Dear Community,
I recently started thinking about how to make a project like CentOS more transparent and open (especially for new contributors). The http://wiki.centos.org/Team page (which Dag created about a year ago) lists about 20 (more or less active) members, divided into core and community contributors. I personally do not like that kind of distinction. Of course there should be something like a 'board' and clear responsibilities (release management and such), but at least the board should be elected by all active members.
As we are a community of ppl with high technical skills probably only persons with a valuable number of contributions and knowledge will be elected to the board. A board member could of course be responsible for core dev tasks, too.
The board itself could consist of a mix of technical, marketing, or legal orientated ppl.
To make this happen, the new maintainer process has to be clarified first. I am thinking about a (frequently maintained) list of open tasks e.g. maintained within trac, from which a new (and even existing) maintainer could choose one. Of course suggestions for task that are not listed there could be published on the ML.
The 'Team' page should list major tasks one is working on or responsible for. If one needs help (e.g. I am in need of help for the website update), he/she could add a note to this task list (and maybe even announce on the ML) with contact details (wiki homepage).
Other areas of taking part should and are already covered on:
http://wiki.centos.org/Contribute
But some aspects are still unclear:
THE WIKI:
For me a wiki is a collaboration platform which should be accessible to every contributor in the same manner (except the front and user pages). That means there should be a join process (where you have to agree to the cc license) which then leads to EditGroup membership.
I do not see a good reason why new articles should first be published on the ML. A user should be able to add a new article and then announce it on the ML (if necessary). Same on the personal pages. Of course it makes sense that new users introduce theirself on the ML but they should already have access to their own personal page, before.
A comment function could be a good feature but in a comparatively small community like ours, most of everything can be discussed via ML or could be handled through page changelog.
I personally see no reason to honor authorship of created pages besides the wiki page history.
THE BUGTRACKER:
The CentOS bugtracker contains a lot of upstream bugs that cannot be fixed here. We have to make sure that these are tracked upstream and fixed there.
THE CONTRIB REPO:
This repository has been re-invited in CentOS 5.3 but it's still unclear what it's meant to be for. Could it contain non-free packages. Should'nt oss packages better be pushed to EPEL/RPMFusion or even RPMForge?
Where should spec files go? Is there an SVN with write access and an automated build process, already?
Barriers on this site should be lowered when it's clear what the repo is meant for.
QA:
Some of you might know that CentOS has got an QA process before releases. This is an closed process and invite only. There where some reasons for it (e.g. some ppl only took part in the beta program to get early access to upcoming releases) but an invite only QA could not be the solution. This process should be open to all members.
BARRIERS:
Overall, the barriers for new contributors are much too high. This can also be fixed with something like a mentorship program where longtime developers take care about new maintainers.
Best Regards Marcus Moeller
Just to answer two of those questions:
Marcus Moeller wrote:
THE WIKI:
For me a wiki is a collaboration platform which should be accessible to every contributor in the same manner (except the front and user pages). That means there should be a join process (where you have to agree to the cc license) which then leads to EditGroup membership.
Yes. That hasn't been furthered by me because of what is in the open by now. I wanted to have some things cleared first - this has now happened.
A comment function could be a good feature but in a comparatively small community like ours, most of everything can be discussed via ML or could be handled through page changelog.
There is no real functional comment function for moin, afaics.
THE BUGTRACKER:
The CentOS bugtracker contains a lot of upstream bugs that cannot be fixed here. We have to make sure that these are tracked upstream and fixed there.
Everybody is invited to help us to do that. Looks like there are only about 4 to 5 people who regularly look at bugs and take care about them without being pointed to specific bugs by others.
This is something which has *no* barrier at all.
Ralph
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
I recently started thinking about how to make a project like CentOS more transparent and open (especially for new contributors).
I have no idea what meaning to 'transparent' you have in mind -- all mailing lists of public character are open; the forums are open, the IRC is open, the documentation is open, the source changes are published openly. There has to be someone attending to infrastructure matters, but a newcomer is not going to be offered access to that. As noted here and many other places before, CentOS runs as a meritocracy.
Some people are perhaps offended that the less public CentOS infrastructure levels do not invite them in -- I cannot help their wounded feelings. Indeed, in part it may be that some talented people drift away or withdraw for such a reason. While I regret the loss of their enthusiasm, there is an art to 'keeping the lights on' at a major distribution
The http://wiki.centos.org/Team page (which Dag created about a year ago) lists about 20 (more or less active) members, divided into core and community contributors. I personally do not like that kind of distinction.
You entitled to hold your likes and dislikes of course, but this will not necessarily something the project is going to address. I have been critical on the -docs ML as to re-inventing the documentation wheel in the wiki, and will continue to do so, for the reasons I have stated there. The wiki is un-vetted content, and parts of it are stale or wrong, in my opinion. You've found a stale one to the extent it purports to represent the organizational structure. Perhaps I'll go clean it up -- but more likely I'll attend to 'hotter' tasks
I am part of the CentOS team, but speaking as to just MY opinion, I am just not interested in 'competing' with El Repo, or RPMforge, or EPEL as I see the core mission of CentOS to be to recreate, warts and all, a trademark elided rebuild of the upstream's freely released sources in as close as possible binary identical form, with changes related to our approach on updater attended to.
I know others have other additional goals to that, and CentOS offers a big tent -- but at the end of the day, tested and vetted install images and timely updates makes CentOS successful. We have under 15k unique mailing list subscribers, all told -- under 500 peak participants in IRC; bugs and the forums have active participants in the scores, and low hundreds respectively. Overwhelmingly CentOS is about the binaries
I see at that wiki page a distinction gradient between core and community in building out the 'teams' on wiki page you refer to -- I have no idea as to the thinking behind such. It did not and does not match the functional divisions or task groups in the project -- then or now -- In checking the edit log, the people doing edits largely did not then have visibility into certain layers. I had not audited it for accuracy; a quick scan shows some glaring errors.
But in another way, there is a historical reality of doers and watchers and talkers, in this project, in many FOSS projects, and in politics and life in general.
As we are a community of ppl with high technical skills probably only persons with a valuable number of contributions and knowledge will be elected to the board. A board member could of course be responsible for core dev tasks, too.
The board itself could consist of a mix of technical, marketing, or legal orientated ppl.
It could -- but only if it were your intent to have such a board to kill the project off.
Frankly, the next decisions in project organizational matters are not ones that you and the community can make at present. The core group are coming through a delicate time, and is in process on some matters of reorganization. But, this conversation has been underway for a long time, and so will not be conducted in the first instance here and in public. This is not because of a desire one way or the other to exclude, but because the first instance started years and years ago. I am not trying to be mean here, but that is the truth. Marcus -- you've seen the 'galley' on my interview in the upcoming Pulse -- we were leading into this while 'centos' was still a nascent sub-project at cAos.
It is also a truth I have observed that because there are doers and talkers, that after a while the doers tire of talk, withdraw from the talkers, and build a future. "Running code talks" so to speak. 'Thread capture' on mailing lists is a well known tactic, but just because 20 people can express a similar view on a list, it does not mean that it is right, or can be implemented, or that anything has been accomplished.
To make this happen, the new maintainer process has to be clarified first. I am thinking about a (frequently maintained) list of open tasks e.g. maintained within trac, from which a new (and even existing) maintainer could choose one. Of course suggestions for task that are not listed there could be published on the ML.
And using 'maintainers' as a starting point makes it clear that the reason why CentOS has been successful, as a fairly literal rebuild, is not clear to you -- We have very little to 'maintain' in the core project -- solving build issues, yes -- perhaps tweaks around the edges in the centos-plus kernel and so forth. Those '-plus' tweaks happen with the bug tracker, and IRC discussions in -devel. Most of our 'maintenance' comes with SRPM releases upstream, and the builder's solution and verifications
Open tasks in Yet Another Tracker sounds great until one realizes that 'trac' has had security issues. Question: Who gets to pay that maintenance load? Answer: The infrastructure group. That responsibility cannot be delegated, and in this instance 'trust matters'. We have finite resources.
The 'Team' page should list major tasks one is working on or responsible for.
and I should have a pony. and the day should have 40 hours. I'd like August off work, but I live in the US
But the hard fact is that CentOS has been, is, and will remain a reliable approach for millions of systems, not with an 'open anything goes' management, but with a conservative and careful one, based on observed and continued technical merit by dedicated insiders.
It is fantasy to think that the effort expended by the central project members would continue if 'guided' or 'controlled' by the hands of others with less technical skills
If one needs help (e.g. I am in need of help for the website update), he/she could add a note to this task list (and maybe even announce on the ML) with contact details (wiki homepage).
I see Ralph's quick answer as to some matters within the wiki space, and will not continue
The wiki rots -- I've said it over and over, and would radically scale it back. It is not sensible for you to have surfaced the remainder that I have trimmed off here when you are on the -docs mailing list. Take it there.
Again -- this is just MY personal view as one of several in the core management of CentOS. I know there are differing views, but this is how I see it
-- Russ herrold
R P Herrold wrote:
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
<snip everything>
The bit that causes all the confusion here is the "C" in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is.
I guess the "Community" bit refers to the community of users, nothing more.
BTW, I and many others really like the Wiki - we see it as a way we can add value to the existing (excellent) upstream documentation. Where I see little added value is in incomplete reproduction of the upstream docs.
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Ned Slider wrote:
R P Herrold wrote: The bit that causes all the confusion here is the "C" in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is.
Show merit on a sustained basis, and get offered [drafted into ;) ] more responsibility to serve the community of users of this FOSS project
Just want to be a user and supporter? -- that is fine as well as with any other FOSS project
I guess the "Community" bit refers to the community of users, nothing more.
Then you miss the value your work in interpretation in the Forum has to a community of readers about a FOSS peoject
BTW, I and many others really like the Wiki
Then we differ, but great stuff still happens -- that's how FOSS works
-- Russ herrold
Ned Slider napsal(a):
The bit that causes all the confusion here is the "C" in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is.
I guess the "Community" bit refers to the community of users, nothing more.
Without the community there's no devel group and vice versa.
Sometimes I feel that "Enterprise" bit is only 100pct binary compatibility. So where have lost those two bits? David Hrbáč
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Ned Sliderned@unixmail.co.uk wrote:
R P Herrold wrote:
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
<snip everything>
The bit that causes all the confusion here is the "C" in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is.
I guess the "Community" bit refers to the community of users, nothing more.
The word Community has multiple definitions and is usually what the people living in it want. A community can be a commune or a dictatorship of the meritocrit. Its rules do not have to be democratic or even open to outsiders (or insiders who are not 'blessed') And a community does not mean that anyone who 'moves in' are automatically part of the community.
And each person coming to an online community will bring whatever of the above views of how a community works .. which is why a lot of people grump, flame, and disagree violently about why XYZ community initiative is not a community.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Ned Sliderned@unixmail.co.uk wrote:
R P Herrold wrote:
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
<snip everything>
The bit that causes all the confusion here is the "C" in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is.
I guess the "Community" bit refers to the community of users, nothing more.
The word Community has multiple definitions and is usually what the people living in it want. A community can be a commune or a dictatorship of the meritocrit. Its rules do not have to be democratic or even open to outsiders (or insiders who are not 'blessed') And a community does not mean that anyone who 'moves in' are automatically part of the community.
+1
I think you've totally hit the nail square on the proverbial head with this post Smooge. ;)
A community is nothing more than a group of individuals congregating together for whatever particular purpose they choose to be in such a group, and does not specify the manner in which the group is organized, governed, managed, etc.
As you state, labelling a group as a "community" certainly does not imply or require that group to be an elected democracy, nor does it imply that "everyone's opinion counts equally" within the group.
Popular opinion/vote makes for nice statistics, but often for poor decision making, especially if those forming and spreading the opinions and/or doing the voting aren't held to the high standards that are needed for good decisions to occur.
The majority of successful open source/free software projects out there are meritocracies - not wide open democracies. One need only look at the Linux kernel, all of GNU, and the various other well known projects in the OSS landscape to see that it is meritocracy that reigns supreme in the world of OSS.
If the naysayers of such meritocracies actually have things of value to add to a given OSS project, and spend their time working on such contributions instead of whining about exclusion on public forums, etc. they'd likely find themselves climbing the meritocracy food chains of said projects in short order if they truly have things of value to offer.
And each person coming to an online community will bring whatever of the above views of how a community works .. which is why a lot of people grump, flame, and disagree violently about why XYZ community initiative is not a community.
Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, "the talkers" want to dictate to the "doers" how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o)
- -- Mike A. Harris http://mharris.ca | https://twitter.com/mikeaharris
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 19:31 -0400, Mike A. Harris wrote:
<snip>
Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, "the talkers" want to dictate to the "doers" how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o)
I was with you up to that last line. In any organization, *sometimes* one of the most important skills (if it is lacking in other "community" members) is that of organizing and motivating and coordinating, ... All of this is just "talking" (well, planning, etc. - but the results of that is often only exhibited in "talking").
And what is characterized as "whining" can be seen as folks who mistakenly believe their input, as a community member (if that's what the "core" folks choose them to be viewed as) is valued and are trying to contribute.
I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread now.
Who is the project serving? The "core" themselves or a "community" of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the "core" can be more clearly stated and understood.
My observations in the past has indicated that this is not truly decided and inculcated in the project's "core" members.
This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread.
