Change submission guidance

In general, Changes are for coordination of development effort and for communication (both internally and externally). They aren’t mandates that someone else implement an idea (no matter how good that idea). If you have improvement in mind, work to get implementers committed to the effort before filing a Change proposal, rather than expecting them to show up for work once the Change is accepted.

Watch the Fedora Changes policy video for a quick introduction to the process.

How do I propose a new change?

In order to be considered an official change proposal accepted for the next Fedora Linux release, the change proposal must be formally documented on a separate wiki page.

Read the policies for self-contained changes and system-wide changes.
Pick the right category. Remember, the category can be changed to another one based on community or FESCo review!

  1. Create a new wiki page

    1. When logged in, click the View Source button on the empty change proposal form.

    2. Copy the contents

    3. Change the URL to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/<YourTitle> (changing "<YourTitle>" to a slug for your page, e.g. "ExampleChangeProposal")

    4. Click "Create"

    5. Paste the contents

  2. Fill in the required details for the selected category (see inline comments and guidance below).

  3. Once you’re satisfied with the change proposal page, set the wiki page category to ChangeReadyForWrangler, and set the appropriate change category (SelfContainedChange or SystemWideChange. Both categories must be set.

  4. Click the Save Changes button

You can remove the HTML comments in the template if you choose.
Make sure to finish your change proposal by the change proposal submission deadline! If you do not meet this deadline, you must seek an exception from FESCo.

The Program Manager is responsible for the actual announcement of the change proposal, creating the FESCo ticket and tracking bug in Bugzilla.

How do I show the status of a change I own?

The progress of development is shown in Bugzilla with defined bug states as explained in the change proposal template. Use this tracking bug to show blockers, using the Blocks/Depends on fields (for example package reviews), update the bug description with an actual status, and modify the bug status to reflect current state. You may be asked by the Program Manager or FESCo members to provide more detailed status (especially for system-wide changes).

A Change is considered code complete when the bug state is moved to ON_QA and when there are no blocking bugs open.

See the Bugzilla trackers section of the Changes policy for more information on Bugzilla statuses.
In most cases, you should not submit code changes to Rawhide until after FESCo has voted to approve the proposal.

What are the change process deadline dates (Checkpoints)?

See the Change Process Milestones section of the Changes policy for information on the process milestones.

What if I don’t complete a change?

Changes which cannot be completed for the release are automatically deferred to the next release. You do not need to re-propose the Change unless you are making substantial revisions to it. If you need to defer a change, let the Program Manager know and they will update the wiki page and the Bugzilla tracker appropriately.

What if I have to modify my Change?

Minor modifications can be made at any time. If you have significant modifications to make after a Change is approved, seek FESCo’s approval.

Section-by-section guidance

Change Proposal Name

This should be descriptive, but unique. For example "glibc 2.29" is preferable to "glibc upgrade".

Make sure your page is in the Changes namespace (e.g. call it Changes/glibc_2.29)

Summary

A sentence or two summarizing what this change is and what it will do. This information is used for the overall changeset summary page for each release. Note that motivation for the change should be in the Motivation section below, and this part should answer the question "What?" rather than "Why?".

Assume that not everyone who sees this will know what you’re talking about. Give a brief description of packages or services where it makes sense.

Owner

For change proposals to qualify as self-contained, owners of all affected packages need to be included here. Alternatively, a SIG can be listed as an owner if it owns all affected packages.

Use your Bugzilla email in the email field to make your Program Manager happy.

Current status

Do not edit this section except to set the target release version and update the [[Category:*]] tags.

Detailed Description

Expand on the summary, if appropriate. A couple sentences suffices to explain the goal, but the more details you can provide the better. If there are multiple reasonable approaches, you should indicate why you declined to use the others.

Feedback

Summarize the feedback from the community and address why you chose not to accept proposed alternatives. This section is optional for all change proposals, but is strongly suggested. Incorporating feedback here as it is raised gives FESCo a clearer view of your proposal and leaves a good record for the future. If you get no feedback, that is useful to note in this section as well. This section is inspired in part by the "Rejected Ideas" section described by PEP-0001.

For innovative or possibly controversial ideas, consider collecting feedback before you file the change proposal. This could be done via a post to the devel mailing list for full community feedback, or sharing with some additional people who you trust to give you candid feedback. In the future, there will be more specific guidance about how to post pre-proposal feedback. Either way, when you receive feedback, you should summarize it in this section.

You should fill in this section as feedback is received. As this is optional the Program Manager does not need to wait for you to complete this section before submitting to FESCo. If the discussion gets heated, consider asking a neutral party to summarize the discussions for you. This helps avoid bias and emotional response.

Benefit to Fedora

What is the benefit to the distribution? Will the software we generate be improved? How will the process of creating Fedora Linux releases be improved?

Be sure to include the following areas if relevant:

  • If this is a major capability update, what has changed? For example: This change introduces Python 5 that runs without the Global Interpreter Lock and is fully multithreaded.

  • If this is a new functionality, what capabilities does it bring? For example: This change allows package upgrades to be performed automatically and rolled-back at will.

