[CentOS-devel] CentOS-4.4 yumconf

On Wed, 2006-10-11 at 16:22 -0700, C.M. Connelly wrote:
> "JP" == Jim Perrin <jperrin at gmail.com>
> 
> Jim,
> 
>     JP> This was discussed before implementation, in the -devel
>     JP> channel on IRC. The full ramifications weren't felt
>     JP> initially because it worked fine for stock centos. If
>     JP> you'd like to participate in the discussions, you're
>     JP> welcome to join the irc channel.
> 
> Like, I suspect, most people using CentOS, I'm not paid to work on
> the OS, and I don't have time to hang out on IRC on the off chance
> that someone will bring up something that might completely screw
> up my systems down the road.

That comment is utterly ridiculous.

You seem to be under the misconception that someone is getting paid to
work on CentOS.

No one has EVER been paid one thin dime to work on CentOS ... nor has
anyone ever been charged one thin dime to download or use it.

All the developers of CentOS donate their time and their own boxes.  We
do get hardware and mirror donations, but either the hardware is donated
by others OR the developers buy it themselves.  I have 4 main build
boxes to build 3 different arches, 1 of which was donated the others I
bought to build CentOS. These boxes can not be used for anytihng else,
as they have to have the build environmnet strictly controlled to
produce good RPMS for CentOS. The story is much the same for the other
developers.  Not only do we not get paid, it costs us something to build
CentOS.

What makes anyone here think that I have 30-50 hours a week to GIVE to
the CentOS project for free.  How about my $500.00 a month electric bill
because I am running 4 build servers running 24x7, or my $99.00 a month
internet bill so I can quickly upload ISOs.

The developers pay their own expenses, they donate their weekends,
vacations, and off work hours to make CentOS happen, and most of them
have done it for more than 2 years.

They spend their time "hanging out on IRC on the off chance that"
someone wants to talk about the way the upstream provider does their
updates.  They spend time helping people stand up a dhcp server, set up
TLS with post fix, doing DDNS.  They do this on many CentOS IRC
channels.

> 
> To be frank, saying, ``Oh, we talked about that on IRC,'' is about
> as useful as saying, ``Jennie, Bob, and I talked about it over a
> drink at the Boo Bar.''

If that is not the kind of OS you want, then you can pay $2500.00 a pop
for a much more professional one.  Oh, but every update cycle, they
still make major changes.  Look at the new things added this update
cycle.

> 
> IRC is a great place to work out implementation details and maybe
> even do some thought experiments to imagine what the impact might
> be, but mailing lists are a much better place to have real
> discussions, especially when your changes might impact people
> outside the tiny circle of people who frequent the IRC channel.
> 

That might be true and MANY things are worked out devel list.  MANY,
MANY things are discussed here.  However, the yum configuration files,
as well as the ones for up2date and any other update mechanism need to
be in centos-release ... and that is where they are staying.  Read below
for the facts.

---------------------------------------------------

Facts as to why centos-yumconf was discontinued and why the
configuration files are in centos-relase for CentOS-4:

1.  The upstream package up2date-4.4.69-25.src.rpm (in RHEL 4) has this
in the package:
--------------------------
# in rhel4/fc this file moved to redhat-releases
%if %{is_RHEL_3}
%config(noreplace) /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources
%endif
--------------------------

The upstream package redhat-release-4AS-5.5.src.rpm (the latest RHEL 4
AS package) has this in the package:

--------------------------
mkdir -p -m 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn
install -m 644 sources $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn
--------------------------

So redhat-release is where the configuration file for up2date lives.
This was changed upstream at the release of RHEL-4 and is still the way
it is being done.

2.  The file fedora-release-3-9.src.rpm contains these from fedora core
3 contains these lines:

-------------------------
mkdir -p -m 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn
mkdir -p -m 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/yum.repos.d
install -m 644 sources $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources
for file in fedora*repo ; do
  install -m 644 $file $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/yum.repos.d
done
-------------------------

So fedora-release is where the configuration files for up2date and yum
live.  This is true for every Fedora release after FC3 as well. (Though
up2date as gone away, the update systems have their configuration files
in the fedora-release file).

3.  The file redhat-release-4.91Server-1.src.rpm does not have any .repo
files as there was none produced with the beta ... however it does have
this code:

-------------------------
mkdir -p -m 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn
install -m 644 sources $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/sysconfig/rhn

#mkdir -p -m 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/yum.repos.d
#for file in redhat*repo ; do
#  install -m 644 $file $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/etc/yum.repos.d
#done
-------------------------

So in the upcoming RHEL5, the sources file still lives in redhat-release
and I was told that when repo files are distributed, they will be
distributed via redhat-release.

4.  There is an apt included in CentOS Extras and the configuration file
was included in that package.  If a newer apt is provided somewhere else
and if it replaces the old apt, it also erases the configuration file
for CentOS updates.  That happened to several CentOS users.  Moving the
configuration file for apt to redhat-release solves that problem too.

---------------------------------------------------------------
For all the above reasons, all update configurations belong in the
centos-release file.  That is how it is consistently being done and it
is what we are doing.

I apologize for not discussing this issue on this list before it was
done, however it is still where those files belong.  One of the things
that is in our goals is to be more like upstream.  It just makes sense
to do it the same way where ever possible ... I am sorry that this
affected some power users in an unexpected way, but it is still where
the files belong.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes
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