Mike A. Harris http://mharris.ca | https://twitter.com/mikeaharris
<snip sig stuff>
Who is the project serving? The "core" themselves or a "community" of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the "core" can be more clearly stated and understood.
In the end, most F/LOSS projects seem to be created to "scratch an itch" as it were in the founder/developers. That "itch" can be anything from needing a tool for a problem to something as noble as bringing technology to others who couldn't otherwise afford it.
What I see this group's "itch" being is the need to bring a free (as in beer) version of what IMO is probably the most widely recognized enterprise Linux distribution to those who want the benefits of that OS but don't need/want the support package built in at said upstream vendor.
If that means the devs are more demanding of those they let into the ranks then your typical F/LOSS project, so be it. From my perspective it shows they are serious about keeping the project true to it's aims, and that makes it easier to sell CentOS to my boss.
A meritocracy maybe, but I haven't seen any business out there that runs like a typical F/LOSS project. I was hired into the firm I admin because I was able to demonstrate I had the skills needed, and my boss could verify those skills. In a project like CentOS it's not easy to verify a person's skillset so the process of earning your way into the "inner circle" is an acceptable, in my view, way to show a person is cut out for position. CentOS in this case seems to have more stringent requirements.
Myself, I know I'm not cut out to be a dev so I hang around various mailing lists, poking my head up when I have answers to questions and/or questions myself. My contribution to Linux as a whole is to work on promoting it within my sphere of influence. That I can do, and it allows me to promote CentOS along the way.
William L. Maltby wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 19:31 -0400, Mike A. Harris wrote:
<snip>
Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, "the talkers" want to dictate to the "doers" how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o)
I was with you up to that last line. In any organization, *sometimes* one of the most important skills (if it is lacking in other "community" members) is that of organizing and motivating and coordinating, ... All of this is just "talking" (well, planning, etc. - but the results of that is often only exhibited in "talking").
And what is characterized as "whining" can be seen as folks who mistakenly believe their input, as a community member (if that's what the "core" folks choose them to be viewed as) is valued and are trying to contribute.
I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread now.
Who is the project serving? The "core" themselves or a "community" of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the "core" can be more clearly stated and understood.
Well, then I think I can easily clear this up. Our "Project" purpose has been stated for 4 years, and it has not changed.
http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=3
The CentOS team provides a product that people can choose to use or not to use. It is designed to be 100% binary compatible with the upstream build.
Here are our goals:
http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=5
Furthermore:
The CentOS Project will build, sign and provide the packages.
We will provide an infrastructure to distribute the packages.
We will provide an infrastructure where the Community can be involved and help each other (via things like a Wiki, the Forums, the Mailing Lists, the bugzilla and IRC). These things are where we want community participation. We have even added Special Interest Groups where we accept some code from the community for some things. Each SIG has a team member who is responsible to validate the code.
From time to time, we will PULL a community member INTO the Development team. We have done this on a number of occasions. I'll give you a brief history with example:
1. CentOS 3.1 released as part of cAos foundation early 2004. 2. I (Johnny Hughes) was added as a CentOS team member from the Community in late 2004, as were Karanbir Singh and Tru Huynh. Several other people (Lance Davis, Donavan Nelson, Russ Herrold, John Newbigin) were already team members. 3. The CentOS Project forms and moves away from the cAos Foundation in March of 2005. 4. There have been other team members added from the Community since then including Jim Perrin, Ralph Angenendt, and Tim Verhoeven. 5. NedSlider and Akemi Yagi are added as Forum Moderators. Akemi has also been given the added responsibility to make the Plus kernel changes.
When we pull people in from the Community and give them increased responsibility, we do so after many months of interaction. Not everyone has access to the "Signing Keys", Not everyone has access to make changes to www.centos.org, Not everyone has access to submit packages to the builder. Not everyone is Forum Moderator. Not everyone has Root access to all CentOS infrastructure machines.
We have some other repositories (Extras, CentOSPlus, maybe in the future contrib) HOWEVER, these are not trying to be 3rd party repos or build the latest and greatest things. They are designed to add ENTERPRISE level software that we are going to maintain for the lifetime of the project. If we add something, then someone has given assurances that they will take care of it for 7 years.
There are already plenty of 3rd party repos available including these:
http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories?action=show&redi...
We do not desire to REPLACE any of these repositories ... these are INDEED part of the community as well. If you have something to contribute to a 3rd party repository, then contact them and ask how they would like your help.
When we add something to CentOS, then someone in the core team is going to maintain it for 7 years. Every package will be verified by a team member and be the responsibility of a team member. If that team member leaves, someone else in the team will maintain that package. Therefore, adding things to CentOS will not be something that is taken lightly ... see 3rd party repos above.
My observations in the past has indicated that this is not truly decided and inculcated in the project's "core" members.
It has been decided from the beginning and articulated many times.
This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread.
How we manage the Project is not a community based, it was never intended to be community based, and it never will be community based.
Hopefully this clears up any ambiguity.
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 19:37 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
William L. Maltby wrote:
<snip> > > I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread > now. > > Who is the project serving? The "core" themselves or a "community" of > users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the > dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the > "core" can be more clearly stated and understood.
Well, then I think I can easily clear this up. Our "Project" purpose has been stated for 4 years, and it has not changed.
<snip>
It has been decided from the beginning and articulated many times.
This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread.
How we manage the Project is not a community based, it was never intended to be community based, and it never will be community based.
Hopefully this clears up any ambiguity.
There was never any on *my* part. But maybe it will help those who mis-understood.
<snip sig stuff>
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:40 AM, R P Herroldherrold@centos.org wrote:
Some people are perhaps offended that the less public CentOS infrastructure levels do not invite them in -- I cannot help their wounded feelings. Indeed, in part it may be that some talented people drift away or withdraw for such a reason. While I regret the loss of their enthusiasm, there is an art to 'keeping the lights on' at a major distribution
Russ,
During my 'relatively short' history with CentOS, I have seen a number of talented people giving up on helping in the CentOS community. This is sad and I was hoping the "core" CentOS admins would make an effort to prevent this kind of loss from happening. I still believe they do and the above statement is strictly your personal view (as you rightly said).
Akemi
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Akemi Yagi wrote:
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:40 AM, R P Herroldherrold@centos.org wrote:
Some people are perhaps offended that the less public CentOS infrastructure levels do not invite them in -- I cannot help their wounded feelings. ...
During my 'relatively short' history with CentOS, I have seen a number of talented people giving up on helping in the CentOS community. This is sad and I was hoping the "core" CentOS admins would make an effort to prevent this kind of loss from happening.
umm -- see below
I still believe they do and the above statement is strictly your personal view (as you rightly said).
all true -- and in point of fact, you represent a perfect example of a person invited further in, just days ago, with your recent promotion in bug wrangling rights in the bug tracker
As I said elsewhere in the piece, we've had other issues that have had to take precedence, and are in process on reorganization matters
-- Russ herrold
R P Herrold wrote:
Some people are perhaps offended that the less public CentOS infrastructure levels do not invite them in -- I cannot help their wounded feelings. Indeed, in part it may be that some talented people drift away or withdraw for such a reason. While I regret the loss of their enthusiasm, there is an art to 'keeping the lights on' at a major distribution
I think the missing piece here is the warm/fuzzy feeling that the project has the means to continue in spite of anything that might happen to one or several of those key people that keep the lights on. Part of that art is distributing the process so there are sufficient resources to cover problems. Historically, you've done it so well that no one had to think about it but now that the question has been raised it would be good if your process were transparent enough to give an outsider reason to trust it.
I am part of the CentOS team, but speaking as to just MY opinion, I am just not interested in 'competing' with El Repo, or RPMforge, or EPEL as I see the core mission of CentOS to be to recreate, warts and all, a trademark elided rebuild of the upstream's freely released sources in as close as possible binary identical form, with changes related to our approach on updater attended to.
There are at least the centosplus kernel and a few other things that need to be tightly coupled with the base package builds and release schedule. Otherwise, yes, anything that can work in RHEL or any other clone belongs in someone else's repository.
But in another way, there is a historical reality of doers and watchers and talkers, in this project, in many FOSS projects, and in politics and life in general.
That's generally enforced, not necessarily a natural state - if you aren't prepared to fork and duplicate the project there is often not much outsiders can do. Probably rightly so in a project like CentOS where the objective is fairly clear and binary compatibility is generally not a matter of opinion.
But the hard fact is that CentOS has been, is, and will remain a reliable approach for millions of systems, not with an 'open anything goes' management, but with a conservative and careful one, based on observed and continued technical merit by dedicated insiders.
Leaving outsiders to wonder what happens if those few insiders have a bad day.
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Les Mikesell wrote:
But the hard fact is that CentOS has been, is, and will remain a reliable approach for millions of systems, not with an 'open anything goes' management, but with a conservative and careful one, based on observed and continued technical merit by dedicated insiders.
Leaving outsiders to wonder what happens if those few insiders have a bad day.
... and we took heat for going public as well. We have done what is right and accepted that not all will be pleased. Thanks for being in there, throwing rocks, Les
I had occasion to review the stats on how important our commo efforts are in the last few weeks. Some sysadmins, and some trade press watch; must simply do not care. I am astonished at how few people are on centos-announce ML to catch the important asynchronous security related announcements
I did not see a furor when I posted the following. The htp://planet.centos.org/ RSS feed consolidator carried it to a wide fanout. I know it had 35k distinct IP's access it from logfiles in the first week: http://orcorc.blogspot.com/2009/02/money-for-nothing-and-chicks-for-free.htm... and the followup: http://orcorc.blogspot.com/2009/03/nine-pregnant-gals-in-queue.html was even more widely read and picked up in the trade press
It was carefully drafted by me, and says up top in bold:
If you feel you need the facilities provided by the CentOS project sooner than it is provided, or that you need deterministic releases of support: Please go buy such from our upstream, or from a third party vendor who can sell you the expedited subset of services truly needed.
The point is, all the knowledge one needs to locally front run Centos for a subset of packages (updates and point releases, and even major releases as we com into the 6 timeframe) are long since out there. It is FOSS
The project under the familiar name ** might ** have moved, and the old domain left behind to wither away -- we now know that is not going to happen either. Thanks Lance, thanks letter co-signers, on the domain transfer
The end of that second post remains relevant as well
-- Russ herrold
R P Herrold wrote:
Leaving outsiders to wonder what happens if those few insiders have a bad day.
... and we took heat for going public as well. We have done what is right and accepted that not all will be pleased. Thanks for being in there, throwing rocks, Les
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization. The developers have put a lot on the line, and have been working under strained circumstances for some time -- yet they have repeatedly released a great OS (and updates) anyhow. I honestly think things are getting better, but I think what's needed now is a little breathing room and the space and time to settle any issues that are still out there.
And maybe a little gratitude for what has already been done by the developers wouldn't be out of order. I know I'm very thankful that CentOS will remain CentOS.
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Ron Blizzard wrote:
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization.
* chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe
Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking.
I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again?
'If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.' and 'Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.' -- each, Mark Twain
-- Russ herrold
Dear Russ,
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization.
- chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the
first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe
Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking.
I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again?
That"s a great offer and what I titled as mentorship. In the meanwhile some things (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
Best Regards Marcus
Dear Andrew.
(like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge.
The Contrib repository has been re-invented in CentOS 5.3 but it's still not clear what it's for. From the official announce:
... Given the widespread requests for user contributed packages directly being hosted within the centos repositories, the contribs repository is now back with CentOS-5.3. There are no packages yet, but over the next few weeks we hope to have a policy and process in place that allows users to submit and manage packages in the contrib repo. ...
Karan started to line it out on this:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2009-August/004833.html
recent centos-devel thread.
Best Regards Marcus
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Andrew.
(like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge.
The Contrib repository has been re-invented in CentOS 5.3 but it's still not clear what it's for. From the official announce:
... Given the widespread requests for user contributed packages directly being hosted within the centos repositories, the contribs repository is now back with CentOS-5.3. There are no packages yet, but over the next few weeks we hope to have a policy and process in place that allows users to submit and manage packages in the contrib repo. ...
Karan started to line it out on this:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2009-August/004833.html
recent centos-devel thread.
Well, if something is going to be released as part of CentOS (contrib repo or not), then it is going to be correct and it is going to be vetted by someone that I PERSONALLY trust ... or it is going to be personally tested by me prior to release. Otherwise, it is not going to be released.
If you meet those requirements (I know you, know your work, and personally trust you with my servers), then you can get on a team to do things ... if you don't, you can't.
Until I get kicked out of CentOS (I don't think that is happening any time soon), that will be one of the standards that we use.
The community can get in and get access to things ... Akemi Yagi and Ned Slider (both have admin rights to the CentOS forums, Akemi does the spec files and changes to CentOS Plus kernels) are both examples of this recently. Tim Verhoeven and Jim Perrin are examples from a few years ago, and Karanbir Singh and Ralph Angenendt are examples from a few years before that.
We add developers as we get people who do things for the project and as we come to know them, develop a relationship with them, and see their work.
We have a responsibility to an estimated 4 million unique machines to not allow code into our repositories unless it is correct and we take that responsibility very seriously. A broken CentOS package can cost people millions (maybe billions) of dollars worldwide.
We do add people as developers ... if we don't do it fast enough for an individual person's tastes then I am sorry. There are other options out there ... including Fedora and EPEL ... for people who want to contribute faster than we allow.
