[EPEL-devel] [Proposal] Converge EPEL and CBS

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2015 16:12:07 +0200
Haïkel <hguemar at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Since the CentOS acquihire, there was a lot of discussion about
> EPEL's future. Since the FOSDEM meetup between Fedora/CentOS folks,
> there was little progress on that topic
> 
> After a discussion with a Smooge, I decided to come with a proposal,
> knowing that
> 1. Fedora wants to keep EPEL within it umbrella
> 2. That CentOS SIGs are in practice rebuilding a lot of EPEL packages
> (or retag them for other SIGs)
> leading to poor maintenance as they don't follow EPEL tickets for all
> their dependencies.

Which tickets do you mean here? They are only rebuilding some packages,
but not others or? 

> 3. EPEL is not part CentOS plans, and as soon as SIGs will progress,
> *may* turn the former irrelevant

I suppose, but lots of people use/look to epel for packages, I don't
think that will change to using packages from CentOS sigs overnight. 

> 4. Some EPEL packages are poorly maintained especially on older EL
> releases and/or orphaned

Sure, just like any large collection of packages. 

> We've reached the point where both EPEL/CBS would greatly benefit to
> join hands.
> 
> So I suggest that we consider the following:
> * EPEL will still use Fedora dist-git
> * EPEL builds should be done in CBS to make it easier for SIGs to
> consume it.

How do EPEL maintainers launch builds in CBS? 
How do builds get signed? 
How do updates get pushed out to EPEL users? Does CentOS have a bodhi
instance? 

> * EPEL will use CentOS repositories instead of mirroring RHEL
> repositories

CBS seems to not have ppc64... so no more ppc64 EPEL packages?

Also, this would probibly be some kind of big deal to some people who
like that EPEL is built against rhel. Personally, I don't think it
matters, but it would have to be communicated clearly. 

> * Bridging Fedora/CentOS accounting system (CentOS is migrating to
> FAS)  <== we need to see the feasibility of this but that would be
> optimal, that would increase the permeability between our two
> contributors pools which is something, we all want to encourage.

Bridging in which way? what information would be good to communicate
back and forth?

> * Create a EPEL provenpackager group under CentOS core SIG
> supervision, allowing them to appoint people to maintain EPEL
> packages.

Overriding the existing EPEL maintainers?

> I suggest that we keep the EPEL name to acknowledge EPEL historical
> effort to provide quality additional packages for EL distros.
> Fedora contributors would still be able to contribute to EPEL, and
> CentOS contributors to make it up their standards.
> 
> Would that work for you?

I think there would be a large amount of technical and public relations
work needed to get anything like this off the ground. 

If the problem is that CBS only has a subset of epel builds, perhaps we
could solve that by setting up a script that listens to fedora fedmsgs
and imports epel builds from fedora koji when they are done?

kevin
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/epel-devel/attachments/20150921/23d2510b/attachment.sig>