Dear All,
If someone asks a question such as "When is Centos 5.4 coming out" bare in mind that it may be because they genuinely want to know when it's coming out, and feel that somehow, they have not been privy to that information. To me, I see CentOS as a polished professional product given what it is, a repackaging of RHEL, and to that end I have the expectation of a fully fledged professional product, which includes static release dates. (I know it's not always possible, so please, no flames)
I say this with love, and all the maturity that goes with it, "I can't WAIT for CentOS 5.4!!!" but at least I have the luxury of understanding the process which prevents 5.4 from coming out on a particular day. The owners of 600 or so servers out there which I look after, like to believe they are techie people, because they can use Google, and they can read a few articles that say Centos 5.4 on the way. I get very regular emails asking why there server is still on centos 5.2, and I have to explain, if it's not broke, I'm not fixing it!
On TV, when you watch a commercial that tells you of the latest blockbuster movie - there is a date attached. The next butt kicking FPS for Xbox 360... has a release date. So many products that have a "limited" life span (iPods, games consoles, mobile phones, books, songs) are planned with a "static" release date, and if that date is missed, bad press is almost a guarantee!
The point I'm making, is that people have become used to knowing when things will happen. (I believe this is illustrated in the number of people fascinated with Flash Forward! Google is your friend). So, give them a break - and the idiots that insult other people who obviously do not understand how things work need to instead take the time, and understand that the internet is no longer the domain/hangout of the technically savvy. Even Linux is no longer the realm of only the technical geniuses, (although there are a lot of us!)
When someone asked "When will *CentOS 5.4 come out??* The answer is, "When it is good and ready", and when they ask "Why/What does that mean?", ask them to Google "open source distribution release cycle". That should keep them busy for long enough for me/you to actually get some work done J
---
Kind Regards,
Mr Gabriel
Gabriel - IP Guys wrote:
When someone asked “When will **CentOS 5.4 come out??** The answer is, “When it is good and ready”, and when they ask “Why/What does that mean?”, ask them to Google “*open source distribution release cycle*”. That should keep them busy for long enough for me/you to actually get some work done J
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Gabriel - IP Guys wrote:
When someone asked “When will **CentOS 5.4 come out??** The answer is, “When it is good and ready”, and when they ask “Why/What does that mean?”, ask them to Google “*open source distribution release cycle*”. That should keep them busy for long enough for me/you to actually get some work done J
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
Except this is not what the developers of CentOS are saying. They are saying 2-4 weeks after the Red Hat point release, and that the four weeks may slip to six weeks. For the sake of argument, just assume eight weeks out (on the outside) and don't worry about it. Nothing like armchair generals trying to tell those in the trenches how they *should* do their job.
Les Mikesell wrote:
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
So what do you suggest? Release the OS with known problems, just to satisfy a date and the hysteria caused by Twitter updates? Or release something that truly works and it is _very_ reliable? I stay with the 'we'll release when it's ready'.
You are not using Debian nor Ubuntu because you can rely on CentOS for having all the RHEL goodies for free and thank god CentOS' developers do think the 'we'll release when it's ready' philosophy. What RPM/Red Hat-like Linux distribution provides at least ~30 months of security updates and is free of charge (like Debian)? Lets see:
Fedora: extremely cutting edge, constant updates during life cycle, 12-13 months support.
OpenSUSE: I don't know how cutting edge it is, was 24 months of support, new releases will be ~18 months now.
Mandriva: I don't know how cutting edge it is, 18 months.
Too me all of this distributions are completely out of question to use on a server.
From: Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 5:57:42 PM Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS 5.4? anyone? - "debate"
Gabriel - IP Guys wrote:
When someone asked “When will **CentOS 5.4 come out??** The answer is, “When it is good and ready”, and when they ask “Why/What does that mean?”, ask them to Google “*open source distribution release cycle*”. That should keep them busy for long enough for me/you to actually get some work done J
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
I think, with the "we'll release when it's ready" should come the "we'll announce it after it has finished syncing to the mirrors". Would solve a few "problems".
JD
Les Mikesell a écrit :
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
Well, I'm glad they actually *do* repeat that special mistake. Do you prefer we'll-release-next-week-whatever-that-may-break ? In that case, stick with Ubuntu Server.
Cheers,
Niki
Niki Kovacs schrieb:
Les Mikesell a écrit :
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
Well, I'm glad they actually *do* repeat that special mistake. Do you prefer we'll-release-next-week-whatever-that-may-break ? In that case, stick with Ubuntu Server.
It's good to have a fixed date to work towards. Otherwise, you get feature-creep, where more and more stuff goes into the release but never stabilizes. FreeBSD does it pretty well - they never release on-time, but at least they work towards the dates and clearly push stuff back one or two minor-releases when they see that they can't stabilize it. CentOS OTOH has a fixed feature-set (that of the corresponding RHEL release) that it must complete. So, necessarily the release-date is more or less open.