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
Dear Johnny,
Well, if something is going to be released as part of CentOS (contrib repo or not), then it is going to be correct and it is going to be vetted by someone that I PERSONALLY trust ... or it is going to be personally tested by me prior to release. Otherwise, it is not going to be released.
Then you should not perhaps not call it 'Contrib' repository if noone that you do not personally know can add content to it.
The Fedora project has published very good guidelines which explain how to build high quality packages:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines
As mentioned before, spec files or SRPMs can be reviewed locally (using lint) and via bugtracker.
Mentorship could help new packagers to build 'standard conform' packages.
Rebuild could happen automatically in koji.
If you meet those requirements (I know you, know your work, and personally trust you with my servers), then you can get on a team to do things ... if you don't, you can't.
In my pov the requirements that have to be met to become a developer could be lined out very clearly. Membership applications could then be discussed within a board.
Until I get kicked out of CentOS (I don't think that is happening any time soon), that will be one of the standards that we use.
Which means you are the king, feeding the folk?
Not very 'Community' orientated, sorry.
Best Regards Marcus
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
Then you should not perhaps not call it 'Contrib' repository if no one that you do not personally know can add content to it.
You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you.
The Fedora project has published very good guidelines which explain how to build high quality packages:
You may be happier there. Mind their CLA. Enjoy the food fights.
-- Russ herrold
2009/8/7 R P Herrold herrold@centos.org:
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
Then you should not perhaps not call it 'Contrib' repository if no one that you do not personally know can add content to it.
You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you.
Hey Russ, it's open source. You can just review the spec and comment it until it's ready for release. Source could be fetched directly from upstream and patches could be verified easily.
I do not see any problem here.
The Fedora project has published very good guidelines which explain how to build high quality packages:
You may be happier there. Mind their CLA. Enjoy the food fights.
Maybe, but I like the idea of setting up a community backed Enterprise OS and CentOS is a great choice for that task.
Best Regards Marcus
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote:
2009/8/7 R P Herrold herrold@centos.org:
You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you.
Hey Russ, it's open source. You can just review the spec and comment it until it's ready for release. Source could be fetched directly from upstream and patches could be verified easily.
If you want my attention seeking to persuade, do not start a communication: 'Hey' as I consider it rude.
You are right -- I 'can' but I have no plans to do so as it is not safe as stated, as trojaned content can leak in. I guess it is the case that you do not read. I have clearly said:
I am just not interested in 'competing' with El Repo, or RPMforge, or EPEL ... It is also a truth I have observed that because there are doers and talkers, that after a while the doers tire of talk, withdraw from the talkers, and build a future. ... It is fantasy to think that the effort expended by the central project members would continue if 'guided' or 'controlled' by the hands of others with less technical skills
And in a later piece:
either people do not read, or will not believe what we write.
If a person wishes to be advanced in the project, contribute to the project. [It is not clear to me WHY people think there is some huge benefit for being a 'project insider' as it is really just a chance to do more work. Early access to QA is just not that hard to earn] We are not likely to hold your hand much, but will answer questions well framed [see: /topic in #centos for the link]. Be a self starter. Do something material. Some things to do to gain my notice as a contributor of merit:
1. The bug tracker is open self serve for people to sign up. Add its RSS feed, and read every one as it crosses [I do]. Start working through the bugs to replicate or note an inability to replicate issues; Work through the bug tracker from latest to earliest, seeing if there is a similar upstream bug, or a fix, or if an issue is CentOS local. Note your results. That would be useful
2. The -docs ML is open for proposals of new content into the wiki. Add its RSS feed, and read every diff as it crosses [I do]. Fix broken stuff that can be fixed at once. Some even believe it is more useful to re-write documentation locally rather than feeding improvements upstream so that it flows back down and out into RHEL, Fedora, etc as well as just CentOS [I do not, and referred you to Fedora earlier in this thread]
3. Set up a local mirror of SRPMs, not just of the released Enterprise sources of upstream, but its RawHide as well. I do this, and have a daily 'diff' report to scan for new material to review. Start building and testing and filing bugs to make the .spec files more general and less distribution specific, so that cross pollination can occur. You may get rejected (I often am), but I try to improve the breed
4. The same problems repeat time and again in the Forums. Add its RSS feed, and read every new post as it crosses [I do]. Add pointers or content as needed, and 'cc' into updates on the thread [I do]. I have noticed a trend, that lately the three or four regulars are moving content more to the correct tree location, and asking questioners to do their research, and dropping out-links to answers rather than doing so in line. I do this as well when I form an answer, as it provides the linkage hints Google needs to note 'reputation' and to weave answers together.
5. Join the main IRC channel or mailing list, and confirm you can answer every question posed for a solid week; if not, fill in your knowledge gaps with experimentation. At that point, start thoughtfully pointing a person toward the answers. Spoon-feeding is NOT a good thing, and does not gain any points in my eyes, as that is not the stated purpose of the channel.
The mailing list is looser as to /on topic/ but when a person repeatedly recommends 'non-CentOS' approaches over acceptable CentOS product, I'll certainly notice ... and that is perhaps not a good thing for further advancement. I _USE_ tinydns some places where it is the right fit, but I don't mention it here
6. Once you have demonstrated skills, ask to be admitted to the next QA effort (we get three of four point update chances a year), and do QA. People who sign up and are admitted often slack off [don't participate in the ML, don't file reports, are not in IRC], and by that inaction demonstrate they are are not interested in progressing further. People _do_ get busy with real life or have to rest from burnout and take time off
7. Once you have demonstrated skills, ask for some special project to build some element of needed infrastructure that is not otherwise getting done, and do it. John Pierce's post earlier this week certainly caught my eye, as he demonstrated self-starter problem solving skills in a complex space I had not seen before. He is now on my 'watch list' to draw into the project
Will any of those 'earn' a centos.org mailing address as someone lamented they lacked earlier in this thread? Sometimes, but frankly, we don't give those out easily. I saw a remark earlier:
In the meanwhile some things ... are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
'We' can perhaps be read here as a generic 'things are on the right track' -- but frankly, the only 'we' that I would look to for authoritative statements as to the project are people with a '@centos.org' in their email address. There is back channel coordination, infrastructure, and much more
And even then (as an example) I might not accurately KNOW exact status of the project as it is moving along. My QA work on AMD K6-II support went back and forth in an email and IRC interchange with three of the eight signers participating yesterday. I (sadly) happened to have the right answer as it turned out, and a hoped for patch for its support is not working properly yet. I saw the draft 4.8 release notes go out and come back in translation, and while I have not read the final copy, I know that a fourth person in the QA loop was watching the thread for changes
You (Marcus) have established yourself as irrelevant to me. I will not presently be supporting you for further advancement into the CentOS infrastructure if you seek or are proposed for such, until I see some 'merit' outside of talking
I do not see any problem here.
Of course you do not -- you are not doing the work to write code, nor implement a trial setup, nor see the errors nor solve them. It is easy to tell others to do something
How about you stop posting to a mailing list and do some work? I am certainly not going to pursue your visions unless you pay me to do so. Similarly I will not propose that others be forced to work toward your 'arm waving' visions within the aegis of the CentOS project
Maybe, but I like the idea of setting up a community backed Enterprise OS and CentOS is a great choice for that task.
And I would like a pony
As before as I told Ned:
> BTW, I and many others really like the Wiki
Then we differ, but great stuff still happens -- that's how FOSS works
Here as well, we differ -- CentOS at its core is about boring, and stable and conservative as a core value. You are in the wrong place if you think otherwise. It makes a fine BASE to build on, as Dag's archive has long demonstrated, but there is NOT a good fit for a beginner to start doing invasive changes to get 'the latest and greatest' to compile. That is the 'rap' as to Axel's archive, and why people end up frustrated using it and moan and groan about their ignorance and NOT READING our clear warnings on the wiki's Repositories page
I'll go further -- complaints about RPMforge being down, or affirmations that EPEL is the cat's whiskers on CentOS channels will not just be silently ignored by me here any more. I will start remarking about them just not being supported here. I will probably start adding a <!> to wiki content, warning people using such outside archives that such content is NOT vetted, nor supported by CentOS, but rather by the relevant project's support mechanisms (if any)
[Al]pine just flashed that Johnny could not sleep either and posted something -- I'll stop now and go snooze a bit
-- Russ herrold
Dear Russ.
You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you.
Hey Russ, it's open source. You can just review the spec and comment it until it's ready for release. Source could be fetched directly from upstream and patches could be verified easily.
If you want my attention seeking to persuade, do not start a communication: 'Hey' as I consider it rude.
Sorry if I was getting rude and thanks for pointing some things out. ...
You (Marcus) have established yourself as irrelevant to me. I will not presently be supporting you for further advancement into the CentOS infrastructure if you seek or are proposed for such, until I see some 'merit' outside of talking
... but I must admit that your above statement is very rude to me.
I have started working on the project about 1 1/2 year ago, joined the promo sig and tried to promote CentOS. I personally do not see much sense in a bugtracker despite to distinguish if a bug should be tracked upstream or not. The few bugs left that are 'really' related to the project is something I am willed to look at.
Al and I have already started working on the new Website Infrastructure and forum migration with quite a lot success (which can be seen in the wiki).
Since March, Al is getting payed by me for his work on the project.
I have offered my help on rebuilding the which was not necessary so I have aksed Karan to line out the build process to make it at least transparent as possible (which is necessary in my pov).
I am continuously tracking wiki changes and fixing articles.
Besides that I have started to talk with Karan about setting up a legal background for the project and offered my help in the GSoC and contributed to the necessary application docs. Besides that I have taken care of the Pulse Newsletter.
This, I have all done in my 'free' time and I do not welcome your comments on that. Maybe we are working on different areas but this is not the form of respect I expect form a person like you. Btw. I would rather call myself a pusher not a talker ;)
But I have agree on some points. CentOS != Fedora and note meant to be for newcomers (at least in form of contributions) and maybe a 'Board' is not possible on a project like this. But at least contributors should be welcomed and not treated like today and if a 'Contrib' repository is available it should be used as named. Otherwise I would just remove it and suggest EPEL/RPMForge instead.
Best Regards Marcus
On Aug 8, 2009, at 10:24 AM, Marcus Moeller mail@marcus-moeller.de wrote:
Dear Russ.
You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you.
Hey Russ, it's open source. You can just review the spec and comment it until it's ready for release. Source could be fetched directly from upstream and patches could be verified easily.
If you want my attention seeking to persuade, do not start a communication: 'Hey' as I consider it rude.
Sorry if I was getting rude and thanks for pointing some things out. ...
You (Marcus) have established yourself as irrelevant to me. I will not presently be supporting you for further advancement into the CentOS infrastructure if you seek or are proposed for such, until I see some 'merit' outside of talking
... but I must admit that your above statement is very rude to me.
I'm loath to further this thread any more, but like it or not if core developers say it's closed to contributions, it's closed to contributions.
I'm happy to make package suggestions on 'devel' in hopes that one developer might see merit in a package and pick it up for 'extras' or 'plus', but if not, then oh well.
There is no point in whining about it. This is a small group with a very distinct goal. Provide a equivalent community supported version of a commercial Linux package and that is it. They are not out to create their own spin-off distribution, if you want that try Scientific Linux, but an IP free duplication that projects like Scientific Linux can base off of.
-Ross
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 06:52:09AM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
Here as well, we differ -- CentOS at its core is about boring, and stable and conservative as a core value. You are in the wrong place if you think otherwise. It makes a fine BASE to build on, as Dag's archive has long demonstrated, but there is NOT a good fit for a beginner to start doing invasive changes to get 'the latest and greatest' to compile. That is the 'rap' as to Axel's archive, and why people end up frustrated using it and moan and groan about their ignorance and NOT READING our clear warnings on the wiki's Repositories page
I'm not sure I understand correctly, does that mean that you imply ATrpms is doing invasive changes to CentOS/RHEL and people using it end up frustrated while ATrpms is showing ignorance towards them?
Axel Thimm wrote:
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 06:52:09AM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
Here as well, we differ -- CentOS at its core is about boring, and stable and conservative as a core value. You are in the wrong place if you think otherwise. It makes a fine BASE to build on, as Dag's archive has long demonstrated, but there is NOT a good fit for a beginner to start doing invasive changes to get 'the latest and greatest' to compile. That is the 'rap' as to Axel's archive, and why people end up frustrated using it and moan and groan about their ignorance and NOT READING our clear warnings on the wiki's Repositories page
I'm not sure I understand correctly, does that mean that you imply ATrpms is doing invasive changes to CentOS/RHEL and people using it end up frustrated while ATrpms is showing ignorance towards them?
I don't want to speak for Russ here, but what I think he means is that ATrpms allows things to be added to CentOS/RHEL that require a lot more attention because of the parts the core OS some things replace, especially things outside the Stable branch.
Personally, I don't think this is unexpected, as ATrpms also adds lots of functionality ... much like our CentOS Plus repos.
So there is much flexibility (a good thing), but also the possibility to break your install if you don't know what you are doing.
Of course, this is also very true of the CentOS Plus repo too ... if you add everything willie nillie, then it can also cause issues.
Certainly I think ATrpms is a great resource and I use it where I need it. I would recommend caution where things outside the Stable branch are used (just like I recommend for CentOS Plus or the CentOS Testing repos).
