- :toc:

- [[epel_playground]]

- We have added an additional set of channels for EPEL-8 called

- playground. It is meant to be sort of like Fedora Rawhide so that

- packagers can work on versions of software which are too fast moving or

- will have large API changes from what they are putting in the regular

- channel.

- Packages in epel8-playground are primarily to be used in the following

- manner:

- 

- * To test out some new version of the package that might not be stable

- yet.

- * To test out some new packaging of the package

- * To test a major version change of the package that they want to land

- at the next epel8 minor release.

- * To build a package that will never be stable enough for epel8, but

- still could be useful to some.

- 

- [[consumers_end_users]]

- == Consumers / End Users

- 

- Consumers should be aware that packages in EPEL8-playground are there

- without any Service Level Expectations. You may want to only cherry pick

- packages from there as needed.

- 

- EPEL8-playground is not a full EPEL release. It only has those packages

- that developers and maintainers are "playing" around with. Because of

- this, you should not expect to enable only epel-playground and get

- everything you need. It is expected that you have regular epel enabled

- whenever you enable epel-playground.

- 

- [[developers_maintainers]]

- == Developers / Maintainers

- 

- epel8-playground builds are NOT automatically built when you build in

- epel8. This is a change from the original vision. #(Remove this sentence

- after a few years) You must use the epel8-playground branch and build

- from there, just like you would any other Fedora / EPEL build area.

- 

- Packages in epel-playground will never be automatically put into regular

- epel. That is the responsibility of the package maintainer.

- 

- It is recommended that if a maintainer plans to bring a package that has

- a large change from epel-playground to regular epel, they do it at minor

- RHEL releases (ie, 8.3, 8.4). Since end users will be upgrading and

- paying more attention than usual at those times, it’s a great chance to

- do larger changes. Be sure to announce those major changes well in

- advance on epel-devel and epel-announce.

- 

- When a maintainer is done with their package in playground, they must

- untag all builds of it out of epel-playground. We do not want

- epel-playground cluttered with old test packages. Done means either the

- package has been moved to regular EPEL, and / or the maintainer no

- longer wants to play and test in epel-playground. Untagging all builds

- of a package is currently done via a release engineering ticket.

- 

- EPEL Playground has traits similar to Fedora Rawhide.

- 

- * Built packages do not need to tagged with override to get into the

- epel8-playground build repository. They will be put in the next time the

- build repository is refreshed. This is usually within 15 to 60 minutes.

- * The main epel8-playground repository is built once a day, just like

- Fedora Rawhide. Thus built packages are usually available in

- epel8-playground the day after they are built.