EPEL9 Rollout Proposals

[Troy Dawson <tdawson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In our last EPEL Steering Committee meeting, Carl brought up a new proposal for our epel9 / epel9-next rollout.  Sometimes IRC isn't the best way to explain things like that, it got a little confusing.  Carl and I had a good video chat to clean up confusion and talk about some pros and cons of the various proposals.

Here are the three proposals.

* PLAN A

Plan A is basically what we've been working towards for the past couple of months.

- launch epel9-next now-ish (ideally aligned with c9s launch promotion)

- After RHEL9 goes GA

-- perform a mass branch and mass rebuild to populate epel9

-- launch epel9 after RHEL9 GA is launched.

** Plan A Pros:

- epel9-next and epel9 are only set up once, and not changed

- ready to go now

** Plan A Cons:

- complexity and added work of mass branch and mass rebuild
- mass rebuild will have a moderate rate of failure due to buildroot differences (unshipped devel packages)
- epel9 not available at rhel9 ga
- confusing messaging to packagers:
-- target epel9-next for ~6 months
-- after epel9 exists target that instead, only use epel9-next when needed
- confusing messaging to users:
-- use epel9-next now for c9s and rhel9 beta
-- use epel9-next temporarily at rhel9 launch but don’t leave it enabled

-- use epel9 primarily once it exists

* PLAN B

- epel9-next stays the way it is currently setup.

- Setup epel9 using RHEL9 Beta for the buildroot.

-- Pull in any errata as it comes.

-- Use the repos you would for RHEL9 GA: AppStream, BaseOS, CRB

- Launch epel9 and epel9-next together (In 1-2 weeks).

- When RHEL9 GA is released, switch epel9 buildroot from RHEL9 Beta to RHEL9 GA

** Plan B Pros:

- simple messaging to packagers:
-- epel9 is the primary target, use epel9-next only when needed (same as epel8-next)
- simple messaging to users:
-- use epel9 everywhere (epel-next-release is a recommends on c9s)
- no mass branching
- no mass rebuild

- No confusion from using the full CentOS Stream buildroot

-- epel9 buildroot will only have AppStream, BaseOS and CRB

** Plan B Cons:

- potential for large divergence between rhel9 beta and ga
- changing our messaging right before the launch

* PLAN C

- epel9-next stays the way it is currently setup.

- setup up epel9 using c9s for the buildroot
-- Use the repos you would for RHEL9: AppStream, BaseOS, CRB
- freeze epel9 buildroot before c9s switches to 9.1 content
- launch epel9 and epel9-next together (1-2 weeks)
- switch epel9 buildroot from frozen c9s to rhel9 ga later

** Plan C Pros:

- simple messaging to packagers:
-- epel9 is the primary target, use epel9-next only when needed (same as epel8-next)
- simple messaging to users:
-- use epel9 everywhere (epel-next-release is a recommends on c9s)
- no mass branching
- no mass rebuild

- No confusion from using the full CentOS Stream buildroot

-- epel9 buildroot will only have AppStream, BaseOS and CRB

** Plan C Cons:

- potential infrastructure complexity of freezing the epel9 buildroot
- changing our messaging right before the launch

Please let us know what you think.

If we do choose to go with Plan B or C we will need to make the decision fairly quickly.

Troy

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