[CentOS-docs] wiki contribution

BJ Dierkes wdierkes at rackspace.com
Mon Nov 30 23:20:53 UTC 2009


Hello all,  sorry if this gets posted twice... I didn't see it post so I joined the list to participate in the thread.  I am the primary creator and core developer of the IUS Community Project.  Forgive me if this is sloppy but there was a lot I wanted to comment on regarding this thread.  


On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 07:24:28PM +0100, Ralph Angenendt wrote:
> With a big fat warning sign? Have you already tested things in there?

There are significant warnings about using IUS from our FAQ:

	http://iuscommunity.org/faq/


We try to make it very clear that IUS has a very specific audience and is not for everyone.


On 11/25/2009 11:45 PM, John R. Dennison wrote:
>>> With a big fat warning sign? Have you already tested things in there?
>> 
>> There are a number of #centos regulars that are using the
>> IUS packages and I've yet to hear of any complaints with
>> them.

> Thats just noise. There are a lot of people who do source builds as 
> well, and we strongly discourage people from using that process.

I kind of lost track of the significance in this statement.  IUS has nothing to do with source installs.  IUS actually is partially geared towards providing proper packagers for users that would otherwise be doing source installs to get the latest versions of software.


> My question is - why did they not consider actually doing this with the 
> project or even talking to anyone within the communities.

Consider what exactly?  I assume you mean requesting that our repos be added to the CentOS wiki?  If that is what you mean, there isn't any reason in particular.  We have had other users suggest that we look into it... and frankly, I had planned on it however you have to note that I am the only IUS Core Developer at this time and have to prioritize my work.


> Rackspace are the typical leecher commercial vendors feeding off the 
> CentOS pool, with little or not desire to even consider contributing any 
> level of effort or time back into the project. To me, thats a big deal.

I don't exactly follow what you're so hostile about.  If you read the content on our site it is very clear that we have a very specific audience and that is people who absolutely need the latest upstream versions of software for RHEL.  How are we feeding off of the CentOS pool by providing alternative software that just so happens to work on CentOS (we package for RHEL specifically)?  If you read the site, you will also see that IUS is not a service or product of Rackspace... it is simply sponsored by Rackspace meaning that they allow me to give something back to the community, for free, during my $dayjob.  How does that equate to Rackspace leeching off CentOS?


> Also, what is it that the 
> IUS repo does that isnt available on the other regular 
> non-commercially-backed repositories ?

It seems that you didn't spend much time looking into our project at all before making assumptions about it per the comments above.  If you are really interested at all in what IUS is you should take the time to check it out before raising negative opinions about it.

http://iuscommunity.org
http://wiki.iuscommunity.org
http://launchpad.net/ius


Am 30.11.09 20:05, schrieb Joshua Daniel Franklin:
> They definitely provide packages from a different philosophy. For
> example, they're providing mysql50 and mysql51 that can install
> alongside stock mysql instead of replacing it.

Actually, I need to correct you here Josh.  Packages are either Conflict/Replace or Parallel packages.  Everything in IUS conflicts and replaces (Provides) the associated package in RHEL.... except for Python which is a parallel installable package.  We've attempted to explain this at:

http://wiki.iuscommunity.org/Doc/ClientUsageGuide#Information_on_IUS_Packages


> What are they doing in regard to python? Install alongside? Break the
> python on the machine (I'm not really inclined to test that at the
> moment)? What's with php (oh my god, another php-current source)?

As mentioned above, Python is a parallel install package.  We have python26 and python31 available.  We also provide python26-setuptools, and python31-distribute so users can easy_install to the proper site-packages directories for that version of Python.  We did this _explicitly_ to give users a proper path to upgrade python and _not_ break system python.

For the record, [a big] part of our work with IUS is contributing back to the upstream vendors who are ultimately our closest 'partner' with regards to our goals.  We offer any and all contributions to the communities that we can, whether it be to upstream vendors... or Fedora, EPEL, RHEL via our TAM, or CentOS.  Please don't generalize us with the rest of the 'commercial leechers' out there unless you fully research what you're talking about.

Thanks Josh for bringing this up with the CentOS community, and thank you all for your time.  I'm not on this list, so please be sure to CC me if you wish to continue the thread. 

---
BJ Dierkes
Linux Systems Engineer IV / [RH]acker
Infrastructure Services [OS & Applications]
Rackspace Hosting



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