[CentOS-devel] Why are Spacewalk packages removed from CentOS?

[Miroslav Suchý]

On 05/17/2010 10:53 PM, Luc de Louw wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> After filing a bug (http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=4315) Karan made
> me aware of a discussion held in January 2010. There was no conclusion,
> no decision.

IIRC there *was* conclusion.
For CentOS 5.x keep status quo and do not change anything. And for 
CentOS 6.0 (when it will be ready) keep those package in CentOS (or in 
other words, do not remove them when picking up packages from RHEL).

> @Miroslav and the other RHN Sat/Spacewalk developers: Can you promise to
> announce incompatible changes early enough? If yes, CentOS can include
> the stuff immediately.

Packages in RHEL will be *always* backward and forward compatible. We 
are not promising the same for Fedora, but for RHEL yes.

> Benefits for my self: My daily work is with RHEL and RHN Satellite. In
> meanwhile I have quite a good to excellent knowledge of RHN sat and its
> future (I'm a git reader). This is mainly due to the existence of
> spacewalk. At the moment implementing a complete testbed consisting of
> CentOS AND spacewalk means quite a lot of work, due to to missing
> rhnlibs and friends in CentOS.

That was my understanding. But I'm "just" developer. And I understand 
that for every distribution should be Vox Populi, Vox Dei. So if more 
CentOS users requests those packages for CentOS 5.6, then CentOS 
developers may change their mind. But I will not be (and could not be) 
the one who will agitate for it.

-- 
Miroslav Suchy
Red Hat Satellite Engineering