Folks,
For what's worth, IMO there is at least one thing we at Centos-devel could learn from EPEL: they have very clear rules about how to get contributed packages into their repo:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#head-24b4e4b98953a6d3de80019e85e83112...
I for one have some packages (http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/) I've been trying to contribute to CentOS for many months now, without success: I've posted messages trying to submit the packages, talked to some developers, even started a page on the CentOS Wiki about it, but in the end it came to naught (I privately received information from one developer explaining why there are no clear rules, but I was asked to keep it confidential and so I can't post it here).
This is very frustrating, and I think it keeps many people from contributing to CentOS.
Best Regards,
On Mon, 2007-05-07 at 07:38 -0300, Durval Menezes wrote:
Folks,
For what's worth, IMO there is at least one thing we at Centos-devel could learn from EPEL: they have very clear rules about how to get contributed packages into their repo:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#head-24b4e4b98953a6d3de80019e85e83112...
I for one have some packages (http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/) I've been trying to contribute to CentOS for many months now, without success: I've posted messages trying to submit the packages, talked to some developers, even started a page on the CentOS Wiki about it, but in the end it came to naught (I privately received information from one developer explaining why there are no clear rules, but I was asked to keep it confidential and so I can't post it here).
This is very frustrating, and I think it keeps many people from contributing to CentOS.
I don't have anything nice to say ... so I won't say anything except this:
When a package is released by CentOS ... one of the current developers is using it and we KNOW it works.
We are not looking to replace RPMForge, ATRPMS, KBS Extras, etc. CentOS has some repositories to provide Enterprise software (CentOS Extras, CentOS Plus). We are not trying to make those like the Ubuntu universe repos.
RPMForge, KBS Extras and ATRPMS are the place for finding items we don't have.
I will also say that we don't just grab someone off the street to become a Developer ... but we do add people (the number of developers has moved from 4 or 5 to 15 in the 2 last years).
We are currently adding Daniel DeKoK ... in the not so distant past we added Dag Wieers and others.
However, CentOS is designed to be Enterprise and provide support for 7 years ... what is going to happen when you decide that you no longer want to support your software? That is right .. I GET TO SUPPORT IT FOR 7 YEARS.
Wait and see what happens when some of these "so called" extras packages move on past the version of python, glibc, php, etc. and fail to compile on the el4 or el5 target.
EPEL is a great idea ... but I want to see what happens when it gets hard. I want to see what drops and what doesn't when the project upstream moves to requireing php5 or python-2.4; what are the el4 guys going to do. In CentOS, we try to support what we have and we have made a 7 year commitment.
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
Johnny Hughes wrote:
However, CentOS is designed to be Enterprise and provide support for 7 years ... what is going to happen when you decide that you no longer want to support your software? That is right .. I GET TO SUPPORT IT FOR 7 YEARS.
Wait and see what happens when some of these "so called" extras packages move on past the version of python, glibc, php, etc. and fail to compile on the el4 or el5 target.
EPEL is a great idea ... but I want to see what happens when it gets hard. I want to see what drops and what doesn't when the project upstream moves to requireing php5 or python-2.4; what are the el4 guys going to do. In CentOS, we try to support what we have and we have made a 7 year commitment.
Any chance of joining forces with Scientific Linux in the add-on department at least to the point of having common repositories in yum (perhaps disabled by default)? Their goals seem similar including the support lifetime and they already have a packaged sun java:
https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/5x/features/added
On 5/7/07, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Any chance of joining forces with Scientific Linux in the add-on department at least to the point of having common repositories in yum (perhaps disabled by default)? Their goals seem similar including the support lifetime and they already have a packaged sun java:
https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/5x/features/added
There was some talk on the SL list of merging with/using centos as a base for SL. We do discuss things with their devs (You may see Connie pop up on the lists from time to time). I would like to see things move to a bit more of a 'shared' community in that respect, but as it stands now, you should be able to use the SL repos with centos. It's all built to work for the same common code.
Jim Perrin wrote:
Any chance of joining forces with Scientific Linux in the add-on department at least to the point of having common repositories in yum (perhaps disabled by default)? Their goals seem similar including the support lifetime and they already have a packaged sun java:
https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/5x/features/added
There was some talk on the SL list of merging with/using centos as a base for SL. We do discuss things with their devs (You may see Connie pop up on the lists from time to time). I would like to see things move to a bit more of a 'shared' community in that respect, but as it stands now, you should be able to use the SL repos with centos. It's all built to work for the same common code.
