Kernel/FY16 Goals

Overall department goals

• Modernizing release process and deliverables
• Create and improve systems, resources, and upstream efforts that benefit general users, and help draw power users into contribution
• Improve/maintain systems/resources for existing contributors

Team High Level Goals

• Plan for and deliver high quality kernel for upcoming Fedora releases

• Improve team efficiency and community collaboration

• Increase participation in upstream kernel community

Goals

Specific action items will be derived from these goals.

Description	Category	Lead Person	Target
Retrace kernel issue reduction. The retrace server provides a view of the issues that are hitting the broadest subset of Fedora users. We'll use this data to focus our efforts on improving the kernel.	Quality/Upstream
Improve kernel task automation. A number of common tasks could be automated. We'll investigate which tasks can leverage tools like fedmsg and fmn. This can range from automated nodebug and kernel-playground repos, to a more automated process for creating the actual kernel package.	Efficiency/Automation
Increase upstream kernel reviews and bugfixes. Upstream is continually looking for additional patch reviews. By increasing our participation there we can help avoid bugs. We'll also use this to increase our team's overall knowledge by gaining a deeper understanding of various focus areas within the kernel.	Upstream
Publish various communications about the Fedora kernel. The kernel is often a hot topic in various communities. We'll look at continuing the upstream Fedora patch reports, and possibly writing articles for Fedora Magazine.	Collaboration
Kernel test system - what's next	Quality/Upstream	Justin Forbes

Work Items

Description	Lead Person	Target
Investigate pkg-git creation from exploded git tree	jwb	Q2
Automated nodebug builds	jforbes	Q2
Kernel updates in Atomic world	jwb	Q2/Q3
Linux-next automated testing	jforbes
Update/create community focused kernel documentation/wiki	labbott	Q1/Q2
Focus on retrace issues and signal/noise reduction	labbott	Q1/Q2
Subsystem focus areas	All	FY
Upstream patch reviews and bugfixes	All	FY
Blog/magazine postings on kernel topics	All	FY
Release maintenance	All	FY

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Problems

• Retrace is flooded with kernel reports (so is bugzilla but this is always the case)

• Our team's participation in the upstream kernel community has dwindled
  • This means we're considered outsiders more than members
  • Decreased visibility can lead to decreased responsiveness from upstream

• The team's integration within the distro is fairly minimal
  • Good and bad
    • Good: We aren't holding anything up. The kernel ships on time and is fairly high quality overall
    • Not so good:
      • We don't necessarily improve the overall release
      • We don't ask for and discuss needs/problems other teams are having (e.g. Desktop)

• Interaction with Red Hat stakeholders is minimal
  • Normally doesn't impact us day to day, but we could help for future items

• Team efficiency and community participation is pretty stagnant.
  • Mostly because we haven't had a full team for a while. Let's figure this out.
  • Community members have little insight into how or why we do what we do beyond the wiki pages. Can we make it easier for them to participate?