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 04:04:10AM -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Axel Thimm wrote:
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 06:52:09AM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
Here as well, we differ -- CentOS at its core is about boring, and stable and conservative as a core value. You are in the wrong place if you think otherwise. It makes a fine BASE to build on, as Dag's archive has long demonstrated, but there is NOT a good fit for a beginner to start doing invasive changes to get 'the latest and greatest' to compile. That is the 'rap' as to Axel's archive, and why people end up frustrated using it and moan and groan about their ignorance and NOT READING our clear warnings on the wiki's Repositories page
I'm not sure I understand correctly, does that mean that you imply ATrpms is doing invasive changes to CentOS/RHEL and people using it end up frustrated while ATrpms is showing ignorance towards them?
I don't want to speak for Russ here, but what I think he means is that ATrpms allows things to be added to CentOS/RHEL that require a lot more attention because of the parts the core OS some things replace, especially things outside the Stable branch.
Actually all bits that would replace RHEL/CentOS even if rock solid/stable have been moved out of the stable branch to allow CentOS to claim that ATrpms *stable* is not replacing any CentOS parts.
I agree that the name "testing" is being badly abused at ATrpms for harboring "package-that-replace-vendor-packages", at least for the RHEL/CentOS/SL packages.
Personally, I don't think this is unexpected, as ATrpms also adds lots of functionality ... much like our CentOS Plus repos.
So there is much flexibility (a good thing), but also the possibility to break your install if you don't know what you are doing.
Nobody should even blindly enable (sub)repos that are labeled "testing" or "bleeding". Even though even for CentOS the "testing" repo would be rather stable, people should feel intimidated not to taint their systems with "testing" w/o asking first. I do get a lot of queries of why for example the dovecot packages are marked "testing" for that long although they have proven very stable over several years.
Of course, this is also very true of the CentOS Plus repo too ... if you add everything willie nillie, then it can also cause issues.
Everything I think ATrpms could potentially break lands in "bleeding", and especially for RHEL/CentOS/SL takes a while to be granted testing or even stable status.
I really don't get much negative input from RHEL/CentOS folks due to that. I usually only get complians of "the latest RHEL/CentOS kernel has no blah-kmdl support, why?" when usually the kernel changes from 5.x to 5.x+1 break the kernel module builds.
Certainly I think ATrpms is a great resource and I use it where I need it. I would recommend caution where things outside the Stable branch are used (just like I recommend for CentOS Plus or the CentOS Testing repos).
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 01:05:55PM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
I attribute no bad intent or action to you, nor ATrpms, and indeed both have mirrored your SRPMs, and build and use from it and have for years
As my initial post pointed, some people complaining are people blindly mashing archives together, who will never read the clear use case advisories in the CentOS wiki, at your site, or anywhere else, so far as I can tell from experience, anyway
I think we should get rpmrepo.org running and make an end with any motivation to mix archives on RHEL/CentOS/SL/Fedora land.
On Sun, 9 Aug 2009, Axel Thimm wrote:
On Sat, Aug 08, 2009 at 06:52:09AM -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
That is the 'rap' as to Axel's archive, and why people end up frustrated using it and moan and groan about their ignorance and NOT READING our clear warnings on the wiki's Repositories page
I'm not sure I understand correctly, does that mean that you imply ATrpms is doing invasive changes to CentOS/RHEL and people using it end up frustrated while ATrpms is showing ignorance towards them?
I attribute no bad intent or action to you, nor ATrpms, and indeed both have mirrored your SRPMs, and build and use from it and have for years
As my initial post pointed, some people complaining are people blindly mashing archives together, who will never read the clear use case advisories in the CentOS wiki, at your site, or anywhere else, so far as I can tell from experience, anyway
-- Russ herrold
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 08:28 +0200, Andrew Colin Kissa wrote:
On 07 Aug 2009, at 8:14 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote:
(like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge.
--- Russ,
Those of us that are in the file server business may would like to contribute a package for centos 3 4 5 and beta6. Will you point us to a reference link please or provide a little info.
JohnStanley
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 11:05 -0400, JohnS wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 08:28 +0200, Andrew Colin Kissa wrote:
On 07 Aug 2009, at 8:14 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote:
(like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track.
Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge.
Russ,
Those of us that are in the file server business may would like to contribute a package for centos 3 4 5 and beta6. Will you point us to a reference link please or provide a little info.
JohnStanley
Sorry I found a link in the dev list.
John
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Russ,
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization.
- chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the
first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe
Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking.
I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again?
That"s a great offer and what I titled as mentorship.
I think the issue here, at least as perceived by those outside of the project core, is that little is done to actively encourage contributors (ie, mentorship). It's all very well noting and observing the talent develop and calling upon said talent down the line so long as said talent hasn't lost interest in your project in the meantime. What concerns me is that I see absolutely no effort on behalf of the project to nurture/develop/mentor the next generation of CentOS developers. Who will step up to the plate and commit to being lead dev on EL6 with a 7 year lifecycle, a full update set every 6 months, security updates to rebuild at no notice. It's a huge undertaking.
From my own experiences when trying to contribute, I have repeatedly been told not to bother, not to do it and to go away. So in the end that's what I did out of frustration - I went away and founded the elrepo project with a few others who also wanted to contribute but found themselves unable to do so. Initially I viewed this as a failure - I would much rather have seen the elrepo driver project be done as the CentOS Dasha project (and likewise, for fasttrack). But now I see it as an advantage not being part of a CentOS project - by not being part of CentOS we are able to support and work with the whole Enterprise Linux community (incl. RHEL and SL), not just CentOS. Red Hat have recognised our value and we are already engaged with Red Hat developers in discussions regarding the direction of the driver update programme in RHEL6. It would be nice if the CentOS Project wanted to engage too :-)
IMHO I think it's a shame CentOS doesn't presently offer rebuilds of the FasTrack channel. I know there is a need within the community (our own logs from our fasttrack offering show us that). Let me say this isn't particularly about fasttrack or about me, it's about highlighting how the process doesn't work - I merely use my own experience as an example to highlight this. I have expressed a willingness to contribute. I have shown a commitment over a reasonable length of time, so I'm not the here today, gone tomorrow type. I have been rejected, gone off and done it anyway, so I have demonstrated resilience and determination - I've demonstrated I'm a "do'er" not a "talker". My "product" is out there for others to view and judge my level of competence (I don't and never have claimed to know everything or be perfect, I only display a willingness to continue to learn and develop). I merely seek to contribute back to a community from which I have taken something of value. Yet at every step of the way I have been rejected and knocked back. Never once has a CentOS dev approached me with an offer of mentorship or advice or anything else. As I said, this is absolutely not about me - my circumstances are not unique. For every person like me who is knocked back or rejected, there must be dozens more onlookers who see that and don't even bother trying to engage with the project.
Another example is the forums. I started engaging with the CentOS project back in 2005 in the CentOS forums. For years I worked diligently helping users there and was "rewarded" for my efforts in 2008 being made a forum moderator/administrator. My fellow forum moderators both have @centos.org email addresses, something I was denied? How is one supposed to represent the project when one isn't given the tools to do so? It's only an email alias - why would some be afforded that and others be denied? You may think this is a moot point and I'm complaining for the sake of it, but it's about how you make people feel - do they feel valued and worthwhile or are they made to feel like their efforts don't really matter. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that only a handful of people actively participate on bugs.centos.org. Do you ever wonder why no one contributes on bugs.centos.org? Perhaps if you understand my point in this paragraph then you will start to understand why you have no contributors on bugs.centos.org? Generally when people are made to feel like they are worthless inconveniences they will go elsewhere. You can't just treat people like shit, say CentOS is a meritocracy and you "cannot help their wounded feelings" and then wonder why they don't want to help you :-)
Which brings me to the point that great software developers do not always make great managers of people or people's expectations - the two skill sets are not mutually inclusive. I have said it before, and Marcus has said it herein, maybe the CentOS Project could use a Community Manager role - someone to be the public face of the project and interface between the community and the core development team. Someone like Akemi has time and time again demonstrated the required skills and would be my nomination should such a role ever exist. This would also free up valuable developer time to concentrate on development issues rather than responding to media nonsense all over the place - let the project speak with one voice and let that voice be one who understands how to deal with the public. Just an idea.
We had large parts of this discussion nearly a year ago in private and were told things would improve. Since then nothing has changed and we're having the same discussion again, this time in public. And again we are told things will improve. Last time a lot of the concern stemmed around the lag of the 5.3 release, being 10 weeks. We were told that processes were being put in place to improve that situation. Now we're having this discussion again in the midst of an ongoing 12 week lag (and counting) for the release of 4.8. It seems to generally be moving in the wrong direction.
Russ is right, people are engaged in this discussion because they care passionately about the project and want it to succeed. IMHO if CentOS continues to ship a product based on a ~6 month update cycle where 3 months of the year security updates are late (more than the stated 72h) and the other 3 months there are no security updates at all due to the update lag period (now running at 12 weeks) required to produce the product, then at least to me that is a major cause for concern.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
Ned Slider wrote:
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Russ,
Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of "what if" those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though.
As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization.
- chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the
first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe
Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking.
I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again?
That"s a great offer and what I titled as mentorship.
I think the issue here, at least as perceived by those outside of the project core, is that little is done to actively encourage contributors (ie, mentorship). It's all very well noting and observing the talent develop and calling upon said talent down the line so long as said talent hasn't lost interest in your project in the meantime. What concerns me is that I see absolutely no effort on behalf of the project to nurture/develop/mentor the next generation of CentOS developers. Who will step up to the plate and commit to being lead dev on EL6 with a 7 year lifecycle, a full update set every 6 months, security updates to rebuild at no notice. It's a huge undertaking.
From my own experiences when trying to contribute, I have repeatedly been told not to bother, not to do it and to go away. So in the end that's what I did out of frustration - I went away and founded the elrepo project with a few others who also wanted to contribute but found themselves unable to do so. Initially I viewed this as a failure - I would much rather have seen the elrepo driver project be done as the CentOS Dasha project (and likewise, for fasttrack). But now I see it as an advantage not being part of a CentOS project - by not being part of CentOS we are able to support and work with the whole Enterprise Linux community (incl. RHEL and SL), not just CentOS. Red Hat have recognised our value and we are already engaged with Red Hat developers in discussions regarding the direction of the driver update programme in RHEL6. It would be nice if the CentOS Project wanted to engage too :-)
IMHO I think it's a shame CentOS doesn't presently offer rebuilds of the FasTrack channel. I know there is a need within the community (our own logs from our fasttrack offering show us that). Let me say this isn't particularly about fasttrack or about me, it's about highlighting how the process doesn't work - I merely use my own experience as an example to highlight this. I have expressed a willingness to contribute. I have shown a commitment over a reasonable length of time, so I'm not the here today, gone tomorrow type. I have been rejected, gone off and done it anyway, so I have demonstrated resilience and determination - I've demonstrated I'm a "do'er" not a "talker". My "product" is out there for others to view and judge my level of competence (I don't and never have claimed to know everything or be perfect, I only display a willingness to continue to learn and develop). I merely seek to contribute back to a community from which I have taken something of value. Yet at every step of the way I have been rejected and knocked back. Never once has a CentOS dev approached me with an offer of mentorship or advice or anything else. As I said, this is absolutely not about me - my circumstances are not unique. For every person like me who is knocked back or rejected, there must be dozens more onlookers who see that and don't even bother trying to engage with the project.
Another example is the forums. I started engaging with the CentOS project back in 2005 in the CentOS forums. For years I worked diligently helping users there and was "rewarded" for my efforts in 2008 being made a forum moderator/administrator. My fellow forum moderators both have @centos.org email addresses, something I was denied? How is one supposed to represent the project when one isn't given the tools to do so? It's only an email alias - why would some be afforded that and others be denied? You may think this is a moot point and I'm complaining for the sake of it, but it's about how you make people feel - do they feel valued and worthwhile or are they made to feel like their efforts don't really matter. It was mentioned earlier in this thread that only a handful of people actively participate on bugs.centos.org. Do you ever wonder why no one contributes on bugs.centos.org? Perhaps if you understand my point in this paragraph then you will start to understand why you have no contributors on bugs.centos.org? Generally when people are made to feel like they are worthless inconveniences they will go elsewhere. You can't just treat people like shit, say CentOS is a meritocracy and you "cannot help their wounded feelings" and then wonder why they don't want to help you :-)
Which brings me to the point that great software developers do not always make great managers of people or people's expectations - the two skill sets are not mutually inclusive. I have said it before, and Marcus has said it herein, maybe the CentOS Project could use a Community Manager role - someone to be the public face of the project and interface between the community and the core development team. Someone like Akemi has time and time again demonstrated the required skills and would be my nomination should such a role ever exist. This would also free up valuable developer time to concentrate on development issues rather than responding to media nonsense all over the place - let the project speak with one voice and let that voice be one who understands how to deal with the public. Just an idea.
We had large parts of this discussion nearly a year ago in private and were told things would improve. Since then nothing has changed and we're having the same discussion again, this time in public. And again we are told things will improve. Last time a lot of the concern stemmed around the lag of the 5.3 release, being 10 weeks. We were told that processes were being put in place to improve that situation. Now we're having this discussion again in the midst of an ongoing 12 week lag (and counting) for the release of 4.8. It seems to generally be moving in the wrong direction.
I am personally on the 4.8 release now, it will move forward ... I guarantee it.
We are not moving in the wrong direction ... trust me or not, I don't care.
