Modern Release Engineering at Scale: Lessons Learned from Shipping Large Linux Distributions

Release engineering is the backbone of every Linux distribution. It ensures that thousands of packages are built on time, tested properly, and delivered in a stable release. In this talk, I will share practical lessons from working on release engineering in Fedora, a fast-moving distribution that ships on a regular schedule. I will explain how tasks like mass rebuilds, build automation, branching, signing, testing, and final composing are handled, and what challenges appear when managing such a large and active ecosystem.

The goal is to show which ideas work well in practice, which problems come up again and again, and how these workflows can inspire improvements in Debian too. This session is meant to start a friendly cross-distro conversation based on real experience in the field.