I wrote up some thoughts on this proposal, using Podman’s early days as a case study. I was there for pretty much the whole journey, from the rejected Docker PR that spawned Skopeo in 2016, through the constant pressure to justify resources, to eventually becoming the default in RHEL 8.
The short version: a formal Sandbox with transparent metrics and clear graduation gates would have made that path less painful. Real validation came from Ubuntu and Debian picking up Podman independently, not from Fedora inclusion, which was dismissed as a corporate rubber stamp. A Sandbox process could change that perception for future projects.
Blog post here: Why the Fedora Sandbox Would Have Helped Podman Survive Its Early Days Crunchtools
Curious what people think, especially anyone who’s shepherded a new project through the Fedora ecosystem. I think this proposal could attract that new kind of contributor.