Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups (SIG) are smaller groups within the CentOS community that focus on a small set of issues, in order to either create awareness or to focus on development along a specific topic. Each SIG can seek a dedicated section on the wiki, along with an option to display the names of the people involved in that SIG. A mailing list on the CentOS list server can also be setup as well. As proper, and subject to available resources, other resources they might need (eg. a SCM system, web hosting space, admin services, etc.) may be offered.

SIGs, and the process for creating one, are described in more detail in the SIG Guide.

The following SIGs already exist:

Active SIGs

• Core - Produces the CentOS Linux Distribution

• Alternate Architectures - Extend usability base beyond basic architectures (x86_64), including ARM 64-bit and 32-bit, x86 32-bit, Power 8, and so forth.

• Artwork - Improving the user experience with high quality artwork

• Atomic - The AtomicSIG aims to build, deliver and maintain an Atomic Host for CentOS Linux. And help bootstrap tooling around the effort.

• Cloud - The Cloud SIG will look into issues around running Cloud Infrastructure / Hypervisor for onpremise clouds as well as support other SIGs and projects looking to consume some of the shared resources around on-premise cloud infra

• Cloud Instance - Look into issues around running CentOS Linux Instances in various private and public clouds

• Config Management - a Special Interest Group to cover configuration management and system lifecycle management on CentOS.

• NFV - Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) provides a CentOS-based stack that will serve as a platform for the deployment and testing of virtual network functions (VNFs).

• Operational Tooling - Logging, monitoring and other operational tool development.

• PaaS - Platform as a Service on CentOS

• Promo - Promotion and Events

• Public CI - A Public testing and proving infrastructure

• Software Collections - Tools and packages that allow the build, install, and use multiple versions of software on the same system, without affecting system-wide installed packages.

• Storage - Deploying CentOS as a storage node

• Virtualization - Virtualization in and of CentOS

  • Xen4CentOS - A Xen 4 (4.4, 4.6, 4.8) implementation for CentOS Linux 6 and CentOS Linux 7. Now part of the Virtualization SIG

SIGs in planning/startup stage

• Messaging SIG

• High Performance Computing - Encourage the use of CentOS Linux in HPC and to address the specific needs in HPC deployments, including deployment and management automation.

Future/Proposed SIGs

Voice your interest and opinion on the centos-devel@centos.org mailinglist if you wish to get involved in any of these efforts.

• Hardening - Deliver a more secure and hardened general purpose kernel and corresponding code

• VoIP - The voice over IP communities run systems in a way that sometimes don't align with conventional business or hosting policies, we should get a group going with skilled domain experience, so we can better address the needs of that community.

• Simplified Linux Server - Menu driven installation and configuration for various services.

• Education - Deliver a pre-contextualised media set for use in Schools, Universities and other education venues

• ARM, Tilera, Mips, Itanium, S390, Alpha, Sparc port

• Documentation - Encourage and manage CentOS documentation (website, wiki, FAQ)

• Alternative Desktop - Add additional desktop oriented software and features

• Hardware compatiblity - Collect information about specific hardware (laptops, devices, printers)

• RHEL Beta test-driving - Encourage people to try out RHEL Betas to improve future CentOS
• RPM Packaging

• Translation - In charge of translating CentOS (media, website, wiki, flyer)

• Hosting - Web hosting comes with its own challenges, it would be great to have a specialist group look into the challenges presented there and work on potential solutions from both the provider side and the consumer perspective.

Setting up a new SIG

Anyone can propose to setup a SIG, but needs to get the agreement and participation of a member of the CentOS Governing Board. To request a new Special interest group to be started, here is what needs to be done:

• Look at the presently functional SIG's and make sure that your effort will not overlap with another team
• Open a new discussion topic in the CentOS-Devel mailing list, asking for comments
• One of the CentOS Board members will need to join the effort, once that happens then that Board member can :
  • Request a new mailing list to be created (if needed)
  • Request a wiki section to be setup
  • If the SIG needs a version control system to be setup, that can also be requested (refer to the next section on git repo)
  • Get listed as a SIG on this page

Initiating a SIG git repo + koji process:

• SIG must be approved by the Board
• SIG needs to post its proposal to its wiki page
• Chair should do requesting, alternatively the Board member mentoring the SIG can do the request
• Chair requests wiki ACLs for all SIG committee members
• SIG meets with Infra SIG member to discuss how the git repo is going to be setup
• SIG will need a SIG-specific signing key to live on CentOS Project signing server and/or locally to the builder (process needs some improvement here)
• Chair or Board mentor need to request a build tag on bugs.centos.org under buildsys component
• Chair or Board mentor need to request koji targets and tags on bugs.centos.org under buildsys component
• Chair or Board mentor need to request import of SRPMs to be imported in to git.centos.org RPM store, reqest via bugs.centos.org under buildsys component
• Chair or Board mentor need to request koji certs for SIG members on bugs.centos.org under buildsys component
• Chair or Board mentor needs to request a SIG project to be added to bugs.centos.org, or to add a component to another project e.g. CentOS-7

More detailed SIG information may be found in the SIG Guide

Requirements

We expect each SIG to meet some basic requirements, these include :

• The topic for the group must be related to CentOS, or a use scenario for CentOS

• There must be adequate control and feedback into the CentOS community

• Generally, all communication as to the work of the SIG should be public, understanding that sometimes a matter may need to be private; in such cases, please consult with the Devteam member out of band of the SIG
• All code produced within the SIG must be compatible with a FOSS license presently used by CentOS; if a new license is wanted, again, please consult with the Devteam member

• All documentation produced within the SIG must be compatible with the license of this wiki

• We would expect teams to be watchful of general CentOS directions from the Devteam

• At least one member of the SIG, who need not be the lead, needs to be a member of the CentOS Devteam. We are not trying to enforce any moderation, however, we feel that the actions of each SIG using CentOS resources needs to have visibility to the Devteam

SIG membership

Normally, the following rules for SIG membership apply:

• The mailing lists of the SIGs are open, and can be joined freely.
• SIG members are appointed by the SIG team leader, and may have elevated privileges, like write access to the relevant Wiki section or SVN tree, depending on the role of the SIG member.
• The SIG team leader may be asked to be a mailing list moderator; generally however, CentOS mailing lists are not moderated.

SIG Reporting

SIGs are expected to report quarterly, with a brief summary of what they've accomplished in the past quarter. A suggested outline for this report is as follows:

• Membership update (members added, removed. Chair changes.)
• Releases in the most recent quarter (or most recent release, if none in that quarter)
• Health report and general activity narrative.
• Issues for the board to address, if any

The reporting schedule is currently as follows:

Group 1:

Reports January, April, July, October

• Core
• Atomic
• Config Management
• PaaS
• Software Collections

Group 2:

Reports February, May, August, November

• Alt Arch
• Cloud
• NFV
• Promo
• Storage

Group 3:

Reports March, June, September, December

• Artwork
• Cloud Instance

• OpsTools

• Public CI
• Virtualization

Reports are due by end of business on the first Monday in the designated month, and should be sent to the centos-devel mailing list with a subject line of "[REPORT] XYZ SIG", where 'XYZ' is replaced with the name of your SIG. Reports are to be submitted by the SIG chair.

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