[mirror-admin] [Fwd: Do overlapping release dates matter for our mirrors?]

[Scott Baker]

On 11/30/2009 10:27 AM, Jesse Keating wrote:
> Here are the questions as it relates to the mirrors that carry Fedora
> and other distros:
>
> 1) What is the minimum distance in days that we have to put between our
> release and other distros?

I would think 2 days would be the minimum, and 5 would be ideal. That 
would be give us time to get the bits, ensure they're accurate, and be 
ready to go public.

> 2) Is it the release date that matters most or the date the staging starts?

Staging... I don't care about the public date, just when I start to get 
the bits. Once I have the bits, making them public is trivial. It's the 
rsync of hundreds of gigs that takes time to coordinate and complete.

> 3) On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = doesn't matter, 3 = moderate impact, 5 =
> critical, we'd be out of our minds not to) how important is it that we
> bend our schedule to not land as close as we might be potentially
> landing with the dates below (assuming we do not slip)?
>
> I'm really looking for a scale to get a sense of the severity and not
> subjective responses like "it will be bad" or "people will hate us."  I
> want to know "how much."

3

Worst case scenario: I have an rsync going for Fedora and Ubuntu and 
they fight a for bandwidth and admin time (to check on them) and it 
takes an extra day or two to make sure everything is in place.

At that point you'll have a mirror or three that are not synced yet. 
MirrorManager should pick that up and not put them on the public list. I 
can't imagine it would be a HUGE impact on the launch. Most people get 
the bit from BitTorrent these days anyway (I think? Any numbers on this?)

> 4) Our current options as I understand them are:
>      a) Overlap closely (see below)
>      b) Add two weeks to Fedora 13

If we can stage the bits 7 days before (like we did for F11) we'll be 
totally fine. What we want to avoid is trying to coordinate two releases 
at the same time. Any idea how early Ubuntu stages their stuff?

>     Is there an "option C" that we could implement or go with so as not
> to have to add two weeks to our scheduled GA date if the consensus score
> from #3 is high?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Debian                2010-March (Freeze, not an actual release date)
>
> Fedora 13             2010-04-27 (since Fedora 8 every release has been
> late>= 2 weeks)
>
> Ubuntu 10.4           2010-04-29 (I'm told they have never slipped)
>
> OpenSUSE              2010-05-05 (no idea on their "on time arrival
> history")

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