CentOS SIGs and gitlab - devel

15 Feb 2022


      Good Morning Everyone,
Some people have already noticed some asks being made to the CentOS
infrastructure team and may be wondering what is the end goal of all of these.
So this email is to try to share the end goal/vision of what I would to like to
reach and open it up for comments/thoughts.
I know of folks wanting to use gitlab for their workflow, this is for example
the case of the automotive SIG folks. One reason for this is the automation that
has been developed around the gitlab API in other contexes but that can be
re-used for the SIG's benefits. So I have been looking at ways to make it
possible for the Automotive SIG to use gitlab, but also keeping in mind that
other SIGs may also be interested in re-using that model.
First of all, a disclaimer:
*all of the following only applies to SIGs who are interested. It is entirely
opt-in. There is absolutely no desire to change what is working today for SIGs
who do not wish to change*.
So the way I envision things is the following:
* SIGs who want they will be able to request a namespace at
  gitlab.com/centos/<sig_name>
* The SIG chairs will be made owner of that namespace, giving them full power to
  organize it the way they wish
* Guidance will be provided in the SIG's guide as to the different approaches
  possible (from the most simple to more complexes [1]). Those will be just
  that: guidance, SIGs can choose to follow them or ignore them
* Gitlab groups will be mapped to groups in the CentOS accout system
* Upon requests, groups can be created in the CentOS account system - This will
  allow SIG to fine-tune their access control if they so choose
* SIGs will be able to use that gitlab namespace to host the git component of
  their dist-git
* SIGs will be able to use either the flat dist-git layout or the exploded SRPM
  layout in their git repo, at their choosing, regardless of where they host
  their repositories
* The lookaside cache used by the SIGs will be reworked to drop the requirement
  on branch name in the path. The end result will likely look like the Fedora or
  CentOS-Stream's lookaside cache. There are potentially a few ways to arrive to
  this, I have not started any conversation around this
I have no ETA for most of these items, some are already work in progress (such
as the possibility to use flat-layout in dist-git [2]), others are quite far
down the line (cf the point about the lookaside cache).
What do you all think of these ideas? Is that something that would be of
interest? Did I miss something?
If you would like more realtime discussion on this topic, it will be on the
agenda of the infra SIG at 14 UTC on Monday the 21st in #centos-meeting.
Looking forward to hear your thoughts!
Pierre
[1] for example: https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issue/645#comment-779917