Dear Technical Board: Subject Request for an exception to SRU Upcoming MAAS Upstream releases (various) into our latest Ubuntu LTS Release.
Preamble MAAS is a rapidly evolving product, which regularly gains new features that are essential to supporting new hardware and other requirements that themselves are also rapidly evolving. In addition, most people want to use MAAS on a stable Ubuntu LTS release. This can create some friction due to the Ubuntu policies in place which normally only allow bug fix and security updates as changes to the existing release. Furthermore, we are constantly making improvements in the product itself that not only add new features, but also improve the overall usability of the product. We are aiming at making MAAS more robust and reliable for its users, as well as reducing the moving parts. As an example, in the Utopic cycle we are focusing our efforts on: - Change DHCP Management in MAAS to make it robust. - Getting rid of moving parts (Getting rid of the usage of Celery, RabbitMQ, others) - Improving the Robustness of MAAS node management. - Making MAAS easier to use by providing UI and CLI improvements. - Log Consolidation among others features For this reason, we would like to explain the MAAS upstream policy for its releases, which will enable continued updates to flow into the Ubuntu LTS releases with minimal or no exceptions. Releases in MAAS MAAS generally has two lines of release: - the previous stable release, which continues to receive bug fix and security updates as minor release updates - major releases, which are changes to the mainline of development that go beyond simple security and bug fixes, and introduce new features and/or changes to functionality. As of writing this document, the current release series exist: - The 1.5 series, which exists in Ubuntu 14.04 since its release and is currently at 1.5.3 - The 1.6 series, which is currently unreleased The 1.6 series constitutes a “major release” as in the second bullet point above. Release Policy - Minor release series changes will continue to receive bug fixes and security updates until the next major release is accepted into Ubuntu’s latest LTS - Major release series changes will only contain changes enforced on it by changes in the “external environment”, such as supporting new hardware, customer requirements, features deemed essential to support production operations in a sane way. All of these types of changes are outside of anything that can reasonably be encapsulated in a stable update for Ubuntu. MAAS Team Release Commitments The MAAS development team will work closely with Ubuntu team members and endeavour to keep to the following commitments to ensure that major releases are able to be admitted into stable Ubuntu releases via the so-called “release update exception”: - No new dependencies will be introduced into MAAS that are not already in the “main” component of the Ubuntu archive (Question: what about dependencies in universe, can we do a MIR?) - New features will continue to work on the most recent Ubuntu LTS and any releases made after that. - Extensive QA / Automated Testing of new MAAS releases, including upgrade testing. - We will provide an upgrade path that "just works". Server Team Release Commitments The Ubuntu Server Team is committed to maintain MAAS in Ubuntu, ensuring that new releases are made available not only in the latest development release, but also by SRU'ing this new upstream releases. The Server Team is committed to: - Ensure that each release to be SRU'd is up to the standards set by the Ubuntu Community. - To enforce the commitments set by the MAAS Team, ensuring that MAAS future SRU's of new features won't affect nor put in risk the users, distribution or the product itself. - To ensure that MAAS won't affect the user experience, ensuring that new releases are QA'd and well tested. - To perform upgrade testing of this new releases, ensuring user experience is not affected, and minimize and eliminate regressions. Request Having expressed our commitments, we would like to request an exception on the SRU process, in order to be able to SRU each of the upcoming and future MAAS releases into our latest LTS. Thank you. -- Andres Rodriguez (RoAkSoAx) Ubuntu Developer
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