[CentOS-docs] What's an Enterprise class OS

Sat Nov 8 12:59:02 UTC 2008
Ned Slider <ned at unixmail.co.uk>

Hi all,

One of the concepts we see arise on the forums time and time again 
that's poorly understood is the concept of an Enterprise Class OS and 
everything that involves. I think it would be of benefit to have a one 
stop page to point users to that explains the concepts and provides the 
information required. Much of this content already exists on the Wiki 
but it is scattered over many individual pages and new users often don't 
find it (new users often don't search at all!)

I'm thinking something that covers the following topics:

Relationship with the upstream product
stability and long term support (vs bleeding edge)
Support lifecycle
backporting
Not installing software from source
...

Much of this could be a narrative linking to existing content on the 
Wiki where possible - not really that much new content, just bringing it 
all together in one place in an easy to read/navigate format. Initially 
I envisaged this as an "About" type page but that already exists (in 
title), so maybe something like "Understanding an Enterprise Class 
Operating System".

I'd also written a forum post in the FAQ and ReadMe First section on 
"Installing Software":

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14408&forum=47

and am wondering about transferring this content to the Wiki too - maybe 
under the /HowTos/PackageManagement section, and some of that obviously 
relates to the content above. IMHO it makes sense to have this 
information centrally available on the Wiki rather than separately on 
the forums.

I guess the reason for this post stems from frustration that the 
information is there on the Wiki but many new users are simply not 
finding it (I think forum users are maybe less inclined to search before 
asking than ML users). This makes me think we need to look at how we can 
restructure the information on the Wiki to make it more accessible or 
maybe produce pages that bring together related but individually 
scattered content in a more structured (easier to find and navigate) 
manner. ATM we tend to find ourselves writing the same answers over and 
over again which demonstrates a need for a centralised page covering all 
of this related content.

Any thoughts?