Hi, after researching for a while and discussing part of it with a few other developers on IRC and calls, I'd like to update on current efforts.

Recently I sent several patches to allow building of the merged patches (equivalent of build-artifacts stage in oVirt Standard CI) using copr.

How does this work:

Within the git repository a Makefile needs to be created in `.copr/Makefile`.

The makefile needs to provide a `srpm` target with the instructions on how to generate a .src.rpm.

That makefile will be executed with something like: `make -f .copr/Makefile srpm outdir="/tmp/outdir/"` on copr infrastructure where the outdir will point to the place where the src.rpm will be stored to be sent to the mock instances for the different targets (el8, el9, x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le).

An example of the patch providing this makefile can be seen here: https://gerrit.ovirt.org/c/ovirt-provider-ovn/+/117396/1/.copr/Makefile

Please note the src.rpm will be built on Fedora 34 (as of today, 35 may be used soon).

On GitHub, a webhook needs to be added in the repository configuration pointing to the copr API trigger. An administrator of the github/oVirt organization is needed in order to do that.

I can handle the webhook setup for your project within the oVirt GitHub, please ping me as needed.

The result of the latest builds can be displayed on GitHub README as in this patch: https://gerrit.ovirt.org/c/ovirt-provider-ovn/+/117396/1/README.adoc (Asciidoc) or this one https://gerrit.ovirt.org/c/vdsm/+/117368/3/README.md (Markdown)

All the builds will be executed only once the patch is merged. The build will happen in https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/ovirt/ovirt-master-snapshot/

This is going to replace the existing https://resources.ovirt.org/pub/ovirt-master-snapshot repository structure.

Advantages:

- builds will be signed

- composes will be immediately available and not waiting till the next day to be in the nightly

On copr, in order to add a package to the compose you need to have admin role on https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/ovirt/ovirt-master-snapshot/permissions/

I can handle for you the addition of the package to the compose, ping me as needed.

Several packages have been already updated to match this flow, you can see current status here: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/ovirt/ovirt-master-snapshot/monitor/

If you don't see your oVirt subproject there, please help getting it ready.

I'm going to track status here: https://github.com/oVirt/ovirt-site/wiki/Building-oVirt-on-COPR (not yet started, give me a day :-) )

Please note this cover only for the "build-artifacts" stage and is meant to provide builds of the project on a per patch way.

We are aiming at having all projects built in copr by the end of November 2021.

Once this will be completed we can drop build-artifacts related code from the repos and free jenkins resources.

For official releases I'm looking into using the CentOS Community Build System https://cbs.centos.org/koji/.

Maintainers willing to take care of the build and release of their own packages are welcome to join the CentOS Virtualization SIG https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup/Virtualization . This should replace the releng-tools flow we are currently using for shipping releases on https://resources.ovirt.org/pub/

Il giorno gio 21 ott 2021 alle ore 14:38 Sandro Bonazzola <sbonazzo@redhat.com> ha scritto:

Dear community members,

We would like to take some next steps in improving usability and general decision making for our community and are interested in your thoughts and suggestions.

The first step is a decision regarding our version control and workflows associated with it. Contributions to new features and general improvements for oVirt outside of Red Hat have been rare and we would like to hear from you if we could simplify this process for you. One suggestion we have is that we could simplify the contribution process and improve the contributor experience by moving our repositories to GitHub or GitLab.

Currently, our Gerrit (gerrit.ovirt.org) instance is mirrored to GitHub and we already have several repositories that are exclusively developed there, including their CI running on GitHub Actions, for example:
* https://github.com/oVirt/go-ovirt-client
* https://github.com/oVirt/512-byte-vm

There are also various related projects that run on GitLab, such as:
* https://gitlab.com/qemu-project
* https://gitlab.com/libvirt

One recent project that moved from Gerrit to GitLab with a very similar discussion is mediawiki: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GitLab_consultation/Discussion_summary

Once we hear more of your thoughts around this and if the decision falls on moving to either GitHub or GitLab, our plan would be to start changing existing workflows and CI project by project as it makes sense. Both platforms offer similar features. Two key points that stand out for us are that:
* GitLab is open source while GitHub isn't
* GitHub is more visible which allows contributors to amplify their contributions and raise their profile by contributing to various big projects, including oVirt

We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

--
Sandro Bonazzola
MANAGER, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, EMEA R&D RHV
Red Hat EMEA
sbonazzo@redhat.com
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