[CentOS-devel] Balancing the needs around the CentOS platform

Gordon Messmer

gordon.messmer at gmail.com
Mon Dec 21 05:22:21 UTC 2020


On 12/20/20 7:19 PM, Mark Mielke wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 6:34 PM Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/19/20 8:27 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
>>> On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 12:29 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org> wrote:
>>>> It's important to note that the CentOS Linux rebuild never actually had
>>>> this. RHEL minor releases are actually branches, and you can stay at a minor
>>>> release and still get security updates.
>>> Are you saying the
>>> CentOS point releases do *not* match as closely as possible the
>>> corresponding RHEL point release?
>> No, no one is saying that.  Matthew said that you can stay at a minor
>> release of RHEL and still get security updates.  CentOS does not offer that.
> This is not correct. Please stop saying it. CentOS is bug-for-bug
> compatible with RHEL for *active* releases.


CentOS is compatible with the current release.  I don't think anyone is 
saying that it isn't.  I honestly can't figure out why you're telling me 
that I'm wrong and then arguing what seems to be a completely different 
point.  Unless...


> You and Matthew are confusing RHEL with RHEL EUS.


Are you objecting because you think that RHEL and RHEL EUS are different 
products?  I would have described EUS as a different support contract 
for the same product, but at that point you're *really* parsing words 
carefully.


>> Mark is confusing the issue somewhat.  I *think* he is trying to say
>> that when we say that CentOS point releases have no branches, we're
>> saying that there's no QA, which is absolutely not what we're saying.
>> We're not talking about the back end development process, we're talking
>> about the products that are delivered to customers.  Customers can
>> choose what branch of the RHEL product to deploy on their systems, and
>> how long to use a given point release.  CentOS users don't get that
>> level of support.
> This is also false. Moving CentOS from "downstream" to "upstream"
> absolutely affects where QA fits into the process. This is a
> fundamental thing that is being ripped out from under you - and you
> don't even realize.


I think that your position here implies that end-users who run beta 
releases are responsible for the quality of Red Hat's releases, and I 
don't know any reason to believe that.  In particular, Red Hat employees 
tell us that "literally almost nobody uses them":

http://crunchtools.com/before-you-get-mad-about-the-centos-stream-change-think-about/

I don't have any reason to disbelieve that, so when I think about how 
Red Hat is able to manage a high-quality release, I tend to think that 
it's because they have a rigorous testing process for the software they 
distribute, and they have repeatedly told us in this list that CentOS 
Stream updates will have gone through that process.



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