Jeff Johnson wrote: > On Feb 22, 2011, at 8:56 PM, Morten P.D. Stevens wrote: > >> Just take the missing build dependencies from Fedora 12/13. Red Hat has probably done the same. >> >> What are you waiting for @ CentOS team??? Until Red Hat released the missing build dependencies? >> > > Please note that I did _NOT_ intend to re-start flames or CentOS bashing. > > There is however a logical inconsistency between > By policy, CentOS changes nothing (but removes trademarks to be legal) > and > 1. Make the distro self hosting > 2. Get rid of hidden build requirements > > How does one detect "hidden" if every package is "de facto" and unchangeable by policy? > > (aside) > And there's even reasons to not change dependencies, because that has some > (modest imho) risk of changing depslover (sic) behavior. > > But if you CAN detect "hidden" or "missing" (and I'm quite sure Johnny can), > then adding a dependency is likely best for everyone involved, policy be damned. > > Why re-distribute SRPM's with "hidden" (or missing) dependencies? That > kinda misses the point of dependencies in package metadata. > I'll try to explain the purpose of CentOS project in layman terms. Many business applications are written for RHEL, some of them specifically relaying on "bugs" if they could be called that. So if you want to create the "free" copy of RHEL source code and at the same time make sure that ALL applications for RHEL will also work for your distro. This goal of binary compatibility serves multiple purposes: 1. Red Hat has free version of RHEL so vast number of people can educate on it and if they choose use it for non-time-critical systems. 2. Software developers have wider user base for software developed/ported for RHEL, making their development more profitable, with lesser development cost per sold license. 3. User can sleep peacefully knowing that Red Hat is behind the actual development of their OS, and knowing that, if they choose so (need for support, their business/systems becoming time/mission critical), they can CONVERT their CentOS to RHEL by JUST buying subscription license and changing from where yum gets it's upgrades. There is no need to reinstall every single system and databases/applications in order to switch from Open source system to "paid for support" RHEL. Just think how you would feel if you had to reinstall 20-30 servers in the middle of production use just because beancounters decided they want security of 24/7 support. This last item is why I (and a lot of others) decided to use/learn CentOS (I actually started experimenting with WhiteBox first). Keeping CentOS binary and sources SAME (as in ABSOLUTELY THE SAME as much as possible ) as is in RHEL, makes my knowledge and apps I develop applicable to RHEL if I even run into situation to maintain it or to sell some software for RHEL. If you are not able to wrap your head around this notion and those purposes are not important to you, then find some other distro or create tour own RHEL respin where you will change SRPMS at your whim, but do not be surprised if only small number of people decides to use it instead of CentOS, since once you start changing SRPMS you will never ever stop and it will not be RHEL respin any more. Ljubomir