[CentOS-devel] CentOS-[56] Continous Release

[Karanbir Singh]

hi,

Johnny and I spoke about this a few days back and we think the best way 
to solve the problem around delayed srpms + waiting for isos, build and 
QA at the time of a point release is to get something like a 'Continous 
Release' repository going.

The Problem: At a point release stage, users dont get updates till such 
time as the ISOS are ready ( eg. during the 5.6 release process ), the 
updates are built, QA has had time to verify content and the mirrors 
sync up. For new installs, this isnt an issue; however for people with 
existing installs this can potentially expose their installations.

One solution: Export packages as they are built from the c[456]bsys into 
a repository that people can opt into, that would allow them to get 
early access to packages.

Couple of notes:
- it would have to be opt-in, rather than default for everyone

- packages into the CR repo's will not be announced via the regular 
channels; the announcements will still only happen when rpms are visible 
in the os/ and updates/ repos.

- it will not mean a lesser or a worse quality of builds, we hope to 
have enough automation in place that rpms will only be released into 
this repo once we are sure that it meets the release requirements.

- this repository will run off centos.org  machines initially, and will 
not be released to third party mirrors. The exact details of how the 
release-to-external-mirrors takes place, and how we manage the issues 
around that would be a conversation we can relegate into the future for now.

- the CR repos will go-away once rpms are released in the regular 
process, it will not transfer into a rolling release type repo.

At this stage, we are looking for comments as we prep for future release 
process.

- KB