If you have 500 boxes, you are not going to update them all on the same day that RHAT releases 5.x anyway.
Rainer
On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Rainer Duffner rainer@ultra-secure.de wrote:
It's good to have a fixed date to work towards. Otherwise, you get feature-creep, where more and more stuff goes into the release but never stabilizes.
I don't think "feature-creep" is an issue in CentOS. I think the goal is "simply" to make CentOS a community version of Red Hat. ("Simply" in quotes because I've come to realize that the process is not always that simple.)
On 10/16/2009 05:25 AM, Rainer Duffner wrote:
Niki Kovacs schrieb:
Les Mikesell a écrit :
I think for a lot of us, the 'we'll release when it's ready' mentality is the main reason we aren't using debian. I don't think CentOS should repeat their mistakes.
Well, I'm glad they actually *do* repeat that special mistake. Do you prefer we'll-release-next-week-whatever-that-may-break ? In that case, stick with Ubuntu Server.
It's good to have a fixed date to work towards. Otherwise, you get feature-creep, where more and more stuff goes into the release but never stabilizes. FreeBSD does it pretty well - they never release on-time, but at least they work towards the dates and clearly push stuff back one or two minor-releases when they see that they can't stabilize it. CentOS OTOH has a fixed feature-set (that of the corresponding RHEL release) that it must complete. So, necessarily the release-date is more or less open.
Well, in this case, we have no feature creep or control on what will be on the ISOs and in the tree.
We do have to test our builds (as we do NOT release upstream RPMS, we rebuild their SRPMS and make our own RPMS which need to be compared/tested).
We release it ASAP ... the minute that we can (after some QA testing).
If you have 500 boxes, you are not going to update them all on the same day that RHAT releases 5.x anyway.
First I'd like to make sure I am not complaining about this delay between the RHEL and CentOS releases per se. I did not help in any way to make it happen faster and usually I don't mind having a three weeks gap between them.
But I've noticed that we had two security related kernel updates from RHEL since the RHEL 5.3 release and there is no word on when it will be released or why is it taking so long.
So hope it would release soon ~~~
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 11:46 PM, Gabriel - IP Guys < Gabriel@impactteachers.com> wrote:
Dear All,
If someone asks a question such as “When is Centos 5.4 coming out” bare in mind that it may be because they genuinely want to know when it’s coming out, and feel that somehow, they have not been privy to that information. To me, I see CentOS as a polished professional product given what it is, a repackaging of RHEL, and to that end I have the expectation of a fully fledged professional product, which includes static release dates. (I know it’s not always possible, so please, no flames)
I say this with love, and all the maturity that goes with it, “I can’t WAIT for CentOS 5.4!!!” but at least I have the luxury of understanding the process which prevents 5.4 from coming out on a particular day. The owners of 600 or so servers out there which I look after, like to believe they are techie people, because they can use Google, and they can read a few articles that say Centos 5.4 on the way. I get very regular emails asking why there server is still on centos 5.2, and I have to explain, if it’s not broke, I'm not fixing it!
On TV, when you watch a commercial that tells you of the latest blockbuster movie – there is a date attached. The next butt kicking FPS for Xbox 360... has a release date. So many products that have a “limited” life span (iPods, games consoles, mobile phones, books, songs) are planned with a “static” release date, and if that date is missed, bad press is almost a guarantee!
The point I'm making, is that people have become used to knowing when things will happen. (I believe this is illustrated in the number of people fascinated with Flash Forward! Google is your friend). So, give them a break – and the idiots that insult other people who obviously do not understand how things work need to instead take the time, and understand that the internet is no longer the domain/hangout of the technically savvy. Even Linux is no longer the realm of only the technical geniuses, (although there are a lot of us!)
When someone asked “When will **CentOS 5.4 come out??** The answer is, “When it is good and ready”, and when they ask “Why/What does that mean?”, ask them to Google “*open source distribution release cycle*”. That should keep them busy for long enough for me/you to actually get some work done J
Kind Regards,
Mr Gabriel
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Majian wrote on 10/16/2009 06:57 AM: ...
But I've noticed that we had two security related kernel updates from RHEL since the RHEL 5.3 release and there is no word on when it will be released or why is it taking so long.
So hope it would release soon ~~~
The -164 kernel has been in updates for some time and the -164.2.1 kernel is in [centosplus] if you can't wait for 5.4.
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2009-1455.html
Phil
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Gabriel - IP Guys -
John Doe -
Johnny Hughes -
Les Mikesell -
Majian -
Miguel Di Ciurcio Filho -
Niki Kovacs -
Phil Schaffner -
Rainer Duffner -
Ron Blizzard