Thanks - personally I am hoping for a packaged/maintained sun java. I have a bunch of machines still running CentOS 3.x and a hand-installed java 1.4.x that I'd like to rebuild with something current. I'll try that one unless something else shows up soon.
-- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
Les Mikesell wrote:
Thanks - personally I am hoping for a packaged/maintained sun java. I have a bunch of machines still running CentOS 3.x and a hand-installed java 1.4.x that I'd like to rebuild with something current. I'll try that one unless something else shows up soon.
As Lance or Johnny already laid out: We won't do that before Sun doesn't drop the indemnification stuff from their distribution contract.
Ralph
On Mon, 7 May 2007, Durval Menezes wrote:
in the end it came to naught (I privately received information from one developer explaining why there are no clear rules, but I was asked to keep it confidential and so I can't post it here).
You are welcome to submit the [CentOS?] 'developer' email with heaeders you assert explains 'why there are no clear rules', to: security@centos.org which is monitored by at least two senior CentOS developers (including me); frankly I doubt it says what you think it does; I will consult with the author of the claimed piece and ask if he or she minds its release, if you are not interested in doing so.
Let's look at things which the CentOS site says:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowToContribute/Packages -- right off the bat: "Make sure the package you want to contribute isn't already in some repository ..."
see also: http://wiki.centos.org/Become_a_CentOS_developer -- which was written with the invitation of Jim Perrin onto the CentOS team fresh in mind.
In looking at your packagings, I see you have:
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/bincimap/ An interesting find, and seemingly not packaged elsewhere; last stable seems to be from 2005; a beta seems to be in verson 1.3 since then. Is it in development, still? What about security updates? -- Possible candidate
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/catdoc/ DAG, PLD, and cAos all carry this -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/DAG/SRPMS/catdoc-0.94.2-1.rf.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/fping/ DAG, FE, and more carry this part of the BR for Nagios -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/redhat/fedora/extras/SRPMS/fping-2.4b2-7.fc6.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/fvwm/ Wayy back when I seem to have built it; PLD too, and RHL 9; FE had it for a while; as I recall there was a security issue in the 1 series, but memory fades -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/redhat/fedora/extras/SRPMS/fvwm-2.5.21-4.fc7.src.rpm -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/ORC/fvwm/fvwm-1.24r-24.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/id3v2/ PLD and FE seem to carry this -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/redhat/fedora/extras/SRPMS/id3v2-0.1.11-4.fc6.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/imapsync/ PLD seems to have it already -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/PLD/2.0/SRPMS/imapsync-1.133-1.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/jpilot/ PLD, Centos-2, Fedora Core have versions -- nothing to see here
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/licq/ PLD and RPMforge have this already, although older -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/RPMForge/SRPMS/ayo/redhat/7.2/i386/SRPMS.freshrpms/licq-1.1.0-fr1_20020228.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/mp3info/ PLD has it in an older version -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/PLD/2.0/SRPMS/mp3info-0.2.16-6.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/multi/ -- seemingly an original and unique packaging under this naming series of another's (the author of Putty) tool; it looks marginally interesting http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/utils/
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/openntpd/ -- http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/openntpd/openntpd.spec is unviewable from your webserver, probably with permissions issues
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/parsemce/ -- http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/parsemce/parsemce.spec is a direct copy from a packaging by #Vendor: Dave Jones davej@redhat.com -- but seemingly never made it further; PLD seems to have it. Why is it not still going upstream? -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/PLD/2.0/SRPMS/parsemce-0.0.8-1.src.rpm
http://www.durval.com.br/RPMS/el4/privoxy/ umm -- in RHEL 5, it seems -- /mnt/nfs/var/ftp/pub/mirror/redhat/rhel5/SRPMS/privoxy-3.0.3-9.2.2.src.rpm
This is very frustrating, and I think it keeps many people from contributing to CentOS.
sort of like going through a list of packagings and finding that most are already out there? ;0
-- Russ Herrold
-
Durval Menezes -
Jim Perrin -
Johnny Hughes -
Les Mikesell -
R P Herrold -
Ralph Angenendt