[CentOS-devel] Missing packages on Devel repo

Thu Nov 18 16:17:36 UTC 2021
Trevor Hemsley <trevor.hemsley at ntlworld.com>

On 17/11/2021 21:45, Brian Stinson wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2021, at 14:47, Odilon Junior wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> As the $SUBJECT says, after the latest release of Centos 8,  the 
>> Devel[1] repo is not populated.
>>
>> I can see the packages for 8.4.2105[2]. Is this expected for this 
>> latest release?
>>
>> ---
>> Regards,
>> Odilon
>>
>> 1 - http://mirror.centos.org/centos/8/Devel/x86_64/
>> 2 - https://vault.centos.org/8.4.2105/Devel/
>> _______________________________________________
>> CentOS-devel mailing list
>> CentOS-devel at centos.org
>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
>>
>
> That is expected. Just a reminder CentOS Linux 8 goes End Of Life in 
> December: https://www.centos.org/centos-linux-eol/ please plan 
> accordingly.
>
> If you need a package that was previously in the Devel repo to support 
> your migration you may download from vault.centos.org or from the 
> buildsystem: https://koji.mbox.centos.org
>

You just don't get this do you. At all. This is about Red Hat and its 
word and whether that still means anything.

The announcement late last year said that CentOS Linux 8 would go EOL at 
the end of 2021, on 31/12.

It did not say that you would stop supporting it in mid-November.

It had no mention in that initial announcement about 8.5 and what would 
happen to that until those questions were asked during the many many 
questions that were asked following that initial bombshell. The main 
questions that were asked about 8.5 was "will there be a CentOS 8.5" and 
"will there be any updates to it". At that point, the EOL announcement 
was amended to include something about 8.5 to clarify the situation. The 
answer was meant to make clear that support was ongoing until the end of 
the year but that *if* 8.5 was not ready in time for the announced EOL 
date then work would continue on it until it was released.

If the "clarification" was also meant to shift the annouced EOL date 
backwards from 2021/12/31 then it made no mention of that. It's only 
now, once 8.5 has actually been released that Red Hat are backing away 
from the announced EOL date and trying to claim that the mention of 8.5 
in it means that there won't be any more updates even though we are 
still 6 weeks away from the actual EOL date.

The amended announcement did not say "or whichever comes first". The 
very top line in it says "CentOS Linux 8 will reach End Of Life (EOL) on 
December 31st, 2021". There is also no mention of only building and 
releasing packages that are of a certain VCSS score. What it actually 
says is:

"We *will* be shipping a rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.5 
once it is released, even if that means that this is released slightly 
after the EOL date.

The release of a RHEL point release is often accompanied, immediately 
afterwards, by a set of zero-day updates. We *will* be providing this 
content as part of the final CentOS Linux 8 release. There will, 
however, be no more updates to the CentOS Linux 8 content after that time.

Additionally, with this deadline falling during a time when many of our 
team, as well as many of our users, will be out of the office, we intend 
to bend the usual EOL process by keeping this content available until 
January 31st.

At that time, or in the event of a serious security bug in this time 
window (Defined as anything with a VCSS v3 score of 9 or greater), this 
content will be removed from our mirrors, and moved to vault.centos.org 
<https://vault.centos.org> where it will be archived permanently"


That does not say "we'll only build and release packages with a VCSS 
score of > 9". It says "after December 31st, if 8.5 is not ready in 
time, then we will build it and release it along with all zero day fixes 
but if there is an update with a VCSS score > 9 AFTER the EOL date, then 
we will archive it to vault early".

Yes, I get that everyone should be stopping using CentOS Linux 8. It's 
going away. But you publicly announced that it would be supported until 
the end of the year. Multiple times. There will be people out there who 
are in mid-migration to something else and thought they had another 6 
weeks do complete it.

So can we trust Red Hat to keep its word? A few years ago, I would not 
have hesitated to say "of course they will" but now? I'll watch what you 
*do* not what you *say*.

Trevor Hemsley
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