On Sat, 2005-04-30 at 07:05 -0400, Mark Weaver wrote:

John,

I just wanna say THANK YOU for the AWESOME distro and keep up the fantastic work. CentOS 4 is definitely without a doubt the most rock-solid, outa-the-box distro I've ever used. And I'm loving every minute of it. I've even managed to get my boss hooked on it and now our linux machines are being converted to CentOS. :)

In the near future I'll be converting all my servers on my network to CentOS and will absolutely be recommending CentOS to clients.

Thanks ... :)

I want to make sure that everyone knows this is a team effort. There are 10 developers in 3 versions (2.1, 3.x, 4.x) and 6 arches (i386, x86_64, ia64, s390, s390x, ppc). Not all of these are currently released, but the ones that aren't are under continuous development.

The whole team deserves a lot of thanks for their efforts behind the scenes, especially Pasi Pirhonen. Pasi is doing 3 arches (ia64, s390, s390x) on two versions (3.x and 4.x).

The current team is:

CentOS-2.1 John Newbigin (2.1 i386)

CentOS-3.x Lance Davis (3.x i386 ... overall CentOS Project Lead) Seth Vidal (3.x i386) Will Dinkel (3.x x86_64) Tru Huynh (3.x x86_64, i386) Pasi Pirhonen (3.x ia64, s390, s390x ... even some i386, x86_64)

CentOS-4.x Johnny Hughes - (4.x i386, x86_64, helping on ppc) Karanbir Singh - (4.x ppc, helping on i386, x86_64) Pasi Pirhonen - (4.x ia64, s390, s390x, helping on ppc)

Also not tied to any one distro / arch is:

Donavan Nelson - CentOS web site designer / maintainer / webmaster Russ Herrold - Server Administration / Security / infrastructure support

All these guys, and some others like Rick Graves, Matt Shields, and Barrie van Burk, have all contributed (and still contribute) much time and effort to make CentOS a successful and free project. -----------------------------------------------------------

All that being said, for CentOS Project to be able to do some of the things we need to do, we need cash and resources. That's just how it is.

CentOS is and always will be a totally free community project. People may download and use CentOS however they see fit. We would ask that if you use it, and if it is a good quality product that meets your needs, that you donate somehow to the CentOS Project.

Some people have donated servers on high speed connections (which we use for the CentOS Network where yum/CentOSNetwork-Applet/Up2date point by default to get updates ... and we just recently moved the main website to a new donated server), other people have donated the use of hardware so that we can develop some of the non standard distros on (ppc, etc.). If you can make this type of donation, it is greatly appreciated.

Another way that you can help is to donate money to our project. This is the way many of the major community Linux projects are funded ... including Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, Knoppix, Mepis, etc.

Other opportunities also are being started to help the project and other businesses:

1. If you are a CD distributor and would like to be on this page ( http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=24 ), a donation of $1 per CD/DVD set sold will get you there. Contact Lance Davis (lance_at_centos.org).

2. If you are a consulting/service company that does CentOS installs and support, and if you want to be listed on this page ( http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=12 ), a donation of 5% of your CentOS related work revenue will get you listed as a support partner. Contact Lance Davis (lance_at_centos.org).

3. If you can donate a server on a high speed network (minimum 160gb drive space, 10 mbit/sec minimum connectivity, unlimited traffic, preferred). Then you can be on this page ( http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=15 ) of the CentOS site. Contact Lance Davis (lance_at_centos.org).

We have established a donation page ( http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=23 ) where we accept payments in USD, EUR, and GBP. We have also come up with suggested amounts depending on your usage. See the page for details ... but the suggest amounts are:

USD: 24 / 20 / 15 / 8 EUR: 18 / 15 / 12 / 6 GBP: 12 / 10 / 8 / 4

(those suggested amounts are for <10 / <100 / <1000 / >1000 installs maintained)

Just some numbers about CentOS:

Amount transfered from the CentOS Network last month: 16.15 TB .... DVDs/CDs downloaded via Bittorrent in the last month: 23,000 (47 TB).

Our web ranking on Alexa is currently 41,757 (3 month), 36,247 (1 month). How does that compare with some other sites: Slackware - 56,903, Ubuntu - 23,475, Debian - 6,029, RedHat - 3,043, DistroWatch.com - 24,954, Mepis - 60,374, Gentoo - 15,238, Knoppix - 42,899, White Box Linux - 263,141 ... (lower is better). Over the last 3 months, our average has moved up 128,111 positions and our reach per million internet viewers is up 443%.

As always, donations (and amount of the donation) are absolutely voluntary. Please enjoy our product, and help us make it better :)

Thanks, Johnny Hughes CentOS-4 Lead Developer