~/Documents folder gets removed on
Beta upgrade, I believe we should have an option to block the Beta release.
At the same time, we don't need to apply it if you only lose e.g. your
color profiles in gnome-terminal. Currently your whole home can get purged
and we don't have a way to stop it in Beta, I find that a problem."

The criterion as currently written is flexible enough that it doesn't force
us to fix the issue, if we consider it low-risk or low-impact, but it
*enables us* to have that conversation and accept the high-risk or
high-impact issues as blockers. That's why I believe moving it to Beta
doesn't bring any downsides, just advantages.

Please comment, thank you.
Kamil

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1881495
[2] https://pagure.io/fedora-qa/blocker-review/issue/118

[Chris Murphy]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 5:44 AM Kamil Paral <kparal(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  The reason for this proposal is this bugzilla [1] and this blocker
> ticket [2] where we discussed whether we should ship an older Firefox on F33 Beta media,
> which was known to completely wipe the whole user profile on upgraded systems. We
> didn't (and still don't) have any release criterion which says that this situation
> should not occur. Fortunately, in the F33 Beta case, we managed to ship a fixed version of
> Firefox in time, and so we didn't really need to make a decision back then. 
My recollection is the older Firefox did ship on beta media. There
wasn't a newer successfully built Firefox still.

But yeah, I support moving the criterion to beta. The language says
"must be fixed or documented" - who decides which? It reads like there
are up to three decisions to make for this criterion: 1) is it a
blocker? 2) should it be documented or fixed for beta? 3) should it be
documented or fixed for final?


-- 
Chris Murphy

[Kamil Paral]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 5:58 AM Chris Murphy <lists(a)colorremedies.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 5:44 AM Kamil Paral <kparal(a)redhat.com&gt;
> wrote:
>
>  > The reason for this proposal is this bugzilla [1] and this blocker
>  ticket [2] where we discussed whether we should ship an older Firefox on
>  F33 Beta media, which was known to completely wipe the whole user profile
>  on upgraded systems. We didn't (and still don't) have any release criterion
>  which says that this situation should not occur. Fortunately, in the F33
>  Beta case, we managed to ship a fixed version of Firefox in time, and so we
>  didn't really need to make a decision back then.
>
>  My recollection is the older Firefox did ship on beta media. There
>  wasn't a newer successfully built Firefox still.
>  
Perhaps you're right and the older FF was on media, and the newer FF was
just in updates. It doesn't really matter much, it's just an example of a
potential issue.


>  But yeah, I support moving the criterion to beta. The language says
>  "must be fixed or documented" - who decides which? 

See this footnote under the criterion:
"Fixed or documented?
If the issue is sufficiently serious, we may consider that documenting it
is not sufficient and it must be fixed. This is a subjective determination
that will be made at blocker review or Go/No-Go meetings."


>  It reads like there
>  are up to three decisions to make for this criterion: 1) is it a
>  blocker? 2) should it be documented or fixed for beta? 3) should it be
>  documented or fixed for final?
>  
Yes, that sounds right. We can for example decide that it's sufficient to
have it documented for Beta, but it needs to be fixed for Final.

[Ben Cotton]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 3:47 AM Kamil Paral <kparal(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Yes, that sounds right. We can for example decide that it's sufficient to have it
> documented for Beta, but it needs to be fixed for Final.
>  
I like this scenario (at least for some set of data corruption bugs.
Each bug is special and unique, of course).

I am in favor of the proposal.

-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

[Kamil Paral]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 1:44 PM Kamil Paral <kparal(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

>  I propose we move the existing Data Corruption criterion from Final
> to
>  Beta. The criterion sounds like this:
>  "All known bugs that can cause corruption of user data must be fixed or
>  documented at Common F34 bugs."
>
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_34_Final_Release_Criteria#Data_corr...
>  (see footnotes for some additional details)
>  
Because there have been only supportive votes and no concerns (nor further
comments on the devel list [1]), I implemented the change today:
https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Fedora_34_Beta_Release_Criter...
https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Fedora_34_Final_Release_Crite...

Cheers,
Kamil

[1]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail].o...