Russ is right, people are engaged in this discussion because they care passionately about the project and want it to succeed. IMHO if CentOS continues to ship a product based on a ~6 month update cycle where 3 months of the year security updates are late (more than the stated 72h) and the other 3 months there are no security updates at all due to the update lag period (now running at 12 weeks) required to produce the product, then at least to me that is a major cause for concern.
Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8.
If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Russ,
[huge snip]
Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8.
If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
Dear Russ,
[huge snip]
Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8.
If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
I'd like to double this: It'd be exactly the same (or one of two) response(s) that one would get from the OpenBSD guys, at least the less social ones that don't have a clue to control themselves. The other one would be 'Shut the f*** up and code!'.
After a really long odyssey I ended up (almost) where I started: Using NetBSD and CentOS (at least, what's OSS).
Best,
Timo
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Russ,
[huge snip]
Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8.
If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
On Fri, August 7, 2009 12:54 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
Marcus Moeller wrote:
Dear Russ,
[huge snip]
Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8.
If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them.
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
Johnny,
With all due respect, it is not what you are saying but how, especially considering your prominent role on the project.
Marko
Johnny Hughes wrote:
There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :)
There are always other distros if you don't like this one ...
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
*sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
"Meeting expectations" is at least partly a matter of setting the expectations realistically. If we wanted to hear 'it ships when it's ready', we'd probably be running debian. That's not what we've been led to expect from Centos nor, I think, what you want people to expect. I no longer run 4.x so the delays there don't affect me, but in general I'd give about equal weight to having timely security updates as to never having mistakes in the repository - failure of either can have equally disastrous results. While I don't personally have many qualms about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence.
Les Mikesell wrote:
*sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I think he did - use RHEL, it's a drop in replacement. Red Hat seems to be a pretty healthy company at this point and I at least don't expect them to go away in the near-mid term.
I'm kind of surprised of some of the folks on this list how high their expectations are of the CentOS team, they do the best that they can, they don't require anything in return, though I'm sure they appreciate donations and stuff.
about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence.
I'd rather the team be honest(which it seems they have been) on their expectations and stuff rather than spin PR stuff to boost themselves/distribution.
As time goes on it seems more and more sad the volumes of folks that seem to believe everything should be free and at the same time work perfectly, the number of corporations that base their systems/products off of CentOS is pretty big, and I'd be surprised if they contributed anywhere near the value of the product back into the community.
It's a fight I have on occasion even at my company, where some people want to replace solutions that they previous paid for with free ones just because they are "free". I think in those situations companies should at least strongly consider some sort of contribution back to the community, the easiest is just in some $$, but contributing code and fixes would be nice too, but companies that do that seem to be very few and far between. Going with RHEL can be a good compromise, which is one reason I'm pushing for RHEL here as a good chunk of what is paid for RHEL goes to the open source community in the form of developer hours and stuff.
Unfortunate times we are in..
nate (CentOS user for about 4 years now, Debian user for about 11 years)
nate wrote:
*sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I think he did - use RHEL, it's a drop in replacement. Red Hat seems to be a pretty healthy company at this point and I at least don't expect them to go away in the near-mid term.
No, that's a possible contingency plan for each of us if the Centos project dies. SL is another. But, will the Centos project really die if Johnny gets hit by a bus? That's not what you expect from something called a 'community' project - you expect someone else to be able to step in instead of suddenly leaving everyone to fend for themselves separately.
I'm kind of surprised of some of the folks on this list how high their expectations are of the CentOS team, they do the best that they can, they don't require anything in return, though I'm sure they appreciate donations and stuff.
That's what happens when you do things right for several years...
about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence.
I'd rather the team be honest(which it seems they have been) on their expectations and stuff rather than spin PR stuff to boost themselves/distribution.
I'm not asking them to be dishonest because I don't doubt their abilities and really don't expect the project to fail if a person or two drops out or has some time issues. I think they can be honest and still say the project has a plan and infrastructure to continue. They just haven't said it that way yet.
As time goes on it seems more and more sad the volumes of folks that seem to believe everything should be free and at the same time work perfectly, the number of corporations that base their systems/products off of CentOS is pretty big, and I'd be surprised if they contributed anywhere near the value of the product back into the community.
Don't forget that the biggest reason Centos works perfectly is the quality control that has gone into the code base before they touch it. That's not to belittle the amount of work they have to do or their competence in not breaking it while making the required changes, but really we'd all be better off if Red Hat still permitted binary redistribution as they did back when they acquired their base of community support.
It's a fight I have on occasion even at my company, where some people want to replace solutions that they previous paid for with free ones just because they are "free". I think in those situations companies should at least strongly consider some sort of contribution back to the community, the easiest is just in some $$, but contributing code and fixes would be nice too, but companies that do that seem to be very few and far between. Going with RHEL can be a good compromise, which is one reason I'm pushing for RHEL here as a good chunk of what is paid for RHEL goes to the open source community in the form of developer hours and stuff.
Don't forget that most of the code doesn't originate with RHEL either and the applications we really care about running mostly aren't unique to any particular distribution.
Unfortunate times we are in..
On the contrary, we have an embarrassment of choices - so many that one of the big deciding factors has to be a consideration of the project's likely ability to survive. Centos has been and probably will continue to be among the best. I just wish they'd say so in terms that give confidence in the future.
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Les Mikesell wrote:
project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control.
I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on?
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
-- Russ herrold
R P Herrold wrote:
project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control.
I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on?
Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one.
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
So is it contrib repo or my buddies repo ? All we are asking is put in place the mechanisms to vet the reputation. The project can not be a true community project when there are no mechanisms for contribution.
On 07 Aug 2009, at 9:00 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know
Les Mikesell wrote:
R P Herrold wrote:
project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control.
I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on?
Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one.
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more.
There are only 2 people building SciLinux.
I am tired of all the complaining.
Use it or don't, at this point I don't care.
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Les Mikesell wrote:
R P Herrold wrote:
project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control.
I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on?
Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one.
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more.
There are only 2 people building SciLinux.
I am tired of all the complaining.
Use it or don't, at this point I don't care.
I want to point out as well that we have SIGs with people in them who can commit limited code an items ... and those groups each have a team member who validates the code.
We are not trying to become Fedora, it already exists.
There are 3rd party repos as well for things that are not part of CentOS proper.
Our goal is 100% compliance and testing that compliance with upstream functionality.
The community is the Mailing Lists ... the Forums ... the Wiki, etc.
Not building packages and submitting packages to the repositories. (Although we do allow that also in a limited fashion in the SIGS and the testing repo.)
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Les Mikesell wrote:
R P Herrold wrote:
project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control.
I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on?
Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one.
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more.
There are only 2 people building SciLinux.
I am tired of all the complaining.
Use it or don't, at this point I don't care.
I want to point out as well that we have SIGs with people in them who can commit limited code an items ... and those groups each have a team member who validates the code.
We are not trying to become Fedora, it already exists.
There are 3rd party repos as well for things that are not part of CentOS proper.
Our goal is 100% compliance and testing that compliance with upstream functionality.
The community is the Mailing Lists ... the Forums ... the Wiki, etc.
Not building packages and submitting packages to the repositories. (Although we do allow that also in a limited fashion in the SIGS and the testing repo.)
Oh, and I forgot the bugs database.
All the bugs are open, anyone should feel free to go there, look at the bugs, scour the redhat bugzilla and the other upstream sites and post patches and/or other fixes. Anyone can register an account and write post there.
If it is a fix to an upstream package (which we will not publish until they do), we will gladly post it upstream and get it rolled into the upstream code (if/when THEY decide to roll it in). I have, in the past. maintained many patched packages while waiting for things to get into an upstream package and posted it to the testing repos.
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Les Mikesell wrote:
And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one.
oh please -- You've been around software, computers, and FOSS long enough to know the game --
Publish a schedule and take a day longer. Not soon enough, why are they so slow, and if a miss, the sky is falling, in commercial world angry stockholder suits, and all the externalities; don't publish a schedule and say: when it is ready, or enforce no un-planned leaks like Apple or RHT: just as much carping, but no miss.
People can project their expectations all they wish; I won't feed those
We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans.
I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise.
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know
as may be, but the same result obtains for me being frank.
someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
The sub-domain under discussion and mentioned by hughesjr and others is a sub-doamin of centos.org. I believe the group has sketched it out already. Website, front page, top right:
The CentOS project is now in control of the CentOS.org ... domain ...
but as I said before, people do not read, or will not believe what we write. More details appear when we release more details
Who is the fool here?
-- Russ herrold
On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture?
I'm not quite sure what it is you want. From what I see, there were eight developers who signed the Open Letter to Lance Davis. I assume (don't know) that these eight developers are the ones who "rebuild" Red Hat into CentOS -- so how could it mean that if one gets hit by a bus, the project ends? As you've also mentioned (in another post) they basically take "upstream" code and rebuild it (removing "upstream's" name). So, my question is, what kind of input from the community would change any of this? And what is it that you actually want community input to change?
I look at it this way. CentOS is 100% compatible with "upstream." By using RPMForge and the other repositories I can "modify" CentOS to my heart's content.
From my point of view, this non-problem is completely solved.
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
[snip]
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this "unbelievable amount of time and effort.." *for*?
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job.
Enough said.
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
[snip]
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this "unbelievable amount of time and effort.." *for*?
Not for you, for people who appreciate it. I have never been paid a dime for any work to the CentOS project.
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job.
Enough said.
Let me see.
First, I give you a free product that people pay thousands of dollars for. I do so voluntarily.
Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass?
What kind of attitude should I have when you come into my organization, take a free product, tell me that everyone working on the project sucks, tell me that they need to work harder and get you the free product faster, tell me that you need to have a say in how the organization works?
If you want to use the product, do so.
If not, don't.
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 05:48 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
[snip]
Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me.
It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*.
Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me.
And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one.
Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things.
My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this "unbelievable amount of time and effort.." *for*?
Not for you, for people who appreciate it. I have never been paid a dime for any work to the CentOS project.
Have I said I don't appreciate it? It so happens I do. More than I can say. Have I indicated you have been paid?
If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset.
It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job.
Enough said.
Let me see.
First, I give you a free product that people pay thousands of dollars for. I do so voluntarily.
Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass?
Is it necessary to insult me? I have said *nothing* to you to warrant this.
What kind of attitude should I have when you come into my organization, take a free product, tell me that everyone working on the project sucks, tell me that they need to work harder and get you the free product faster, tell me that you need to have a say in how the organization works?
I said *nothing* of the sort. BTW, "my organization"???
Sheesh!
Alan Sparks wrote:
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 05:48 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass?
Is it necessary to insult me? I have said *nothing* to you to warrant this.
Jeez, people, take it offline. -Alan
Sorry Alan, but with the greatest respect I believe it important that these types of discussions are allowed to happen openly within the community. This thread was started on a community mailing list by a member of that community expressing what he would like to see from his Community Enterprise OS. Why people feel the need to be so aggressive, I'm not sure but we are all adults and I'm sure no one will be mortally wounded by a few ill chosen words in the heat of debate.
Some within the community have expressed what they would like from their Community Enterprise OS and the developers have made it perfectly clear that it is their Community Enterprise OS (not the community's), and that the community can go whistle (my interpretation). That's a useful discussion to have openly and in public IMHO. Please do not try to stifle it.
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 18:28 +0100, Ned Slider wrote:
<snip>
Sorry Alan, but with the greatest respect I believe it important that these types of discussions are allowed to happen openly within the community. This thread was started on a community mailing list by a member of that community expressing what he would like to see from his Community Enterprise OS. Why people feel the need to be so aggressive, I'm not sure but we are all adults and I'm sure no one will be mortally wounded by a few ill chosen words in the heat of debate.
++
Some within the community have expressed what they would like from their Community Enterprise OS and the developers have made it perfectly clear that it is their Community Enterprise OS (not the community's), and that the community can go whistle (my interpretation).
++
That's a usefuldiscussion to have openly and in public IMHO. Please do not try to stifle it.
++
<snip sig stuff>
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, Bob Taylor wrote:
Personally, it disgusts me.
Have I said I don't appreciate it?
Yes, actually -- I call b*llsh*t -- you who have done nothing are here, and eat without charge at our table, and 'it disgusts' you
Begone, troll
-- Russ herrold
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, R P Herrold wrote:
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, Bob Taylor wrote:
Personally, it disgusts me.
Have I said I don't appreciate it?
Yes, actually -- I call b*llsh*t -- you who have done nothing are here, and eat without charge at our table, and 'it disgusts' you
Begone, troll
Russ,
I am quite concerned about your responses (from a @centos.org address). You can agree or disagree with the content of criticism, you can ignore it or refute it. But it's poor judgement to dismiss it the way you do because people have not contributed. (Unless you want users to simply shut up)
It shows that you (as a project's representative) are not interested or concerned about the users. And any opinion is only worthy if coming from a contributed user (which limits you to the selected few that are in the inner circle). Is everything else b*llshit ?
You equally torpedo'd Marcus Moeller who _is_ a contributing user, even if you don't think high of his contributions, I feel you should refrain from discouraging users the way you do in this thread.
It's not the community fostering that we need right now. Criticism is good if you handle it well. Channel it. Enable people to contribute to fix it. Give orders and provide details.
I am sure that this approach is more fruitful in the long run. A potential contributor is not willing to spend effort if there's no hope it is worthwhile. Give hope ! Show it is worthwhile !