  • Does this improve some specific package or set of packages? For example: This change modifies a package to use a different language stack that reduces install size by removing dependencies.

  • Does this improve specific Spins or Editions? For example: This change modifies the default install of Fedora Workstation to be more in line with the base install of Fedora Server.

  • Does this make the distribution more efficient? For example: This change replaces thousands of individual %post scriptlets in packages with one script that runs at the end.

  • Is this an improvement to maintainer processes? For example: Gating Fedora packages on automatic QA tests will make rawhide more stable and allow changes to be implemented more smoothly.

  • Is this an improvement targeted at specific contributors? For example: Ensuring that a minimal set of tools required for contribution to Fedora are installed by default eases the onboarding of new contributors.

When a Change has multiple benefits, it’s better to list them all.

Scope

  • Proposal owners: What work do the feature owners have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release? Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?

  • Other developers: REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES What work do other developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release? Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?

  • Release engineering: REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES Does this feature require coordination with release engineering (e.g. changes to installer image generation or update package delivery)? Is a mass rebuild required? Include a link to the releng issue. The issue is required to be filed prior to feature submission, to ensure that someone is on board to do any process development work and testing, and that all changes make it into the pipeline; a bullet point in a change is not sufficient communication.

  • Policies and guidelines: Do the packaging guidelines or other documents need to be updated for this feature? If so, does it need to happen before or after the implementation is done? If a FPC ticket exists, add a link here. Where possible, file a pull request against the appropriate policy documents before submitting the change proposal. That way, the community and FESCo can evaluate the specific changes required.

  • Trademark approval: If your Change may require trademark approval (for example, if it is a new Spin), file a Fedora Council ticket requesting trademark approval.

  • Alignment with Objectives: Does your proposal align with the current Fedora Objectives? This will not apply to many Changes, but it’s important to consider when proposing a Change. Being out of alignment isn’t an automatic rejection, it’s just one more aspect to consider.

Upgrade/compatibility impact

REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES What happens to systems that have had a previous versions of Fedora Linux installed and are updated to the version containing this change? Will anything require manual configuration or data migration? Will any existing functionality be no longer supported?

How To Test

REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES This does not need to be a full-fledged document. Describe the dimensions of tests that this change implementation is expected to pass when it is done. If it needs to be tested with different hardware or software configurations, indicate them. The more specific you can be, the better the community testing can be.

Remember that you are writing this how to for interested testers to use to check out your change implementation - documenting what you do for testing is OK, but it’s much better to document what I can do to test your change.

A good "how to test" should answer these four questions:

  1. What special hardware / data / etc. is needed (if any)?

  2. How do I prepare my system to test this change? What packages need to be installed, config files edited, etc.?

  3. What specific actions do I perform to check that the change is working like it’s supposed to?

  4. What are the expected results of those actions?

User Experience

If this change proposal is noticeable by users, how will their experiences change as a result?

This section partially overlaps with the Benefit to Fedora section above. This section should be primarily about the User Experience, written in a way that does not assume deep technical knowledge. More detailed technical description should be left for the Benefit to Fedora section.

Describe what Users will see or notice, for example:

  • Packages are compressed more efficiently, making downloads and upgrades faster by 10%.

  • Kerberos tickets can be renewed automatically. Users will now have to authenticate less and become more productive. Credential management improvements mean a user can start their work day with a single sign on and not have to pause for reauthentication during their entire day.

  • LibreOffice is one of the most commonly installed applications on Fedora Linux and it is now available by default to help users "hit the ground running".

  • Green has been scientifically proven to be the most relaxing color. The move to a default background color of green with green text will result in Fedora Linux users being the most relaxed users of any operating system.

Dependencies

REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES What other packages (RPMs) depend on this package? Are there changes outside the developers' control on which completion of this change depends? In other words, completion of another change owned by someone else and might cause you to not be able to finish on time or that you would need to coordinate? Other upstream projects like the kernel (if this is not a kernel change)?

Contingency Plan

REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES If you cannot complete your feature by the final development freeze, what is the backup plan? This might be as simple as "Revert the shipped configuration". Or it might not (e.g. rebuilding a number of dependent packages). If your feature is not completed in time, we want to assure others that other parts of Fedora will not be in jeopardy.

A contingency plan should include:

  • Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?)

  • Contingency deadline: When is the last time the contingency mechanism can be put in place?

The contingency deadline will most likely be the beta freeze. In some cases, it may be more appropriate to set it to the start of the mass rebuild or branch day. Rarely, you can use final freeze, but this should only be used for Changes that are trivially-revertable.

Documentation

REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGES Is there upstream documentation on this change, or notes you have written yourself? Link to that material here so other interested developers can get involved.

Release Notes

The Fedora Linux Release Notes inform end-users about what is new in the release. Examples of past release notes are on Fedora Docs. The release notes also help users know how to deal with platform changes such as ABIs/APIs, configuration or data file formats, or upgrade concerns. If there are any such changes involved in this change, indicate them here. A link to upstream documentation will often satisfy this need. This information forms the basis of the release notes edited by the documentation team and shipped with the release.

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