Thoughts on Fedora Server lifecycle

[Simo Sorce]

On Fri, 2013-11-01 at 14:30 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
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> Related to my earlier mail "Server Admins: Why not Fedora?", I wanted
> to specifically discuss some lifecycle ideas. Every few months, people
> start shouting again for a "Fedora LTS" and people generally respond
> with "we couldn't support that with volunteers" or "go use
> RHEL/CentOS/SL".
> 
> Suppose for a moment that we did things a little differently in the
> Fedora Server. We don't want to get out of sync with the release cycle
> set by the Base Design WG, certainly. But at the same time, I think we
> can come up with a fairly simple way to maintain the Fedora Server for
> a longer time period.
> 
> I'm going to propose a lifecycle of eighteen months (with slight
> extensions for slippage) as follows.
> 
> Let's start talking about Fedora Server 1.0 (rather than Fedora Server
> 21).
> 
> In my view of the world, we would build the Base Design as Fedora 21,
> Fedora 22 and Fedora 23 following mechanisms not terribly dissimilar
> to the present-day model. We would then create the Fedora Server atop
> this, delayed by a small amount < 1 month).
> 
> We would use the latest Fedora Base bits as the platform and sync our
> pieces atop it at regular intervals, aiming for a finalized release
> every eighteen months.
> 
> I spent the last hour trying to draw up a decent timeline graphic, but
> I am terrible at this and so I will instead attempt to explain it in
> text. Please bear with me.
> 
> 
> Let's start the discussion from Fedora 21. We would follow the Fedora
> 21 process closely until the base design is declared final (much as
> current Fedora is now). Ideally at the same time (but possibly delayed
> by up to a month), we would release "Fedora Server 1.0 Preview 1".
> This would be a complete, installable server operating system, but
> make it clear that it's a preview release that may not represent the
> final product.
> 
> At Fedora 22, we release "Fedora Server 1.0 Preview 2", with the same
> caveats. However, at Fedora 23, we release "Fedora Server 1.0". At
> this time, we agree to freeze the interfaces and make clear demands on
> backwards-compatibility. For the remaining life of Fedora Server 1.x,
> it will be a stable platform (and understood to be extremely
> conservative with its updates).
> 
> At Fedora 24, we now release two things: "Fedora Server 1.1", which
> will just be an updated installer with the latest versions of any
> package updates that have occurred in the standard install since
> Fedora Server 1.0". We will also release "Fedora Server 2.0 Preview
> 1", following the same guidelines as above.
> 
> Fedora 25 would offer the "Fedora Server 1.2" updates roll-up and
> "Fedora Server 2.0 Preview 2", and finally Fedora 26 would offer only
> "Fedora Server 2.0" as install media. At this time, Fedora Server 1.0
> would become "security-fixes only" for the six months until Fedora
> Server 2.1 (to allow overlap to upgrade). As of Fedora Server N.1 of
> any release, the N-1 series is abandoned.
> 
> So yes, that sounds ambitious, but what do you think of the idea?

How would you handle upgrades between N-1 -> N ?

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York