= Proposal topic =

In order to facilitate timely progress on install media for Fedora-16, then the results from the nightly build "mash" of Fedora-16 Branched should get chances to be available earlier in the day, instead of always following the results from the nightly build "mash" of Rawhide.

= Overview =

The nightly build "mash" for Fedora-16 Branched should go first,
before Rawhide, on a few days per week: say, Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday. The typical three-hour difference in completion times
can be put to good use by me and others who are trying to make and
test the install DVDs. Too often that three-hour delay is not just
a phase difference, but instead becomes lost opportunity for work.
It's much easier to finish a daily cycle (build DVD, test DVD,
report bugs, debug, fix, push changes) in 18 hours after F-16 Branched
Report, in contrast to only 15 hours if Rawhide goes first.

= Problem space =
It's hard to achieve once-per-day turnaround on creating install DVDs for Fedora-16 Branched, and this decreases the chances of meeting the Fedora-16 milestone release dates (alpha, beta, final).

Current operational practice ("mash" Rawhide first, then Fedora-16 Branched) produces the results of the nightly build of Fedora-16 Branched several hours (three to five) after the results from Rawhide. Although in theory this is only a phase shift in a daily routine, in practice too often those hours become a lost opportunity for work. In particular, is it harder to finish the complete cycle: {wait for nightly build, create DVD, test DVD, file bug reports, debug, fix, push changes before next nightly build} once per day. Developer work hours (most are in Europe and N.America) are skewed such that those three hours tend to become unavailable for making progress on successful install media.

= Solution Overview =

1. Get new hardware and run in parallel. Kevin Fenzi says there is activity on this front, but there is no announced time frame.

OR

1.
Run Fedora-16 Branched first (before Rawhide) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Copy the shell script that supervises the nightly build[s], interchange Rawhide and Fedora-16 Branched, modify the crontab entry to run the new script on MWF instead of the old script.

= Active Ingredients =

Operations: modify script. Developers and testers (consumers of nightly build results): Branched will be available sooner, and Rawhide later, on MWF.

= Owners =

I (jreiser) wrote it.