[CentOS-devel] What should I do in my cluster? CentOS streams dilemma.

On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 7:16 PM Mike McGrath <mmcgrath at redhat.com> wrote:
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> On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 5:27 PM redbaronbrowser via CentOS-devel <centos-devel at centos.org> wrote:
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>> On Friday, December 25, 2020 5:05 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic <centos at plnet.rs> wrote:
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>> > On 12/25/20 9:02 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
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>> > > On 12/25/20 5:24 AM, redbaronbrowser via CentOS-devel wrote:
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>> > > > Con of using CentOS Stream is it .. packages will be released before
>> > > > getting the same level of QA of RHEL 8 or CentOS 8.
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>> > > Several Red Hat and CentOS engineers have said that each CentOS Stream
>> > > package will have passed QA before they are published.
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>> > And Red Hat executives said nothing will change for CentOS Linux and
>> > here we are (YMMV) ...
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>> Actually, if you read carefully statements made by Karsten Wade and Johnny Hughes, it appears they still believe technically nothing has changed for the majority of users.
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>> I would be willing to accept that Stream has the potential to fit the needs of CentOS 8 users.  That isn't the change that bothers me.
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>> What bothers me is the level of disrespect for foundational promises made to the community.
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>> They have been pushing that "a lot of people" were involved in this decision.  That is not the same as being *public*.  That is not the same as being *transparent*.
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>> What exactly was said to decide Dec 31, 2021 is the date instead of June 30, 2024 to be in line with CentOS 7?
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>> What was Brian "Bex" Exelbierd from the RHEL team doing there?  What did he say?
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>> It seems we will never know for sure.  I can *imagine* what was said and I am getting really close to posting my *imaginary* transcript but that also is not a good replacement for the real transcript.
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>> It has been reiterated that this was a hard decision for everyone involved.  That might be true.  But how hard is it to keep the promises made about how CentOS Governance would work once joined with Red Hat?  How hard is it to honor the claim there would be a firewall between CentOS and RHEL?
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> I think the problem is that the document you are quoting is simply just out of date.
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> If you truly wanted to keep that firewall in place.  You, or someone, should have complained two years ago when the CentOS infrastructure team formally joined the RHEL team as "CPE".  There were no objections to that and it was largely seen as a positive move by everyone I've talked to.  If that was something so important to you, I think it's on you to pay attention and raise those concerns when they were happening.  Significant portions of the CentOS team are now under my org which is called the "Linux Engineering" team.  We're responsible for RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, CoreOS, UBI, and several other Linux related activities at Red Hat.  They're excellent engineers and I'm lucky to have them and hope they can find a fruitful career in the engineering org.
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> I agree you have several justifiable concerns, for example, transparency. Though even that has recently changed as the board has been posting meeting minutes.  It could be better but a step in the right direction. The closer joining of the Fedora and CentOS teams (under Linux Engineering) was not in any way hidden or kept secret and there were multiple announcements about it.  Your concerns are the first negative feedback I've received on that team merger.  It would be helpful to take your concerns looking forward to what you want to see as opposed to looking back at a period in time in CentOS where you clearly weren't aware of what was actually going on.
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Personally speaking, I've been generally happy with how the
integration of teams has worked out. However, I am unhappy with the
nature of the CentOS governance. I will admit to being spoiled: I've
been part of the Fedora community for almost 15 years and I've been a
member of FESCo for the past six months. I'm a member of so many SIGs,
Teams, and Working Groups that I've lost count. I've participated in
almost every facet of the project (except for the relatively minor
things that require being a Red Hat employee, like budget and
engineering interfaces with RHEL engineering). With CentOS Stream
underway, I would like the CentOS Project to open up *somewhat*
(alluding to Karsten's openness thing).

The real annoyance to me is that CentOS Board meetings are not only
secret, but the meetings are essentially unknown to the community.
There is no real understanding of the functional nature and structure
of the CentOS Project. There is no avenue for me to feel like I can
make a difference in the Project itself. This is not a specific
failing by Karsten or by you, Mike. This is a failing of the CentOS
community. In the same timespan I've been actively involved in Fedora,
I've also peered into the looking glass at CentOS, and CentOS has been
an unmitigated disaster as a project in that timeframe. Red Hat
brought much needed stability in the past six years, and I thank them
profusely for that. But I think that the folks who came onboard at the
time and tried to "fix" the governance underestimated how broken the
project was.

Sometimes, I think this project should have failed six years ago. That
it didn't is a testament to Johnny, Jim, Brian, and the others who
held the project together by the loose threads it had. But it's clear
that we need to do better.

So how are we going to do that? I don't know. I am willing to help
with that, though.




--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!