Fedora.NEXT Products and the fate of Spins

[inode0]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 4:03 PM, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:57 PM, H. Guémar <hguemar at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I think we should keep spins as long as we don't have a formal process to
>>> accept new products.
>>> Something like => proposal => crop (aka product-to-be) => validation =>
>>> product
>>> When we'll have that, drop the whole spin thing, any spin that isn't fit to
>>> be a product should be reclassified as remix.
>>
>> Why do we expect spins to be any more official products than they are now?
>>
>> I can't really imagine this ever working. Do you imagine a day where
>> Fedora has 20, 30, 50 official products? I don't.
>>
>> I'd rather not confuse what is made from Fedora bits with what is
>> based on Fedora bits but includes other bits. The remix branding does
>> not seem appropriate for spins that are made purely from Fedora bits.
>
> That's fair.  From a resource and quality perspective though, I'd
> rather not burden rel-eng and QA with having to maintain, create, and
> test spins.  They can be done entirely outside of Fedora.  They can be
> created and hosted on their own sites, etc.
>
> F20 improved spins overall, but that was because of a concerted effort
> with our existing resources.  If Fedora.next is going to succeed,
> those resources are already going to be overwhelmed with the 3
> products.  Spreading them thinner for little benefit in most cases
> seems irresponsible.

So I am being pulled in both directions on this. One of the goals of
agility is to facilitate more things being made from Fedora (at least
that was a discussed goal at various times). I agree with that and
pushing aside the best things we have built from Fedora now
(understanding they have been problematic in various ways in the past)
seems to work against that goal.

I don't accept the blanket assertion that the spins have little
benefit. Do we actually have any idea how many people install Fedora
from spins?

Irresponsible is bit loaded. I don't know that rel-eng will be
overburdened by running the script that builds them. I also don't know
that there aren't other creative arrangements that could be made to
facilitate the creation and distribution of spins largely or entirely
under the control of those creating them without pushing them entirely
outside of Fedora infrastructure.

I guess I'd like those active in the spin community to make
suggestions here. I imagine spins and other new creations built on
Fedora to be things the project wants to promote, not push away. The
reality may be that we can't do what we do now in support of spins,
but I hope we can continue to do something that helps and encourages
those making them.

John