Bug 1932258 - Release date missing for a product which has been released
Summary: Release date missing for a product which has been released
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: libosinfo
Version: 33
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Fabiano Fidêncio
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2021-02-24 11:49 UTC by ricky.tigg
Modified: 2021-02-24 14:13 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2021-02-24 14:13:44 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description ricky.tigg 2021-02-24 11:49:39 UTC
Description of problem: Release date missing for a product – Fedora CoreOS Stable – which has been released.

Version-Release number of component: libosinfo.x86_64 1.8.0-5.fc33

$ osinfo-query -f short-id,version,release-date,eol-date os vendor="Fedora Project" version="Stable"
 Short ID             | Version  | Release date | End of life 
----------------------+----------+--------------+-------------
 fedora-coreos-stable | Stable   |              |             

For comparison:

$ osinfo-query -f short-id,version,release-date,eol-date os vendor="Fedora Project" version="33"
 Short ID             | Version  | Release date | End of life 
----------------------+----------+--------------+-------------
 fedora33             | 33       | 2020-10-27   |             
 silverblue33         | 33       | 2020-10-27   |

Comment 1 Fabiano Fidêncio 2021-02-24 12:22:34 UTC
This is not so simple, and that's the reason we mark it as "rolling".
For instance, let me invite you to my train of thoughts here.

* Problem:  CoreOS Stable doesn't have a release date.
* Solution: Add a release date for CoreOS Stable.

* Process:
  * Check the official web page, looking for such information: https://getfedora.org/en/coreos?stream=stable
    * There you realise they do a few releases per month;
      * Shall we use the date of the very first release?
        * Matthew Miller made an announcement on June 20th 2018 about the project, see: https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-coreos/
          * This date would still not be accurate;
      * Shall we update the entry for every new release?
        * That's not going to happen, we can't do that, do a libosinfo release, and expect it to reach the distros before it becomes outdated
          * Takes ~15 days for a package to reach Fedora, for instance.


* Understanding better the problem:
  * I think you're asking for the release date to be filled up because you want to achieve something else.  What's that something else you want to achieve?
    * A guess, from my side, the root cause of the problem is that we `osinfo-query os` doesn't return any information about the release-status.
      * Would something like the example below help to solve your usecase?
```
fidencio@quino ~/src/upstream/libosinfo $ ./build/tools/osinfo-query -f short-id,version,release-date,eol-date,release-status os vendor="Fedora Project" version="Stable"
 Short ID             | Version  | Release date | End of life  | Release status 
----------------------+----------+--------------+--------------+----------------
 fedora-coreos-stable | Stable   |              |              | rolling        
```

If so, please, let me know and I can go ahead and provide the patch to the project.

Comment 2 Fabiano Fidêncio 2021-02-24 12:26:15 UTC
JFTR, I went ahead an opened https://gitlab.com/libosinfo/libosinfo/-/merge_requests/110, as I think this is good to have, regardless.

Comment 3 ricky.tigg 2021-02-24 13:08:41 UTC
 That's a pleasure to read a comment so well argued. That "not so simple" was worth mentioning indeed. A good deduction – "want to achieve something else" – as well.  Since I conceived each Fedora CoreOS edition observes the same rule as Fedora Server regards to life cycle – which is fixed with an accuracy of one month –  this led me to expect to know the release date in order to calculate the date of end of life, which would eventually be also the date i would have to schedule an acquisition of a new OS image.

Comment 4 Fabiano Fidêncio 2021-02-24 13:20:43 UTC
(In reply to ricky.tigg from comment #3)
>  That's a pleasure to read a comment so well argued.

Thanks! :-)

> Since I conceived each Fedora CoreOS edition observes the
> same rule as Fedora Server regards to life cycle – which is fixed with an
> accuracy of one month –  this led me to expect to know the release date in
> order to calculate the date of end of life, which would eventually be also
> the date i would have to schedule an acquisition of a new OS image.

So, no, that's not exactly the case.

Fedora CoreOS will be doing rolling releases of their ISOs / OS images every single time a new ostree is generated on their side.
Sometimes it'll lead to two, three new images a month.  Sometimes it'll lead to two, three new images a week.

It's really expected, from Fedora CoreOS concept, that users don't have to reinstall a new system, but rather upgrade the current image to the newer one. For more info, please, refer to: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-coreos/auto-updates/

With everything discussed here, do you think we could consider closing this issue as "NOTABUG"?


Last but not least, Ricky, thanks for the quick answer!

Comment 5 ricky.tigg 2021-02-24 13:36:20 UTC
That sounds fair. Thank you in general, and for the link.

Comment 6 Fabiano Fidêncio 2021-02-24 14:13:44 UTC
(In reply to ricky.tigg from comment #5)
> That sounds fair. Thank you in general, and for the link.

Thank you for using our project!

We've added support to get whether a project is a rolling distro to libosinfo (https://gitlab.com/libosinfo/libosinfo/-/merge_requests/110), and I'll also do a backport of that to the Fedora packages.
Also, please, feel free to also file issues in our gitlab, I tend to check those more frequently.


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