First experience with F18-ALPHA-TC1

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2012-08-15 at 11:20 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Aug 15, 2012, at 9:09 AM, Adam Jackson wrote:
> > 
> > Calling test composes something with "alpha" in the name is also a problem.
> 
> The word "alpha" describes the test compose because TC1 by itself could apply to either the pre-alpha, pre-beta, or pre-final releases. So if alpha isn't used as a descriptor, then you need to come up with something equally unambiguous to replace the current naming scheme, which I find unambiguous.
> 
> Are you proposing something like:
> 
> ATest1, ATest2, ATest3, and then once alpha release criteria are met, the last test is renamed to Alpha? And likewise there would be BTest1, BTest2, BTest3, and the last one, which meats beta release criteria, it is renamed to Beta?
> 
> *shrug* OK. I am however confused on the distinction between TC's and RC's.

The difference is described in the candidate build request SOP:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:SOP_compose_request

"A test compose is defined as a set of Fedora images built, from the
current Branched tree, shortly prior to the Change Deadline (freeze) for
one of the three Fedora release phases (Alpha, Beta and Final), for the
purposes of performing release validation testing. It differs from a
release candidate in that it is built before, not after, the Change
Deadline and hence there is no possibility of its being declared gold
and released as the Alpha, Beta or Final release."

"A release candidate is defined as a set of Fedora images built, from
the current Branched tree, after the Change Deadline (freeze) for one of
the three Fedora release phases (Alpha, Beta and Final) and using a
package set which is not known to contain any blocker bugs, for the
purposes of performing release validation testing. It differs from a
test compose in that it is built after the Change Deadline and may be
declared gold and released as the Alpha, Beta or Final release if it
passes all validation tests."

So, this actually brings up a problem with the general idea of adjusting
the TC/RC naming process; we could really name TCs whatever the hell we
like, but that doesn't apply to RCs. Fedora RCs are true 'release
candidates': they are built precisely as if they were going to be the
actual released image. RC images don't have Alpha-RC1 or Alpha-RC2 or
Beta-RC3 or whatever in their filenames and so on: they just say 'Alpha'
or 'Beta'. When one of the builds passes validation we simply declare
that build to be the official build and release it as-is: the build
itself does not get changed in any way, we don't have to do a new
'proper' build from the same base or rename any files, we literally take
the 'approved RC' images and release them.

There are obviously good reasons for doing things this way - it's the
most foolproof system for ensuring that what we actually release,
actually works, because what we actually release is precisely what we
tested. Not a rebuild, not a rename, the precise same thing.

We could refer to them as something different in discussion and
announcement emails, I guess, but the thing is...they really _are_
release candidates. This is precisely the right name for them. I'm not
sure any other name actually makes sense. Though if anyone has a smart
idea, please...
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net