On 06/20/2014 08:52 AM, Alessandro Ren wrote:
Johnny,
I dont think anyone lacks confidence in your work or in CentOS and everybody appreciate the time you've dedicated to the project. I my self have not yet clearly understood the real idea behind the new versioning system and I really dont know why the classic model would not work. I think the main success of the project is being closely related to RHE. My main concern is the risk of not keeping with the last security updates or not seeing them as clearly due to the new versioning.
[]s.
I said at the beginning of this topic, but I will say it again here as clearly as I can ...
Red Hat has a tree ... we can pick any one, I'll use 6.4 as an example.
When Red Hat releases 6.4 they release an ISO set and a tree. Red Hat splits their tree up into several versions, for which they can charge varying amounts of money (Server, Workstation, HPC Node, Client, etc). CentOS has no need for these designations and we flatten it out into one main repo .. since everything is free in CentOS. We have groups that mimic the functionality of those segments.
So, at the time of release, other than the things we purposely do not build (install numbers for the ISOs, RHN subscription items) the version numbers match up almost exactly as we use the source from RHEL to make CentOS.
The differences between the Red Hat and CentOS trees start to happen AFTER the next release.
When 6.5 comes out, we again use the RHEL source code and do our thing ... and we take the 6.4 tree out of production and put it in our vault. This is because Red Hat does not publicly release changes for that tree anymore. However, behind the scenes, Red Hat does do changes to that tree for their paying customers. The release updates for that 6.4 tree for up to 3 years. This is something they have always done and something CentOS has never been able to do. Those things are going to continue in the future as well, Red Hat makes the source code publicly available for the "Current" tree and we will continue to consume it. They will not make available the code for the extended parts of the tree, just like before.
So, if one is using RHEL and wants to stay on the 6.4 tree, you can and you can still get updates. If one is using CentOS and wants to stay on our 6.4 tree, you get no updates.
So, for all periods outside the active time that a tree is live, the CentOS 6.4 tree is radically different than the RHEL 6.4 tree. That is the issue I want to address. CentOS 6.4 does not equal RHEL 6.4 ... and it is especially tree after the 6.5 release. I think that there is obviously an issue in perception that people think they can stay on an old tree and get the same thing they would in RHEL,, and they can't. They can't on CentOS ... they can't on Scientific Linux, they can't on any of the rebuilds.
Now, we have had people say it is a strawmnan issue, even here on this list .. but if we can change the perception AND more accurately portray what a CentOS point release really is (a point in time release of the main tree) by changing the way we talk about the name ... while leaving the content of the distro exactly as it is, then why would we not want to do that.
The only thing I can think of is that some people actually WANT to misrepresent what the point release actually is. That some people actually want users to think that 6.4 CentOS and 6.4 RHEL are actually the same thing ... which they are not. They are similar for a period of time and then radically different later.
How is what I said inaccurate?