As the OP for this thread, it saddens me to see that the thread I started has now been used as a forum for behavior of the worst kind seen in professional circles.
I'm a longtime user of CentOS and merely wanted to know of users' past experiences transitioning between SL and CentOS. My first experience with CentOS was as a transition from Whitebox to CentOS, and the process was as simple as swapping out perhap 3 RPMs and a "yum update". That's it, and that same server is still chugging along today many years later.
Both CentOS and WBEL had the same goal, near-perfect compatibility with RHEL, but SL has slightly different goals. What are users' past experiences doing a "hot swap out" of SL for CentOS and/or vice versa?
I have tremendoud respect for the CentOS project. The developers here cast an extremely long shadow that we should all admire and respect. This is a bit of a dark time here, prompted by a delayed release of EL6 that was already delayed by Red Hat for their own (probably similar) reasons. SysAdmin frustration is at a high point as a result of these combined factors, causing many involved to question even the very best of decisions.
I suspect that the many requests for ETAs are exacerbating the issue that the CentOS developers simply cannot predict a final release date, which is further exacerbated by the otherwise noteworthy, high-quality QA now in place, which is causing requests for build changes that delay the release and cause need for further QA checks on packages rebuild due to deps changes.
It's a perfect storm of factors that, together, result in the current situation. I'm a developer; this type of situation is unfortunately common and can be frustrating for all involved, and just cannot be completely avoided!
The choices are clear, however:
1) Stick w/CentOS, get a high quality, highly compatible release at little/no cost, with an uncertain release date. 2) Switch to SL, get a high quality, reduced compatibility release (due to slightly different goals and qualities) at little/no cost, right now; 3) Switch to RHEL, get a quality release at significant cost, right now. 4) Complain loudly about how it's not perfect and/or get angry at people who question your motives and/or competence after years of otherwise successful cooperation.
I wish option #4 was not so commonly exercised here. It really might be a good time to consider moderation. Anybody want to volunteer as a moderator?
-Benjamin Smith