PS We started the newsletter (which Marcus is now leading) to highlight success stories. Show who helped contributing and how one could contribute. Give credit where credit is due. More positivism...
Dag
concern is good and you are right about how CentOS people should have a solid testimony for the projects "big picture"
the thing is that since day one, as near as i have experienced and can tell, most of them have many years of "rock solid CentOS work" as a testimony.
rock solid!
we haven't had one *MAJOR* issue with anything the Dev Team has put out since day one and that is across versions 3, 4, and 5.
all of the servers have been online 24/7 for years.
that is one incredible CentOS group testimony.
yet, the people that are *poking the bears* (tm) in the CentOS Dev team should put up or shut up and need to work on as good a testimony in thier work lives and in their postings.
some time ago, i wanted to see if our organization would be a good fit to be of assistance and i was politely told that what is required is "to do work"... i.e., *get work done* and possibly join the team...
one need to really prove themselves that they have what it takes with little to no handholding.
... and not just flap their typing gums on the list
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isnt productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
- rh
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote: <snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 15:04 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Possible Perception Problem? When a non-contributing user sees an opportunity for improvement in the projects <insert your preferred project activity here>, the user should not only make a suggestion but also state why it is a good idea and situations that support the need for an improvement.
This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of "unwarranted criticism", "whining" by someone who paid nothing, "lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do", etc.
<snip sig stuff>
This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of "unwarranted criticism", "whining" by someone who paid nothing, "lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do", etc.
<snip sig stuff>
-- Bill
Bill,
Good points...
yet you forgot about "presentation".... if a person makes a poor presentation of possibly helpful and/or valid criticism, then it is similar to the wisdom that says...
As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
plus...
...maybe some are forgetting that the upstream does close to 700 million a year in sales and has no debt... after all the number crunching it appears they show a profit in the 80 million a year range.
in my humble estimation, CentOS if run reasonably well and truly supported by it's community could have a good fraction of to a full 1% of that yearly....
The Team does extremely well technically now, yet imagine how well the CentOS Dev team could do if they could take paychecks as well as hire other needed positions. eh?
I'd like to see CentOS flourish in all possible ways !!!
i want to ride on the CentOS Lear when it is ready please???? ;->
again, it really will be best if people would "stop poking the bears".
- rh
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 16:14 -0700, Robert wrote:
This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of "unwarranted criticism", "whining" by someone who paid nothing, "lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do", etc.
<snip sig stuff>
-- Bill
Bill,
Good points...
yet you forgot about "presentation".... if a person makes a poor presentation of possibly helpful and/or valid criticism, then it is similar to the wisdom that says...
As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
Well, this thread had presented so many examples of "presentation" issues, by both sides (IMO), that I felt it need not be mentioned (and it was mentioned by another already). Plus I felt if I expressed my feelings about "presentation" I'd seen over time it would not add anything *useful* and might make the thread even less productive.
I think Dag's recent post puts it best. And if one accepts what he suggests, there's a lot of implications attached to it that I think some folks in the project wouldn't like.
But to each his own.
plus...
...maybe some are forgetting that the upstream does close to 700 million a year in sales and has no debt... after all the number crunching it appears they show a profit in the 80 million a year range.
in my humble estimation, CentOS if run reasonably well and truly supported by it's community could have a good fraction of to a full 1% of that yearly....
The Team does extremely well technically now, yet imagine how well the CentOS Dev team could do if they could take paychecks as well as hire other needed positions. eh?
I'd like to see CentOS flourish in all possible ways !!!
Ditto. And if there is a common and unifying attitude adopted by everyone inside the project that includes a concious effort to make folks feel welcome, within acceptable and well-documented limits, then the chance of success is increased.
Without the "buy-in" to a "corporate ethos" by the project members, success is likely harder or less. But it may still satisfy their individual objectives, and so be considered successful.
But I've seen other projects come and go. This one is no different. Problems almost always include (and even stem from) one thing that is the most difficult to obtain in a project of this sort - the suppressing of an ego-centric outlook for a more altruistic attitude and behavior.
Not an easy thing when there's no paycheck with which to buy commitment.
i want to ride on the CentOS Lear when it is ready please???? ;->
again, it really will be best if people would "stop poking the bears".
- rh
<snip sig stuff>
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Marko
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever
On 8/8/09, Marko A. Jennings markobiz@bluegargoyle.com wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip> > please stop poking the bears... ;-> > > it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the > people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion.
Makro: If I implied that, I did not express myself properly. Good suggestions, if submitted in the proper way, will probably be welcome by the developers. Criticism will not be welcome. The problem will be if the people who are not developers try to take control of the project or change the goals of the project.
<snip>
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
I agree with you on that. There are more polite and courteous ways. I suspect that the recent Open Letter to Lance, brought out a lot of things that have caused the developers great stress and frustration, for a year or more and now they need a chance to recuperate and regroup. Lanny
Marko A. Jennings wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Marko
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever
CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use.
They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc.
They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project.
They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS.
On Sat, August 8, 2009 8:44 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Marko A. Jennings wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Marko
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever
CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use.
They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc.>
They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project.
They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS.
Where exactly have I said, or even implied that? All I have tried to convey is that when people offer suggestions, they ought to be considered and answered in a polite manner. As I said before, it's not what is being said, but rather how.
Do we agree on this?
Marko A. Jennings wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 8:44 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote:
Marko A. Jennings wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Marko
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever
CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use.
They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc.>
They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project.
They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS.
Where exactly have I said, or even implied that? All I have tried to convey is that when people offer suggestions, they ought to be considered and answered in a polite manner. As I said before, it's not what is being said, but rather how.
Do we agree on this?
If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree.
I also can certainly try to be nicer, yes.
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 20:01 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree.
I also can certainly try to be nicer, yes.
---- I am very tired of this whole thread - I think you have covered it well.
But I will say this...you were always the nice one in CentOS and I think this list has suffered some from your lack of interaction.
Craig
Johnny Hughes wrote:
<snip>
If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree.
Before making an admission like that, you should re-read
http://wwwf.centos.org/127_story.html?storyid=127
I thought then and think now that you were 'way too humble in dealing with that blithering idiot.
Regards
I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o)
Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community.... but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise.
So, I suggest the product is renamed as...
Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell.
I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a "meritocracy" and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress.
________________________________ From: Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 1:44:47 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marko A. Jennings wrote:
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote:
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlists07@abbacomm.net wrote:
<snip>
please stop poking the bears... ;->
it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked
+1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved.
Lanny,
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Marko
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever
CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use.
They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc.
They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project.
They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS.
Ian Murray wrote:
I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o)
Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community.... but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise.
4 million unique machines do not agree with you, regardless of what you want to believe.
So, I suggest the product is renamed as...
Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell.
I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a "meritocracy" and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress.
CentOS is now what it has been for the last 5 years.
It is not any different now than it ever has been.
<snip>
4 million unique machines do not agree with you, regardless of what you want to believe.
I don't think the machines have an opinion, either way. :o) Seriously, I suppose you are using the '4 million machines we must be doing something right' argument which is fair comment, if perhaps a touch arrogant, IMHO. Have you rechecked that number after this thread?!? CentOS's success is based on confidence in the product and the 'support' infrastructure that surrounds it (i.e. upgrades, security, etc - I don't mean break/fix). Those 4 million machines are relying on a handful of (dedicated and hardworking) individuals. What is the contingency if any one of those gets long term sick, personal crisis or something worse? You only get contingency when you bring ppl in, pass on the knowledge, etc. This discussion harks back to the slowness of the release 5.3, were a wedding got in the way. Not doubt the 'core' team at CentOS are some pretty (scratch that... very) smart and hardworking guys but you are not the only ones in the CentOS world.
CentOS is now what it has been for the last 5 years.
It is not any different now than it ever has been.
Why pick a name that was so misleading, then?
<snip>
Anyway, best of luck with it all.
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:12 PM, Ian Murraymurrayie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o)
Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community.... but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise.
So, I suggest the product is renamed as...
Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell.
I'm a CentOS user, that's about it. I do what I can to promote CentOS, I "wrote" a Wiki entry for installing CentOS on a particular laptop (basically just a matter of filling out a form) and I answer some really, really simple questions on the Forums. That's what I know, so I try to do what I can. But even though my "contributions" to the CentOS Project are about as minimal as you can get, I still consider myself a part of the CentOS community. Quite bluntly, no one needs me trying to tell anyone how to build CentOS. And I can see no reason for community input in that process as the goal is simple -- a community rebuild of Red Hat -- 100% binary compatibility. This is why people use CentOS and what they expect it to be. What the rebuild process takes is competency and, unless you know something I don't know, the developers seem to be pretty damn competent to me.
What really irritates me about all this criticism at this time is that the developers have been putting out a great distribution, true to its mandate, despite some less than perfect conditions. They recently took a stand, have averted a crisis -- and are still in the middle of ironing out other problems. This is *not* the time to dump on them. This is the time to sit back, chill, and see how everything shakes out.
I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a "meritocracy" and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress.
"Adapt to progress?" It's a cliche, but what's it supposed to mean here? What is the "progress" you want CentOS to "adapt to?" How is "progress" supposed to work on a "rebuild" project? I asked that of someone else in this thread. I'm honestly curious as to what you want to "progress" toward? Personally the reason I like and use CentOS is because it stays true to its roots. Of all the Linux distributions, CentOS probably has the least wiggle room of any. I'm absolutely ignorant of the development process -- but to me (from the outside) it seems more like a "mechanical" exercise than an artistic endeavor. What "community input" would change any of this?
As for the bit about CentOS seeming "fragile," I ask, what makes you think that? I certainly don't look at it that way. Until the "Open Letter" I didn't even know there were any major issues (though I did sense a little tenseness). And despite those issues, a great distribution was released and updated. Now that some major problems have been ironed (and, I assume, others will be ironed out) what makes you think the project is suddenly more "fragile" now then it was before? I think you ask for real problems when *everyone* has a say in how the community should "progress?"
I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem?
<< I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem? >>
The 'progress' I am talking about it making those 4 million installs into 5 million installs, if that is important. (I wish 4 mill installs hadn't been raised, because on that basis, we should all do it the MS way because they win on seat count.) Or the ability to release errata updates while a dot release is pending (see below.) From a fragility point of view, I guess its always been present but it is highlighted in the open-letter and the delay of 5.3. In the letter, there is talk of CentOS dying if developers walk away, etc. Emotive language, no doubt born from frustration, but still sent a chill down my spine. I think I did read somewhere on the list that errata aren't addressed when a dot release is due, but rather rolled up into said dot release (correct me if I am wrong). I didn't realise that and that represents a risk to any one that relies on CentOS. Maybe if the process was more open, then that activity could be spun out to some new guys or more ideally a mixture of old and new. What a don't want to do is to pile more and more work on the current guys. That's when ppl do walk away because it starts affecting their life outside of CentOS, e.g. work, family, etc.
There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all.
If updates and upgrades stopped coming and there was no impact to you, then my words will not mean much to you. If however it does have an impact, then you may start to consider which basket you have put your eggs in. If the CentOS project is not interested in retaining the latter, then carry on as you are.
Anyway, I am rambling myself, so I will *try* to shut-up.
_______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Ian Murray wrote:
<< I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem? >>
The 'progress' I am talking about it making those 4 million installs into 5 million installs, if that is important. (I wish 4 mill installs hadn't been raised, because on that basis, we should all do it the MS way because they win on seat count.) Or the ability to release errata updates while a dot release is pending (see below.) From a fragility point of view, I guess its always been present but it is highlighted in the open-letter and the delay of 5.3. In the letter, there is talk of CentOS dying if developers walk away, etc. Emotive language, no doubt born from frustration, but still sent a chill down my spine. I think I did read somewhere on the list that errata aren't addressed when a dot release is due, but rather rolled up into said dot release (correct me if I am wrong). I didn't realise that and that represents a risk to any one that relies on CentOS. Maybe if the process was more open, then that activity could be spun out to some new guys or more ideally a mixture of old and new. What a don't want to do is to pile more and more work on the current guys. That's when ppl do walk away because it starts affecting their life outside of CentOS, e.g. work, family, etc.
There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all.
If updates and upgrades stopped coming and there was no impact to you, then my words will not mean much to you. If however it does have an impact, then you may start to consider which basket you have put your eggs in. If the CentOS project is not interested in retaining the latter, then carry on as you are.
WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge.
First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year).
Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream.
Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries.
We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream.
We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about.
That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago.
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Ian Murray wrote:
<snip>
WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge.
First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year).
Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream.
Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries.
We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream.
We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about.
That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago.
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
Let me get even a bit more technical.
Firefox-x.y.z gets released after the CentOS-A.b release.
Firefox needs nss-x.y.z-3. The released version of nss before the CentOS-A.b is nss-x.y.z-2.
No problem, build the new nss-x.y.z-3 first, then build Firefox-x.y.z.
Well, dang, nss-x.y.z-3 needs nspr-x.y.z-99 and nspr-x.y.z-98 is currently in CentOS-A.b ... so now we need to also build nspr-x.y.z-99.
There is a new version of glibc and gcc in the point release and it corrects ISSUE #ABCDE in the bugzilla, which impacts Firefox-x.y.z, so we have to build those 2 things to. They require PackageQ and PackageT to be rebuilt.
