[CentOS] Any update on 5.6 / 6?

[David Sommerseth]

On 16/02/11 15:58, Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> On 02/16/2011 12:50 PM, David Sommerseth wrote:
>> Exactly!  Supporters who could most probably do even more, than just to sit
>> here idle waiting for the next release - if we only knew what the issues
>> are they are facing.
> 
> So what happened in the early days of when EL6 came out - we asked 
> people to help, there were many threads on how people could get involved 
> ( on the centos-devel list, which is - I am sure you will agree, the 
> appropriate place ). Nothing happened, not one person beyond the 
> usual-people actually did anything.

I understand centos-devel might seem to be the proper place to ask for
help.  But sometimes, I believe it's better to have a much broader audience
for such messages.

However, let this be a discussion after CentOS5.6 and CentOS6 is released.
 Rather start a new fresh thread when everyone (especially developers) have
had some rest after the releases.

[...snip...]
> Now the bit that really cheeses me off is that we cant go through the 
> same loop again and again everytime someone new comes along and cant be 
> bothered to see what has happened in the past. I am not saying you did 
> this, its possible you didnt know about the existence of these threads 
> on centos-devel etc.

This I've been seeing in many other projects as well.  However, those
places where this happens the least, are where there are some communication
of the progress.

And I admit I have not paid too much attention to the centos-devel list.
Basically, because I know the next CentOS releases will come when they
come.  But I would like to know more about the progress, which has been my
agenda in today's mails.  That is something which, in my eyes (I might be
wrong though), belongs more to this generic list.

> To cut a long story short - lots of people who use centos dont 
> understand what the project is about, what we do, why we do it and how 
> they can help. On the other hand, we also seem unable to hold people's 
> attention ( and i mean people at large, not just the centos community ) 
> in order to get them thinking about the project ( and not the distro, 
> remember project != distro, needs of the hour are trivial, needs for the 
> project to sustain and exist are more important ).

And this is indeed challenging.  And you probably need a combination of
what Fedora does with their ambassadors and what Canonical manages with
profiling Ubuntu as a Linux distribution for "everyone", to be able to get
the "people at large" scale.

Unfortunately, CentOS will most likely be for a more narrow group ... those
who wants a stable release for a long time.  Which basically ends up mostly
being on servers, as the desktop side needs to be much more a moving target
against newer versions.  And this is practically the same issues RHEL
fights with as well.

> We can try to solve these problems now, or we can get the distro's out - 
> then goto solving these issues. As many have suggested, and I partially 
> buy into - solving the problems while there is a need for the distro is 
> likely to get a better and wider reception. On the other hand, getting 
> the distro's out gets more urgent with every package release upstream 
> and app release side-stream / internet / inhouse etc.

I agree with you, that solving issues is definitely the way to go.
However, when you only solve issues along the way without providing any
information on why things takes time - and it begins to take a lot of time,
then people begin to want to see results.

Again, as I've said many times today, providing *some* information on the
progress can calm things down for a while.  But keeping people in the
darkness, will result in a lot of noise.

> The problems can be solved. Of all similar projects I know of and have 
> had the privilege to be a part of, none come close to the maturity and 
> pragmatic thought levels that the CentOS community has. On the other 
> hand, the drive-by posters and people with random fluff to 
> not-really-contribute are always going to an issue. I guess its 
> reasonable to expect them around as well, serves as a nice reminder as 
> to what the extreme sets are.

Absolutely!

> For now, as was really decided on the centos-devel list, lets just do 
> things the way centos has in the past. lets get the distro's out - and 
> then look at solving specific issues. The whole idea that people cant 
> help is just noise, hopefully the website ver2 project will make that 
> visible a bit more than has been so far. I do know that once the 
> distro's are out; the number of people wanting to 'help' is also going 
> to fall drastically. On the other hand, the ones who do stick around are 
> all people who really do want to help!

Good!  And it's a good thing that you're looking into more visibility.  I
believe this can remove, or at least reduce, some of the impatience and
restlessness which can be found on this list.

People come and go, in all kind of projects, and major releases gives a lot
of attraction - especially when things are based on such big products as RHEL.


kind regards,

David Sommerseth