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Proposal: Dash Core RPM Packaging

Dash Core for Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux

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Proposal:
Dash Core for Fedora, CentOS, and RHEL

Dash Core software professionally packaged, tested, maintained, and delivered for the Fedora, CentOS, and RHEL linux platforms.

Overview

This is a request to fund a very modest Dash patronage to help offset some of effort associated to the development and process of building, packaging, delivery, and maintenance of Dash Core code for the premier family of linux operating systems: Red Hat – Fedora, CentOS and RHEL. I.e., “release engineering” for this family of operating systems. I have been building packages for this line of operating systems for approximately 8 months now and will continue to do so, proposal accepted or not. This is a plea to assist in my efforts as I improve and expand the scope of what I am already doing.

…more detail…

A mature software application ideally needs mature packaging for the various permutations of operating system platforms on which it runs. Examples: for Ubuntu this means .deb (for apt-get automation), for MacOS this means .pkg, etc. For the Red Hat linux family of operating systems – Fedora, CentOS, RHEL – this means RPM packages (.rpm) and YUM/DNF repositories.

The advantages are that you build these packages consistently and they allow predictable and easy installation and update for users. Upon installation they pull in the dependencies they need without the user having to think about them, and the operating system can track and manage updates cleanly and efficiently.

Aspirationally, there is opportunaty to have Dash Core shipped with the Fedora operating system by default. More on that later…

Available today: I developed the packaging specs, build and digitally sign packages and make them available through automated means. I have also written installation configuration instruction tailered to these builds and these platforms.

But there is a lot more to be done to really professionalize the product for this family of operating systems.

Such packaging and availability would set Dash on par with Bitcoin in the near term, and establish delivery professionalism certainly ahead of other crypto-currencies.

Who am I? I am dAgrarian (forums), taw00 (github), t0dd and agrarian (other places).

Scope

I build and test on a number of local virtual and VPS instances for both stable (currently 0.12.0.58) and testnet (0.12.1) Dash Core. This will continue indefinitely and expand in scope.

Deliverables
Aspirationally, I strive to…

Schedule

Packaging is rebuilt and released regularly (currently several times a week because we are testing and finalizing 12.1), time dependent. I am in communication with the Dash Core Team, but not a member of that team.

I hope to eventually fold the packaging into to Fedora’s more formal release engineering infrastructure and have Dash Core become automagically available to, at least, all Fedora users. Eventually, the goal would be to integrate fully into the Dash Core Team development as well and release engineering process, though likely with my continued participation.

Milestones

What is left undone is packaging and automating some of items beyond core, in particular and in the shorter term, building and packaging Sentinel. Also, perhaps, adding in items like Dashman and other community delivered tools. A whole suite of tooling.

Timeline and goals:

I have pored 8 months into what has been delivered already, and the project is ongoing and indefinite. There is no “end date” to this effort, of course.

Budget

What is being asked is a modest offset. A small patronage, if you will.

I use a personal linux machine (and virtualization), and several VPS instances for development, packaging, and testing. These have their cost, but it is not extreme. If accepted into the Fedora build system, some build costs will be abstracted, and I will be able to leverage a larger talent pool of packaging experts and automated professional testing. Additionally, that will expand the supportable architectures for Dash Core (I only test 64 Intel), but that is a less critical side benefit. Local personal testing will continue though.

Most of my cost is time. Sometimes, a lot of time.

What are my costs for these “release engineering” efforts?

For now, I am really just asking for a very modest cost offset for my time. Therefore, I propose…

Terms

Three month honorarium/patronage…

99 DASH total
…33 DASH per month
…3 months

After 3 months, we will examine at how things are going and I will likely request to renew with a similar proposal.

Closing

Dash Core and its corresponding suite of tooling needs to be properly supported on the Red Hat family of linux distributions. The software needs to be professional built, tested, packaged, improved and maintained over time. I am providing some of that now and want to continue doing that well into the future. The goodwill of the community is compensation enough, but if you can find it in you to assist throught he budgeting process, it would be most welcome. Thank you!