Now, while we are trying to figure out the complex relationships required to build firefox, would could have been testing and producing the point release. Add a couple more updates and what you have is a hodge podge mess of things released at different times.
You are also introducing bugs into CentOS that are not upstream in this kind of scenario (firefox-x.y.z running against xorg-x.y.z-3 does this thing ... but when running against xorg-x.y.z-4 it does not).
Hopefully I am making this issue clear.
I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument there is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS project.
Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with me on a Sunday! ;o)
________________________________ From: Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 13:54:50 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Ian Murray wrote:
<snip>
WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge.
First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year).
Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream.
Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries.
We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream.
We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about.
That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago.
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
Let me get even a bit more technical.
Firefox-x.y.z gets released after the CentOS-A.b release.
Firefox needs nss-x.y.z-3. The released version of nss before the CentOS-A.b is nss-x.y.z-2.
No problem, build the new nss-x.y.z-3 first, then build Firefox-x.y.z.
Well, dang, nss-x.y.z-3 needs nspr-x.y.z-99 and nspr-x.y.z-98 is currently in CentOS-A.b ... so now we need to also build nspr-x.y.z-99.
There is a new version of glibc and gcc in the point release and it corrects ISSUE #ABCDE in the bugzilla, which impacts Firefox-x.y.z, so we have to build those 2 things to. They require PackageQ and PackageT to be rebuilt.
Now, while we are trying to figure out the complex relationships required to build firefox, would could have been testing and producing the point release. Add a couple more updates and what you have is a hodge podge mess of things released at different times.
You are also introducing bugs into CentOS that are not upstream in this kind of scenario (firefox-x.y.z running against xorg-x.y.z-3 does this thing ... but when running against xorg-x.y.z-4 it does not).
Hopefully I am making this issue clear.
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Ian Murraymurrayie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument there is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS project.
Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with me on a Sunday! ;o)
But isn't this the point of RPMForge and the other repositories -- to allow us to customize our CentOS boxes to our heart's content. As for starting a new (Fedora-like?) project under the guidance of 'core,' I don't think you realize how much time and effort something like that would take. If you've ever trained anyone (I used to have to do that) you know how much easier it is to it yourself then walk someone else through it. Do you really want the CentOS developers sifting through someone else's work, for another side project, in addition to developing CentOS? How many hours a day do you think they have?
What I love about CentOS Linux is that it compatible with Red Hat. That's all I want it to be (which, in my opinion, is quite a lot). If I decide I want to use Firefox 3.5.x instead of 3.0.12 (or example), I'll either find an add-on repository or I'll download it from Mozilla. You can't be all things to all people without losing your focus.
2009/8/9 Ron Blizzard rb4centos@gmail.com
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Ian Murraymurrayie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument
there
is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS
project.
Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with
me
on a Sunday! ;o)
But isn't this the point of RPMForge and the other repositories -- to allow us to customize our CentOS boxes to our heart's content. As for starting a new (Fedora-like?) project under the guidance of 'core,' I don't think you realize how much time and effort something like that would take. If you've ever trained anyone (I used to have to do that) you know how much easier it is to it yourself then walk someone else through it. Do you really want the CentOS developers sifting through someone else's work, for another side project, in addition to developing CentOS? How many hours a day do you think they have?
What I love about CentOS Linux is that it compatible with Red Hat. That's all I want it to be (which, in my opinion, is quite a lot). If I decide I want to use Firefox 3.5.x instead of 3.0.12 (or example), I'll either find an add-on repository or I'll download it from Mozilla. You can't be all things to all people without losing your focus.
as the old saying goes
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosbyhttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/billcosby105051.html "
-- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
What you explain makes perfect sense and so thanks for taking the time to explain. I was only basing my understanding on what Karanbir wrote on an earlier posting, which suggests that it can be done, although I am not sure how given your explanation.
(http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-July/079311.html)
Geoff Galitz wrote:
If I understand this correctly... we have critical updates with patches available but they are waiting about a week before they become available in the form of Centos 4.8?
you need to evaluate if they are relevant to your install or not.
Is that accurate?
yup. We have already looked into the possibility of getting updates out during a point release cycle, and will prolly be moving to that process with the next point release ( 5.4 ).
Ian Murray wrote:
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
What you explain makes perfect sense and so thanks for taking the time to explain. I was only basing my understanding on what Karanbir wrote on an earlier posting, which suggests that it can be done, although I am not sure how given your explanation.
(http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-July/079311.html)
Geoff Galitz wrote:
/ If I
understand this correctly... we have critical updates with patches />/ available but they are waiting about a week before they become available in />/ the form of Centos 4.8? / you need to evaluate if they are relevant to your install or not.
/ Is that accurate?
/ yup. We have already looked into the possibility of getting updates out during a point release cycle, and will prolly be moving to that process with the next point release ( 5.4 ).
-- Karanbir Singh
We have looked into it (in depth) and it is possible within the limitations and with the errors that I pointed out above.
We might do it, with some packages, if we have an extended delay.
However, if we do, it will be difficult and not something we will undertake lightly.
Johnny Hughes wrote:
That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago.
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
But if it is so problematic, wouldn't it make sense to join forces with Scientific Linux at least on the slow parts of the work?
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:52 AM, Les Mikeselllesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago.
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't.
But if it is so problematic, wouldn't it make sense to join forces with Scientific Linux at least on the slow parts of the work?
Because joining forces with Scientific Linux is not as easy as snapping fingers either. Scientific Linux is a joint project done by Fermi Labs and CERN Labs. It has its own architecture and needs. It also has government budgets and requirements that have their own entanglements. CentOS is a controlled anarchy of people who are doing it for their own needs. Combining the two items would require a lot of forethought and work. I would expect it would take about a 6 months to a year to make that happen.
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:23 AM, Ian Murraymurrayie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all.
Just a few comments -- I'm not going to go on forever here. All (or almost all) community Linux distributions are reliant on a few individuals -- except for those that are backed with corporate money (Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE, etc) and (maybe) Debian. Most are controlled by one person. Look at the problems PCLinux had when its developer got sick. So, from that point of view, CentOS is on solid a solid footing.
As for updates and upgrades stopping -- I see no indication that will happen. But if we're going to look at all worst case scenarios, Red Hat could be bought out by Microsoft and mothballed, or a meteor could destroy Red Hat's headquarters. Sure that would have an impact on me -- but I would find another Linux distribution and move on.
As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that.
On Sun, 2009-08-09 at 14:04 -0500, Ron Blizzard wrote:
<snip>
As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that.
OTOH, one man's "squabbling" is another's "open discourse", depending on attitudes, "presentation", etc. That's one reason I tend to not freely speak my mind, even with all due respect. Just too many "issues" can arise and none of it is worth the potential aggravation unless I feel I might have something to contribute that might actually provide some benefit - even stimulating a positive thought in another.
As one could surmise, that kind of filter saves a lot of time.
Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me.
So, for those of you who consider this as "in-fighting", know that some considers it "learning".
________________________________ From: William L. Maltby CentOS4Bill@triad.rr.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 20:44:00 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, 2009-08-09 at 14:04 -0500, Ron Blizzard wrote:
<snip>
As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that.
OTOH, one man's "squabbling" is another's "open discourse", depending on attitudes, "presentation", etc. That's one reason I tend to not freely speak my mind, even with all due respect. Just too many "issues" can arise and none of it is worth the potential aggravation unless I feel I might have something to contribute that might actually provide some benefit - even stimulating a positive thought in another.
As one could surmise, that kind of filter saves a lot of time.
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Ian Murraymurrayie@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me.
So, for those of you who consider this as "in-fighting", know that some considers it "learning".
I'm glad something good came out of this thread. Thanks.
To all, especially the developers, people who work on the support documents in their various forms, and everyone who contributes their knowledge to this project:
I am another one of those people who reads the lists frequently, but usually don't have much to contribute since there are many others who are MUCH more knowledgeable than I am.
But one thing I do find, and appreciate immensely is the simple fact that almost every time I have a problem all I have to do is a search on it, and without fail the answer is either there, or is under discussion in the forums or mailing lists, most often with a solution or workaround. Or, a discussion leads me to check for symptoms of a problem, thus minimizing future downtime.
These reasons are why I use CentOS! It just works (I think there is supposed to be a (tm) there?) And when it doesn't the solution is close at hand.
I don't run a lot of stuff on CentOS right now, just 2 or 3 servers mostly for my personal use. But I am in a position where I may be (would like to be) using it a lot more in the future, so I certainly would like to see the project grow and flourish.
I have been heavily involved in a very ego-centric environment for years, public safety - in both paid and volunteer positions. While I think from what I've read the CentOS developers and other "inside track" folks are no where near as ego-driven as others I have seen. I do think that they take great pride in their work, as they should, and thus defend it to the end.
IMHO, there are just a couple of simple things to say about releases, release contents, and timing of releases. And I apologize because probably this has all been said before, and I believe are reflections of the main goals of the project:
1. New versions and updates of CentOS should become available ONLY when the developers are satisfied that they are ready to be released. If pushed out too quickly, there will just be more (avoidable) problems. The "why isn't version x.xx available" has been and can continue to be given the simple answer "because it's not ready yet".
2. Other "supplementary" packages should be available as they currently are, in the various additional repos, and that's where they should stay. The maintainers of these repos do a great job. No need for CentOS to duplicate or "compete" with that effort. CentOS is first and foremost a distribution that is binary-compatible with the "upstream provider". Anything else is something different.
3. The CentOS project is made up of volunteers. While the "insiders" may achieve some level of notoriety by being involved in it, in all the volunteer positions I've been involved with, the labor and hassle takes much more "out" than is "returned" by any notoriety. The aforementioned pride usually makes up the difference. If this difference isn't made up somehow, the person becomes a candidate for burnout.
4. Should the CentOS project introduce compensation to certain people in the future, do it with EXTREME caution. I have been involved with several volunteer organizations which changed dramatically (not for the better) upon introduction of some kind of payment system. Often it was because people then became involved or stayed involved for the wrong reasons. And there was also a sometimes a PR problem from outsiders. Instead of doing what we were doing because we wanted to, we would get "why won't you do x, y and z. You're getting paid for it". It didn't matter that the "payment" was pennies.
This cycle of turmoil in organizations is very common! One organization I'm involved with goes through it about every 5 years. The people who are in it for the wrong reasons usually quit, and the ones who are in it for the right reasons compromise. I won't say it makes the organization stronger, but sure keeps it interesting.
I am certainly not opposed to some of the heavy lifters getting some compensation for their work, but the project should be ready for some of this kind of noise should it come to pass.
Hopefully I will be in a position to contribute, both financially and in other ways to the best of my ability sometime within the next year.
But for now, I will say keep up the good work and ... Thank You!
-Ben
Hi all,
Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me.
So, for those of you who consider this as "in-fighting", know that some considers it "learning".
My intend in starting this thread was not to start a 'fight' like this. I have neither expected these kind of (in my pov. quite ingnorant and arrotant) replies of some core devs.
Of course CentOS is a project with clear targets and being open to everyone is not the first. I have also never said that it would be a good idea to let everybody into the so called 'core team' which is responsible for building the distribution.
My idea of a board stands besides of development responsibilities and of course only approved members should be able to elect it. But therefor clear instructions of how to gain membership needs to be added and mentorship could help new maintainers to learn how to contribute. The board itself could then help to clear legal aspects and directions of the distriubtion.
As quoted, the direction of CentOS is quite clear and contributions can only happen in some parts (e.g. wiki, documentation, translation, artwork, newsletter, bugtracking, web/forums and even package additions as long as there is a repo called 'Contrib'). At least these areas have to be line out clearer and I would definitly like to help on that.
A 'invite only' QA is purely arbitrary and could just be removed or replaced with something like 'contributors will automatically gain access to QA'.
Besides that, I still think that the build process needs tobe described in detail and published publicly.
I would also make much sense to let the public know who in the 'core team' is responsible for what. The website is just outdated on that.
To let you guys who just jumped in know: I wrote this because of the frustration I felt in the past weeks while contributing to the project. I spent a lot of hours on CentOS tasks and have often been told that things will change (e.g. opening the wiki, contributable 'Contrib' repo...) but not much happened till today. In the past I have always talked to Karan, Dag or Ralph about things like these but to address a larger audience I decided to post it here, instead.
But I also understand the position of ppl out there who just 'take' and do not want to contribute. Maybe these should just not comment on a thread like this.
Best Regards Marcus
Marcus Moeller wrote on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:08:45 +0200:
Maybe these should just not comment on a thread like this.
Yeah. And that's why I wrote very early on that this list isn't the right place ;-) Just one comment that someone gets in the wrong throat and the whole thread and purpose of it tilts.
Kai
On Sunday 09 August 2009 00:50:16 Marko A. Jennings wrote:
Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion.
Of course, this is a very common and useful line of reasoning in human society. Put shortly, it increases signal-to-noise ratio.
Being a theoretical physicist, I can confirm that I will flat-out refuse to listen to any idea or suggestion (regarding physics) from a person who doesn't at least hold a PhD degree in the area. I expect to find constructive/useful suggestions only from peers, simply because amateur thinking is just too naive or irrelevant. My typical response is on the lines of "go learn first, come and suggest after".
If I were a chess master, I would never listen to advice from a person who played (and won) less than (at least) 500 chess games, against appreciative opponents.
If I were attorney defending a man charged for murder, I would be the one to give suggestions what to do, not the other way around.
