CollaborativeProfileDevSpec: initial markdown conversion

CollaborativeProfileDevSpec.md

@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+Goals
+=====
+
+We need more profiles for applications both upstream and
+in distributions, and therefore want to encourage people to
+collaboratively develop and share those profiles. People want to
+share their profiles for certain specialized configurations as well.
+
+Use Cases/User Stories
+======================
+
+1.  Joe, a sysadmin starts logprof for the first time
+    -   “do you want to participate in collaboration on new profiles for your distribution?”
+        -   “yes” could be to download the Vcs branch
+    -   “do you want to share your profiles with the community?”
+2.  Sarah, a sysadmin, wants to create a profile for the *foo* application. She starts genprof; **what happens?** Different cases:
+    1.  Nonexistent profile in both distro and collaborative/showcase area
+        -   Should nonexistant profile get automatically promoted to collaborative section, instead of just living in show case section?
+            -   Does the distro/release moderator decide what gets promoted to collaborative?
+            -   Do the contributors decide for themselves whether something is collaborative or showcase worthy?
+        -   Profile not in distro but in collaborative area
+        -   User wants profile to go to showcase (nonexistent)
+    2.  Profile in distro but not in collaborative area
+    3.  Profile in both distro and collaborative area
+        -   User wants profile to go to showcase (existing)
+3.  Frank, a sysadmin, updates a local policy? **what happens?**
+    -   if the policy was shipped with the distro and Frank has agreed to share?
+    -   if the policy was pulled originally from the collaborative section?
+    -   if the policy was pulled originally from the showcase section?
+4.  Melissa, a distro/release moderator, updates a published policy for the frobnitz application. Tony, a sysadmin, is using Melissa's original frobnitz profile. Does Tony receive any notification?
+    -   ... if his frobnitz policy is unmodified?
+    -   ... if his local frobnitz policy is modified?
+        -   ... and those modifications are published in the showcase section?
+
+Assumptions
+===========
+
+There are three places to get policies:
+
+-   Official supported distro policies, packaged with apps
+-   Unsupported alpha/beta policies, packaged separately
+-   Collaborative development policies, on web site (backend vcs?)
+
+Design
+======
+
+Web Site Requirements
+---------------------
+
+> As an aside, I still dislike these names, as I don't they're accurately
+> descriptive; we want collaboration to happen under both sections,
+> and to me, policies that you would showcase are policies that would
+> be your reference policies. --sbeattie
+
+1.  Collaborative Section (profiles good for inclusion by default)
+    -   Only a single profile per software can be uploaded (per distro/release)
+    -   Collaboration tools:
+        TODO section  
+        e.g.: “- haven't tested with custom script directory”
+
+        BUGS section  
+        e.g.: “- when I run this profile, the XYZ plugin doesn't work”
+
+        COMMENTS section  
+        e.g.: “- I think the dbus part looks wonky...shouldn't it be more restrictive?”
+2.  Showcase Section (one-off profiles that aren't for general usage)
+    -   would still be good to have notes, configuration that lead to profile
+    -   way to compare against collaborative, or reference policy
+
+Userspace tools
+---------------
+
+-   Check for profiles and tell user (without automatically downloading)
+-   Ask user to contribute once profile is complete
+    -   Ask some questions to determine if it's “Collaborative” or “Showcase”
+    -   Can only upload to “Collaborative” if no existing profile in same distro/release
+
+Moderation
+----------
+
+-   Each distro has moderators that will decide when a profile is ready for inclusion in alpha/beta package
+
+Implementation
+==============
+
+Notes and Open Questions
+========================
+
+Notes
+-----
+
+Open Questions
+--------------
+
+### Can we use Launchpad for collaboration?
+
+#### pros
+
+-   bug tracker
+-   mailing list
+-   bzr integration
+-   potentially faster to implement
+
+#### cons
+
+-   not specifically designed for profiling
+
+### Using a VCS as the backend store
+
+-   probably need to hide the VCS from the user in the tool
+-   Which VCS? bzr? git? hg?
+
+### What is the profile naming convention, particularly in the showcase section?
+
+### What about Policy Sets?
+
+Basically all profiles belonging to a distro,release,XXX would enable
+multiple sets per distro/release if desired
+
+### How to handle new distro releases gaining previous release's policy progress?
+
+-   File as distro/release version?
+-   Copied over when distro release comes out?
+-   Copied over once moderator is comfortable with policy?
+
+### Is large scale management of policies entirely out of scope?
+
+-   Use case: Bob wants to use the repo to keep a set of policies developed for his AWS instances consistent
+-   Use case: Alice wants to integrate with a configuration management tool like puppet somehow.
+