Process for promoting a Fedora deliverable to Edition

Fedora Editions are curated sets of packages, guidelines and configuration, and artifacts built from those pieces, that address a specific, targeted use-case. The Editions are the primary Fedora outputs that most Fedora users are encouraged to use and directed towards through the download site.

This document describes the process for promoting an existing Fedora deliverable to Edition status.

What makes an "Edition"?

A Fedora Edition:

  • addresses a sufficiently distinct, relevant, and broad use-case or user-base that a Fedora Edition is not currently serving;

  • is a long term investment for the Fedora Project; and

  • is consistent with all of Fedora’s Four Foundations.

Prerequisites

  • The candidate Edition must be backed by a team that holds regular public meetings.

  • The candidate Edition must get trademark approval from the Fedora Council. If this includes a name change or a new name (e.g. “Fedora Bilverslue”), plan time for legal review.

  • The candidate Edition must have a product requirements document (PRD) (example). The PRD is used by other teams within Fedora. For example, the Quality Team uses it to develop release criteria and test cases and the Marketing Team uses it to develop collateral and positioning. The PRD must include:

    • Market target, including key use cases and personas.

    • Core services and features.

    • Core applications.

    • Unique policies for installation, updates, etc.

    • Scope of hardware support (including anything that is explicitly unsupported).

    • Produced deliverables, and whether or not they should be considered release blocking.

  • The candidate Edition may have a technical specification (example) that provides additional detail about the specific features described in the PRD.

It is helpful to have someone on the team assigned to handle the bureaucratic tasks.

Process

When all of the prerequisites have been met and approved by the Fedora Council, the team submits promotion as a System-Wide Change. This ensures that Release Engineering, FESCo, and the community at large have the opportunity to provide input. It also implies that the promotion may be delayed to the next release if the appropriate supporting pieces are not in place by the Beta or GA freezes.

Prior to submitting the Change proposal, the following tasks should be completed:

  • Approval from the Fedora Council. File a ticket and participate in related discussion.

  • Review test cases and release criteria with the Quality Team. The Quality Team will draft test cases and release criteria based on the PRD. However, the Edition team must verify that these are valid. The Edition team may choose to assign a person to be the liaison with the Quality Team.

  • Work with Release Engineering. The Edition team should work with release engineering on how they are planning on composing the new edition, release process, mirrors sync locations, any changes needed to koji, bodhi or autosigning.

After the change proposal is approved, the following additional tasks should be completed no later than the Beta freeze, which should be considered the contingency deadline for the change. Note that these tasks should be started as early as possible.

  • Request design deliverables. If customized graphics for the website, stickers, et cetera are needed, the Edition team should contact the Design Team as soon as possible.

  • Provide updated website content. The Edition team should send text, graphics, and screenshots to the Websites & Apps Team as soon as possible to ensure fedoraproject.org will be up-to-date on release day.

  • Notify Documentation and Translation teams. The Edition team should let the Documentation team know of any updates or new documentation required. The Edition team should also inform the Translation team of incoming website and documentation updates so they can prepare to translate it in advance of the release.

  • Provide marketing blurbs. The Edition team should send basic promotional text to the Marketing and Magazine teams. This will allow the release announcement, et cetera to include meaningful information about the new Edition. The Edition team may consider writing one or several full Fedora Magazine articles in support of the Edition.

History

This policy was approved in Fedora Council ticket #296.

The policy was amended in October, 2024 to relax the "distinct" requirement in Fedora Council ticket #507.

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