On Fri, Jul 08, 2011 at 10:00:09PM -0600, Shawn Thompson wrote:
"leaks"
This is just the silliest thing I have ever heard. This happens all the time, even with Windows. I see no cause for alarm, especially since this is FOSS. What's the problem?
[Please do not top-post to the CentOS mailing lists as per list policy.]
Policy is that until the release is announced on www.centos.org and the mailing lists it is not official and is subject to recall and reissue.
If a mirror leaks content before "bitflip" and such a recall takes place anyone that downloaded that content and installed it will find themselves in a very precarious position as they are using unsupported package content at that moment and this can lead to all sorts of support nightmares. There is precedent for this; there have been cases in the past where ISOs have needed to be reissued after seeding has initially begun.
Content is initially seeded to the mirrors with read access denied for just this reason. When it is determined that all (or most) mirrors are fully seeded and that content is gold the bits are flipped on the master mirrors and all the other mirrors worldwide will pick up this change and open then content to the public.
Shawn, you are working on your own release at this point and as such I urge you to take heed of processes that have worked for many years, and not only for CentOS but for many, if not all, other major releases. You would do very well to heed the experiences of those that have gone before. It may seem "silly" to you but there is sound engineering behind the decision to do things this way.
John