As a developer I would like the release burden to be reduced for the upstream repos. Hopefully as the release burden is reduced it should encourage a reduction in time between releases.

A way we can do this is by incorporating automation in otherwise manual parts of our releases. Preferably in a manner that uses something externally maintained. Enter Packit; Packit supports automation of spec files for repos, and is used widely for fedora. As most of our upstream repos are maintained in 4 pillars [github, fedora, rhel, c9s]reducing the footprint of one will certainly reduce the release burden.

As a POC we have introduced Packit into coreos-installer.

From this we have learned that packit works well, however we have encountered two things that need to be evaluated for each repo.

1.  Packit will make the branches in fedora divergent. See RFE here.
2. Packit `propose_downstream` triggers on `release` only. This is a pain point for things we have signed by fedora, i.e butane / ignition are not truely released upstream until signed, which causes a chicken / egg issue for us. See RFE