[CentOS-devel] iptables-devel in centos 4.4

Wed Aug 23 12:43:48 UTC 2006
Dag Wieers <dag at wieers.com>

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006, Milan Ker?láger wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 12:46:38PM -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 15:39 +0200, David Hrbá? wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > I'd like to ask if iptables-devel package is going to be patched by
> > > CentOS team to include all header files. Upstream provider still seems
> > > to ignore this bug, even it was fixed in FC5. We need to fix it to
> > > simplify automatic build of iptables/kernel modules.
> > > Thanks,
> > > David Hrbac
> > 
> > Nope ... we build what they provide ... including bugs/
> 
> It's not a BUG! You are servind missing devel packages too. So your
> strong oposition should be rethinked.
> 
> I wonder - you have rules and exceptions. Why do you simply do not put
> differencies ro the RELEASE-NOTES and join CentOS/RPMS and addons?
> Separate dir is worthless because you have yum and i586 kernels in
> CentOS/RPMS already. So this "rule" isn't working from the start
> already.

Not sure if my opinion matters on this, but I actually see it as a service 
to Red Hat to not fix bugs (or other problems) that are in upstream 
packages.

This forces users of CentOS to report those problem upstream and makes 
sure CentOS is following the same quality process that Red Hat is going 
through. If we catch up with Red Hat and fix (what we think is) broken 
behaviour we might be shooting in our own foot if Red Hat eventually fixes 
it in a different way that makes both solution incompatible.

Of course one can say that you should do an assessment of that risk, but 
some things are impossible to prevent. Especially if long-term strategies 
of Red Hat are involved. We are no better than Red Hat engineers and an 
unresolved problem is either because they are not aware of it, do not see 
it as an important problem or the fix might be worse to the majority (or 
even minority) of the customers.

And if you really rely on a bugfix, you should buy a Red Hat entitlement 
and make that money pay off. The process is slow and painful and sometimes 
does not seem worthwhile, but it has its purpose.

And the fact that CentOS offers so much more, does not make a difference 
to the fact that people (can) know exactly what they are getting in to. As 
soon as we break those policies, certainty is gone for everybody excepts 
the people that think they know what they're doing.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]