Introducing significant changes to Official Changes after Changes Freeze can result in your package being reverted or reduce the chances of receiving an exception
Changes are accounted for at two different levels:
- Change page promotion and distro coordination -- see Fedora Release Planning Process
- Package level (continue reading)
Once the Changes Freeze milestone is reached, all new Changes for the release should be:
- substantially complete and in a testable state
- enabled by default -- if so specified by the chnage
In the Fedora development process, all new feature work is completed by Changes Freeze and tested during the test releases: Alpha and Beta.
Some Example Do's and Don't's
After Changes Freeze, Fedora has certain expectations about what will be happening with your Change. These expectations are based on needing to test your Change (package), test how other pieces of the distribution interact with your feature, and test the overall stability, look, and feel of the distribution.
This what we all expect post-Changes Freeze:
- Do: Have something testable
- Do: Have the the feature significantly complete
- Do: submit bugfixes
- Do not: Continue to add new enhancements
- Do not: Enable the change by default (if not already default at Changes Freeze)
- Do not: Make changes that require other (dependent) software packages to make changes as well
Exception Process
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Before checking in changes and building new packages, please request an exception first. This saves everyone the time and mess of reverting a change if Release Engineering disagrees with the request.
If you believe you have a good reason to break Changes Freeze. file a ticket with FESCo. Breaking Changes Freeze means making changes to your package other than simple bug fixes.
Please include the following information:
- A description of what you want to change
- Rationale for why the change is important enough to be allowed in after the Feature Freeze.
- Impact of not accepting the the new package(s) at this point in the schedule.
- Information on what testing you've performed to mitigate risks introduced by replacing the existing package(s)
Exception Evaluation
FESCo will evaluate your request and provide feedback. This will generally be done in the ticket, and/or in a regular FESCo meeting.