If I were a doctor, I would be the one prescribing the therapy to my patient, and would refuse to listen to his ideas about what therapy he needs.
If I were a CentOS developer, I would accept suggestions only from a person who proved to be almost equal in skill, has a similar point of view regarding my project and can thus be trusted.
If I were an expert in any area of life, I would simply refuse to listen to non-experts regarding the topic of my expertize. It keeps noise low and signal high. Human society functions very well when upholding to this behavior. Besides, an amateur giving suggestions to an expert is usually considered foolish at best, or rude in worse cases, even by third parties.
Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
If the governments were made of experts, than yes, we should.
Unfortunately, governments are typically not made of experts, but of opportunists. Name one president of <insert your favorite political entity here> that has been elected because he has a PhD in political sciences/history/law/whatever, or because he had enough hands-on experience in governing the state (maybe without a formal degree). Even if one such exists, I doubt he would listen to whatever random non-initiated group of people are "suggesting".
Also, people who are involved in politics are usually given power because they are well advertized by their political parties, not because they have proper expertize in governing the state.
And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Suppose an amateur gives a suggestion to an expert. This is how it typically rolls out:
First of all, if the amateur hopes to be listened to, he needs to give a suggestion in a way that is *humble enough*, typically in a form of a question ("please tell me why <whatever> is not feasible thing to do? Or is it?"), demonstrating his faith in expert's authority and superior knowledge on the subject. Criticism is completely out of question --- the amateur has not demonstrated enough competence to be considered a worthy critic (he wouldn't be an amateur in that case).
The expert usually kindly answers that <whatever> is not feasible for <this> or <that> reason. The amateur can be happy or sad about it, but he should appreciate the authoritative answer and leave it at that.
But if the amateur pushes the suggestion again, usually in a form that looks more like a critique, or whines because his suggestion/wish was not acknowledged, the most polite thing an expert will generally do is to ignore him. Silence is a polite way of saying "your suggestion is not good enough, give up and go away".
If the amateur keeps insisting that he has a point and keeps building pressure on the expert, the expert will get annoyed enough and eventually respond in a way that gets increasingly rude ("Demonstrate that you have competence before you insist that I listen to you.", "Who are you to play smart with me here, you low life form?" and such).
And the expert has a good point here, because the amateur was being quite rude by pushing his suggestion beyond any good measure, after being given a polite NAK.
All in all, the developers are not required to even listen to "community suggestions", let alone obey them. They know *their* job better than the rest of us (non-developers) know *their* job. Unless you can prove yourself to be a peer developer (a process which takes a lot of time, effort, expertize, humility and good relations with other developers), you have no business giving suggestions and expecting to be listened to. Meritocracy is not democracy. You can ask questions, and be thankful when/if you are given an answer from a developer. If you don't like the answer, it's your problem. If you insist, you are being rude, expect a rude response.
Btw, I completely support the dev's general point of view in this thread (on the infrastructure&contributions subject), not only because of their authority, but also because I believe I understand *why* they have such pov.
HTH, :-) Marko
R P Herrold wrote:
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, Bob Taylor wrote:
Personally, it disgusts me.
Have I said I don't appreciate it?
Yes, actually -- I call b*llsh*t -- you who have done nothing are here, and eat without charge at our table, and 'it disgusts' you
So we begin to actively drive away people now who say they appreciate the distribution or others who are actively trying to help?
Sorry, please make it clear that this is *YOUR POINT* of view and not of all the people who are "making CentOS happen" at the moment.
Same goes for Johnny's replies: What crawled over your liver that you actively tell people to piss off?
Ralph
Ralph Angenendt napsal(a):
So we begin to actively drive away people now who say they appreciate the distribution or others who are actively trying to help?
Sorry, please make it clear that this is *YOUR POINT* of view and not of all the people who are "making CentOS happen" at the moment.
Same goes for Johnny's replies: What crawled over your liver that you actively tell people to piss off?
Ralph
Ralph, thank you for your words. David Hrbáč
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Ned Slider wrote:
From my own experiences when trying to contribute, I have repeatedly been told not to bother, not to do it and to go away.
Being told 'no' differs from being told 'to go away' -- #centos IRC is about the only place we do that, and that is under a standard of preserving the channel on topic.
If I said 'go away' to you, I apologize; if it is another that did it, please send a transcript of it to me privately and I will look into it. I don't believe it happened, but I will make it right
-- Russ herrold
Marcus Moeller wrote on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:52:01 +0200:
Dear Community,
I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here. So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list "centos-community" or "centos-management" or so.
Kai
Dear Kai,
I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here. So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list "centos-community" or "centos-management" or so.
I think that 'centos' is the correct list to address these issues as it's the most commonly read list and where the 'community' lives.
I have to agree to Russ in some points:
The 'rebuild' process is clearly defined and automated in most tasks. But that is not what I meant. CentOS offers much more. It has a wiki with (in my pov) very good documentation of admin tasks, a vital forum and mailinglists with a technical orientated user base. There are several different tasks besides the rebuild itself. I was thinking about things like the new website, artwork, LiveCD spins (which was often requested) a well populated 'Contrib' repository (free and non-free) , active SIGs (even promotion and marketing) and even architecture ports.
Russ, I also share your conservative attitude, because it needs a well structured and trusted backend to build up an enterprise os many ppl rely on, but there is a community waiting in front of the door, and I personally see no reason not to welcome them.
A legal entity for the project and an elected board (or at least a community manager who acts as 'bridge' between the community members and the so called core team) are necessary in my pov.
Best Regards Marcus
Marcus Moeller wrote on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 19:32:29 +0200:
I think that 'centos' is the correct list to address these issues as it's the most commonly read list and where the 'community' lives.
Well, for the record: I'm not interested to read threads like this on *this* list.
I have to agree to Russ in some points:
Then please reply to his postings and not mine.
Sorry, I don't want to piss you off, but I'm really not interested in having technical discussions mixed with organisational/meta ones.
Kai
Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Marcus Moeller wrote on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:52:01 +0200:
Dear Community,
I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here.
I think it would have been perfect on the centos-devel list - which isn't overrun and still has many readers/writers.
So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list "centos-community" or "centos-management" or so.
If deemed needed at some time - yes. At the moment I hope we can live without it :)
Cheers,
Ralph
Hi,
Late to the party, oops! Everything in this email is my personal opinion, and I speak for myself not the project here. Just as Russ and Johnny dont speak for the project either in their emails, they speak for themselves.
On 08/06/2009 02:52 PM, Marcus Moeller wrote:
I recently started thinking about how to make a project like CentOS more transparent and open (especially for new contributors).
There are a lot of good ideas in your mail, Marcus - however some that are mis-aimed, not your fault, and maybe not taking the entire CentOS context in mind. But everyone of them put forward with good intent. The conversation that followed from there is also very interesting, some of it made me sad though. CentOS has been quite an experience over the last few years and I think a few things need to be put into context. Kai, if you dont want these emails, setup a filter for yourself or unsubscribe from the list for the duration of the conversation. Given the traction this has and the context of the conversation, I feel its important that it gets somewhere.
Anyway to kick things off, here is a bit of history to start with : CentOS started way back when..... We had no management, there was little or no direction and people didn't care much about things. A few of us ( mostly Johnny and me, to be honest ) took up the task of fixing stuff and making things happen. And because we used it and because we were able to[1], it was the norm spending the 36 hrs /week on the day job followed by the 30hrs/week on the CentOS 'job'. Its pretty much stayed like that for years, when Ralph and Tru got involved with the infrastructure side of things and Ralph took up the additional task for 'being chief executioner' on the wiki. Tim has been an even more recent addition to the 'team'. And this is even before we start talking about the distribution. Most of us do other things as well, like help and work on building a distro[2], Some of the people on this list might have heard of it. One of the important things to keep in mind is that CentOS hasent been an accident. We had decided very early in the lifecycle ( Jan 2005, I still have the logs from the conversation ) that we would either do things the right way, or not do them at all. I guess that paid off long term, even at the cost of personal loss ( I've lost count of how many times people have called me all sorts of things ).
So, effectively late last year, we decided that things were getting a bit mad and something had to be done. And we setup the infrastructure group to keep things moving along while we looked at options and also tacked other issues, which needed attention. Much of whats been going on recently in terms of the 'project issues' with the media is negative spin to what I'd say is a good thing for the project. We are at a stage where we can restart, with much hindsight and a clearer idea of what needs doing and how it needs doing. We also realise that while we made mistakes along the way (eg. the QA Team ), somethings we did get right. So let me lay out what I'd consider an ideal situation that we can build on from here. Remember, that this is my personal take on things. Much needs to happen before some of these are even considered.
The first thing that we need to do, all of us, is step back a bit and see exactly what CentOS is. I think about 80%(guess) of the contributors to the thread already, dont seem to know or prefer to ignore it as they foster a deam of something wildly different. Anyway, whichever way you spin it - CentOS is about the people. The people here. Its not about the distribution. Its not about any 'team', its not about the infrastructure or the means for the infrastructure. Its a group of people, who all use/abuse a common code base. Therein lies my take on what is the 'C' in community. I'd be happy to clarify and explain ( although Smooge and Mike already do a great job of that ), if anyone still cant 'get it'. CentOS, in its early days was about the optional setup to EL, in the last few years its become about the people. Even if you dont agree with me and try to spin it otherwise. At the core of this group-of-people is a codebase that we dont change, we dont edit, we dont 'develop' on[2]. Look at the wiki, look at the forums, this list, look at the companies who base their products on CentOS - and you will see this community. People who 'get it', and are offering to help others 'get it'.
So, I think lets start by first defining what it is that the 'CentOS Project' stands for. Johnny already pointed people at the website and whats on there. I think now would be a great time to redefine that into a real 'charter' or a 'mandate'. Having said this, I also realise one thing that we got really wrong was calling people 'CentOS Developers' and others 'the Non Developers'. A more apt name for these people would be 'administrators' ( or even something else ). These are the people who keep the 'stuff' working, they 'facilitate' the community. They are not the community or even try to be them. We got it wrong. Lets fix it now.
Fix what ? Well, for one - a contributing community needs to have something to contribute to. Also, as I said earlier, the community is the people, and they are people based around a shared interest in a common codebase. A codebase that is essentially open source. So the ability to expand and promote that codebase should be something we can 'facilitate'. A process would need to be defined, and I am sure there are enough people around who can help with that process definition. But once its in place, I see no reason why it cant be done.
Exactly who gets to make the decisions that would then in turn influence the whole userbase ? One way would be to have everything churn through a mailing list and have everyone contribute a voice. Something that works well in some cases ( package policy definition would be a good example !), and in other cases thats a really bad choice ( are we going to use machineX for DNS or a torrent seed ). Most users dont care as long as a 'reasonable expected level of competence' goes into making these decisions. And these are the sort of decisions that need to be made within a specific user group. Could they be done in public ? I am sure some can. while there are plenty which cant. My point here is that while there are some things that can really go into a circular route and stay open ended, others cant. And this is where I feel a 'admin/core/infra' team fits in. The list of people who work within this team should also be mentioned, but all contact and work / requirement work done through 'role' accounts actively discouraging personal contacts.
Similarly, I feel we need to have a 'control group'. Someone who can look at issues like donations, management of funds, management of any centos branding and also be the focal point for the promo efforts[3][4]. A group that is built initially from the existing core group and initially atleast, based around an invite only process. However, this group should be put into place with a reasonable transparency process in place. Exact extents on this and the mechanics of how this would work is something that is still pretty much in the air.
Anyway, so where does this leave the 'developer person'. As I see it, anyone 'doing stuff' on projects.centos.org should be able to call themselves a CentOS contributor. Anyone doing anything else can call themselves whatever else they want. So where does this leave the 'build people' ? I'm going to propose that the build-group/ key-holder group stays small, invite only. However, let people from the community have a mechanism to help with the process. Remember, the action is not going to be in signing packages, its in making sure that things are doing what they need to do. What I am also going to propose is that the infrastructure for this stays where it is. We have major wins in keeping the buildsystem offline, not only the security part - but also the wins we get in manageability are worth a lot. Besides, mock hosted builds local to where the contributors want to be are trivial these days. Also, with the keys - we dont even need all the people doing builds to hold keys. There are, as most people know, issues within the way things are pushed out right now. Packages that should take a few hours or even a day sometimes, take a much longer time to get there. And this is a very real problem and something that needs addressing right away.[5]
I just want to finish this brain dump off by saying that there is no reason to panic, we are changing things and we will change things in the long term best interest of the project. Exactly what we change and how and why and when would be things that I will attempt to bring into a place where there is plenty of option for user feedback. And feedback, before things change up. End of the day, if we cant convince the users about what we are doing as being in their best interests, perhaps were doing things wrongly - and we should take that on board.
- KB
[1]: Not easily, but we made the efforts. Just as the other guys do now as well. [2]: I have a few ideas on why only idiots merge 'development' and 'distro' into one set. Will collect and post those thoughts elsewhere. [3]: This needs to be extremely transparent, and the idea of a foundation does sounds very enticing. And is being actively pursued at this time. [4]: the 'promo' group again is something which we got the naming for quite wrong. its more of a 'conference' group. [5]: there are other things that need attention as well, but changing too much at one go, specially with the build setups is going to break way too much. so one problem at a time. If you are interested in helping, track centos-devel list for a few weeks
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cornel panceac -
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Drew -
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nate -
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R P Herrold -
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