Standing SRU for new MAAS releases.

[Andres Rodriguez]

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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