[CentOS-devel] CentOS 7 and release numbering

> On Friday, June 06, 2014 5:44 PM, Karanbir Singh wrote:
> 
> hi,
> 
> Taking on board the community and environment expansion that is taking
> place around the CentOS project, the CentOS Board has been considering
> how best to accomodate these efforts.
> 
> I'm attaching here a plan put forward by the board towards that aim.
> 
> Thoughts ? Comments ?
> 

I am still new to the community and so wish to be careful expressing
opinions. Certainly, my thoughts will not take fully into account the
thoughtful work that has been underway in the community in advance of CentOS
7.

That said, I hope you will permit a few observations.

The first is that it is very powerful for CentOS to maintain the simple
message that it has had from the start - 100% compatibility with Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. This is what allows people to use and trust it for running
their organizations. The more CentOS feels exactly like "RHEL - but without
support", the more people understand it and take stock. On the other hand,
the more it feels different, the more people feel/fear that they should
consider alternatives - maybe Scientific Linux, maybe non-RHEL
distributions. They don't want to do this, but stability and dependability
are key. Their businesses, and their reputations, are at stake. These are
the exact concerns I heard expressed, unsolicited, from other attendees
after the CentOS presentation at the Red Hat Summit in May. In particular,
there was a great deal of confusion about SIGs/variants, what they were, how
they would be implemented, and whether the introduction of variants would
mean that CentOS would no longer be compatible with RHEL. Clearly, the goal
is to maintain compatibility. But even small things that introduce
differences create FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

The second is that, at an industry level, even minor inconsistencies, like
versioning schemes, do more than just raise concerns, they introduce real
impediments. OEMs test and certify their hardware for specific versions of
RHEL. ISVs likewise test and certify their applications. Previously they
could say "this hardware/software has been tested against RHEL 6.3".  And
everyone knew this meant that CentOS 6.3 would work against it as well. But
with a new versioning scheme, things are less clear.  Now, OEMs/ISVs need to
say "compatible with RHEL 7.2/CentOS 1506". Or maybe they just say RHEL 7.2
and users are left to translate this to CentOS versioning. But whether it is
something OEMS/ISVs, or users do, why force there to be a translation at
all? 

Seems better to work around issues with the RHEL versioning scheme than to
let something that is already potentially confusing (variants) create
tangible issues for existing users, and for the broader industry.

Just one person's observations.

Kay