[CentOS-devel] Is it possible to merge elrepo.org contribute to centos main repository?

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Wed Feb 26 22:26:08 UTC 2014


On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Alexander Arlt <centos at track5.de> wrote:

>> Actually I followed the discussion you mentioned but I don't really
> think that a lot of CentOS-/RHEL-User really care about the
> Desktop-Ramblings. Still, of course, those are just my assumptions.

I think your assumption is right, but I also think that is a sorry
state of affairs.  Especially with Fedora leading the path and their
focus on Desktop-ish things.   If we have to put up with the issues
that causes for servers, we should at least take advantage of what it
adds for other uses.

> So, you turned the cow into a bird. And you did this just because you
> want to have a single distribution. That's fine. It kinda feels weird,
> but if it's the way you want it, it's fine. But don't you think it would
> have been easier - and probably less nerve-wracking - to just use a more
> birdish-type of material?

Much of the point of free software is the fact that once something has
been done once, any number of copies of it 'just work' for no extra
cost.   So, the missing piece here is just a reasonable way for
someone else to duplicate the setup.

> Yes, basically you have built a repository for your special needs. And
> in my understanding this was - and is - the way the game was meant to be
> played by Red Hat.

Red Hat just doesn't go there at all.  If they don't distribute it, it
is your problem.

> Ain't that all the point about an enterprise distribution: that you have
> the support, the certifications, all the big-dollar-bling-bling?

No, that's really only relevant after something goes wrong.  The point
of it is the effort that goes into avoiding/fixing the things that go
wrong.  And the more people that run exactly the same code and report
their bugs, sometimes with fixes, the better that turns out.

>If
> you're messing around with all the upstream-provided stuff,
> elrepo-kernels and so on, you're already breaking the main (and most
> expensive) part of the enterprise thingy. And wasn't CentOS all about
> getting the enterprise-grade distribution cloned has close as possible?

Adding additional applications doesn't hurt the base.   It is just
better testing for it.

>> I can still install CentOS 5.x on older hardware and it will work like a
>> charm, with support and bugfixes. It will not be EOL in 1-2 years, EOL
>> policy covers full life-span of average PC hardware. After 10 years even
>> poor people in Africa or India will get another PC, used one, that can
>> run on CentOS 6.x until end of it's EOL, and on, and on, and on.
>
> Forgive me but the life-span of RHEL or CentOS is not based on the
> lifetime of average PC hardware. I do have several machines and
> installations of RHEL 4 and we will have full support of hardware and
> software till Feb, 28th 2015. Probably longer. That's the E in RHEL and
> the ent in CentOS. Maybe I got that wrong and we now get back on the
> Entertainment the E and the ent was meant to mean from the beginning.

I assume the 4 is a typo there.  RHEL 4's EOL was 2-29-2012,  But
that's all kind of irrelevant to what we should be preparing for after
a new install of CentOS 7 and what to expect from it.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com



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