[chore] remove linux package builds and tests

[mowies]

This PR removes the package tests from this repo since they were moved to the -releases repo in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases#604.

Related issues:

• Original issue: Move package testing to this repository opentelemetry-collector-releases#439
• Also fixes Remove internal/buildscripts/packaging/ #34748

Advantages of doing this:

• removal of duplicated code that has potential to diverge with linux package building and testing happening here with custom code, but the actual code that is used to build the released linux packages is in the -releases repo. This should result in lower maintenance effort and removes technical debt.

Disadvantages discussed here:

• bit of a shift-right for the linux package tests since they are now tested in the -releases repo which could lead to situations where bugs are found too late and e.g. the contrib repo already got a new tag which has a bug that only comes up in the releases repo

[codeboten]

Thanks @mowies, the one concern I have with removing this code is that it's caught issues in the past. Any issues these would catch would only be caught at the releases repo, which means we'd have tagged a potentially broken go module (since we tag contrib modules before the release moves on to the releases repo). Maybe the process should be changed? I'm not sure what the right thing to do is here

[mx-psi]

@codeboten Do you remember what issues it caught? Maybe we can test for those in a different way, agnostic to the actual scripts

[mowies]

@codeboten I understand. Maybe only testing in the release repo is really too late. What we could try instead is to checkout the releases repo from here and use the actual files from there. If we then also use the make targets from the releases repo directly to build and test the linux packages, there's a very high chance that we miss some error due to a mismatch between this repo's setup and the releases repo's setup.

[github-actions]

This PR was marked stale due to lack of activity. It will be closed in 14 days.

[jpkrohling]

Perhaps we could have a nightly build somewhere (here or in the -releases repo) to catch regressions earlier?

[mowies]

Shall I create a separate issue for that here? I think my suggestion that I mentioned above could work nicely in a nightly setup.

[atoulme]

I propose that we make a nightly build in the -releases repository, using the latest snapshot of core and contrib. @mowies please create an issue to take it from here. I think we're good to delete this code.

[mowies]

I created open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases#659 👍🏼

[andrzej-stencel]

@mowies can you update the description of this PR to describe why we want to do this? What are the advantages of the removal? It will help future us and future others understand the motivation, especially given that there is a slight disadvantage to the removal as well (potential breakage in -releases repo).

My guesses of the advantages are: removing code to decrease maintenance cost; decrease time to check PRs.

[mowies]

@andrzej-stencel done! :)

[andrzej-stencel]

Thanks a lot @mowies, the description is great! Helps a lot.

I agree with the shift-right concert, thanks for raising the issue to create nightly builds open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases#659. @mowies would you be up for proposing a pull request for this?

[mowies]

@andrzej-stencel yes i'll start working on that once this PR is merged :)

[mx-psi]

@codeboten Please block/comment on the PR if you think we shouldn't merge this!

[mowies]

@andrzej-stencel is anything missing to get this PR over the line? :)
@codeboten pls let us know if you're fine with merging this

[andrzej-stencel]

Merging this as it has three approvals already. @mowies I've assigned open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases#659 to you, looking forward to your next contributions and thank you so much! ❤️