Sugar on a Stick release process

Feature process

The feature process for Sugar on a Stick aims at providing a structured way of implementing and keeping track of upcoming features for the next release of Sugar on a Stick. This document outlines the guidelines for submitting feature proposals. An important thing to realize is the release schedule for each release.

• What is a feature? A feature is defined as a significant change or enhancement to the version of Sugar on a Stick currently under development that may or may not include new packages and also relate to features of both Fedora and Sugar
• What are the deadlines? The deadlines for the release currently under development are outlined in the release schedule.
• What do I get with a feature? Having your feature approved not only helps everybody involved in the development and engineering process to keep track of its state, but also allows other teams - like the marketing team - to leverage your work and promote it.
• What are my responsibilities? By signing up for a feature, you sign up for taking care of it. That means you'll be the one responsible for providing updates and interacting with the different teams concerned by your feature, like the release engineering for Sugar on a Stick. It does, however, not mean that you've to realize your feature all alone - go out and tell the lists and the planet about your work. Get people excited to help you!
• What do I have to do now? Fill out the template and stick it on a page in the wiki. Most importantly, make it belong to the appropriate category so that we know which version you're targeting (TODO: create Category:SoaS_v4_Feature). Finally, send an email to the SoaS list and incorporate any feedback you might receive.
• What will happen then? After you've incorporated feedback from the mailing lists and the proposal fits the guidelines listed above, we'll stick it on the agenda for the next of our meetings where it'll be evaluated and voted on. We might ask you to make further adjustments and revisit it at a later point or approve the feature directly. We're looking forward to hearing about your ideas!
• How does evaluation happen? Your proposal needs a majority of YAY votes from the release team (determined for a given release by the release manager - the v4 release manager is Sebastian Dziallas, and the current relase team is formed by Peter Robinson, Mel Chua and Sebastian Dziallas) to get approval. Discussion will happen at a weekly meeting, while the decisions will be announced to the SoaS mailing list.
• What if my feature got rejected? No worries! Features that are originally rejected can be revised and resubmitted.

Current feature ideas

• School server
• Kickstart generator
• Sugar Creation Kit DVD
  • For "sneakernet" and behind firewall installs.
  • Only requires 1 download, can be copied locally for a complete build environment for SOAS.
  • Contains .iso files and instructions needed to create Soas USB's plus a majority of the .xo files from ASLO for installing activities by drag-drop into the sugar Journal.
• ASLOxo (most of ASLO .xo files on a USB stick for Drag-drop installs to Sugar Journal)