Fedora 16 Final Release Criteria

Final Objectives

The objective of the Final release is to:

1. Provide a polished final release suitable for meeting the needs of our Target Audience

Final Release Requirements

In order to be released to the general public, a compose must meet all of the following criteria. This is intended to make the decision process as clear and straightforward as possible. Mostly met items are incomplete until they are met. Optional and nice to have items should not be included in this list.

There may be times where a requirement is unmet only in a particular configuration, such as with some keyboard layouts but not others, or if a particular character is used in a username, password or passphrase. In such cases, the release team should use their judgement and refer to precedent to determine whether or not the issue should be considered to block the release. They should consider the number of users likely to be affected by the issue, the severity of the case when the issue is encountered, and the ease or otherwise with which the issue can be avoided by both informed and uninformed users.

The term release-blocking desktops means all the desktop environments in which bugs are currently considered capable of blocking a Fedora release. The current set of release-blocking desktops for x86_64 is GNOME and KDE, and for aarch64 is GNOME. Note that bugs in desktops that are not part of this set which would infringe these criteria automatically qualify for freeze exception status, according to the freeze exception bug process.

The term release-blocking images means all the images in which bugs are currently considered capable of blocking a Fedora release. The current set of release-blocking images includes the images defined by the three Editions - Server, Workstation and IoT - in their product requirement documents and/or technical specifications, the Everything network install image, key Cloud images, and the KDE live image. The canonical list of release-blocking images for Fedora 40 is on this page.

Release Requirements:

1. All Fedora 16 Beta Release Criteria must be met
2. All bugs blocking the F16Blocker tracker must be CLOSED
3. The installer must be able to use all supported local and remote package source options
4. The installer must be able to complete an installation using any network-attached storage devices (e.g. iSCSI, FCoE, Fibre Channel)
5. The installer must be able to create and install to any workable partition layout using any file system offered in a default installer configuration, LVM, software, hardware or BIOS RAID, or combination of the above
6. The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an existing clean single-partition Windows installation and either install a bootloader which can boot into the Windows installation, or leave the Windows bootloader untouched and working
7. The release must boot successfully as Xen DomU with releases providing a functional, supported Xen Dom0 and widely used cloud providers utilizing Xen. This does not include any issues limited to the release functioning as Xen Dom0
8. All services in a default install must start properly
9. All critical path actions on release-blocking desktop environments should correctly display all sufficiently complete translations available for use
10. In most cases, there must be no SELinux 'AVC: denied' messages or abrt crash notifications on initial boot and subsequent login (see Blocker_Bug_FAQ)
11. All known bugs that can cause corruption of user data must be fixed or documented at Common F16 bugs
12. The installed system must run normally if the user chooses to install without SELinux
13. Menu sanity - the following criteria refer to both a live image and default installed system, and to all release-blocking desktops
    • All Applications listed in the system menus (or equivalent) must have icons which have a consistent appearance and sufficiently high resolution to avoid appearing blurry
    • All applications listed under the Applications menu or category must start successfully
    • All applications listed under the Applications menu or category must withstand a basic functionality test and not crash after a few minutes of normal use. They must also have working Help and Help -> About menu items
    • No application may unintentionally appear twice in the menus. In particular, items under System must not appear under Applications
14. All elements of the default panel (or equivalent) configuration in all release-blocking desktops must function correctly in common use
15. Saving passwords in the desktop default keyring (if the desktop implements one), and retrieving passwords from the keyring, must work for all release-blocking desktops
16. The proposed final Fedora artwork must be included and enabled by default for the installer, graphical boot, firstboot, graphical login and desktop background. All Fedora artwork must be consistent with the proposed final theme, and if any artwork contains a graphical version number, the version number used must match the Fedora release number. Generic release artwork (e.g. Alpha, Beta, Development) must not be used for the final release
17. A spin-kickstarts package which contains the exact kickstart files used to build the release must be present in the release repository. The included kickstarts must define the correct set of release repositories
18. The final branded release notes from the Documentation team must be present on ISO media and the appropriately versioned generic release notes must be available in the online release repository
19. A fedora-release package containing the correct names, information and repository configuration for a final Fedora release (as opposed to a pre-release) must be present on ISO media while the appropriately versioned generic-release package must be available in the online release repository

Final Blocker Bugs

A bug is considered a Final blocker bug if any of the following criteria are met:

• A bug in a Critical Path package that:
  • Cannot be fixed with a future stable update
  • Has a severity rating of high or greater and no reasonable workaround (see definition of severity and priority)
• Bug hinders execution of required Final test plans or dramatically reduces test coverage
• Bug relates to an unmet Final Release Requirement

A Fedora Change being incomplete, in and of itself, does not constitute a blocker bug. The Change process is separate from this process. Changes are required to meet certain standards at certain points of the release cycle, but this is part of the Change process and managed, tracked and enforced separately from this process. However, if a proposed feature being incomplete causes any of the above criteria to be met, then the bug is a release blocker.

Contingency Plan

• If all of the Final Release Requirements are not met by 20:00 UTC on Tuesday the week prior to release day, the release will be delayed by one week so that the Final Release Requirements can be met.
• One week will be added to all remaining tasks in the release schedule, including the final release date.
• This decision will be made at the Go/No-Go Meeting.

Confirming Final Requirements

QA has the responsibility of determining whether the criteria for the release has been met (as outlined above) through discussion with Development and Release Engineering. QA's findings will be reviewed and discussed at the Go/No-Go Meeting.

Related Pages

• Fedora Release Criteria
• Fedora 16 Alpha Release Criteria
• Fedora 16 Beta Release Criteria
• Blocker Bug FAQ
• Packaging:Guidelines