[CentOS] Re: Demonizing generic Linux issues as Fedora Core-only issues -- Last time I explain this ...

Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org
Wed May 25 01:35:43 UTC 2005


On Tue, 2005-05-24 at 20:15 -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> "Not-quite-cooked"?  There has to be a "first" and that company gets all
> the blame for addressing all the problems that people are going to deal
> with sooner or later.

This is the last time I'm ever going to explain this.

If you want to wallow in ignorance, not stop to understand how software
lifecycle works, but feel the need to bash Red Hat like you're an
expert, then I just don't know what to tell you other than such
marketing non-sense is what I already hate about the Windows world.

Since Red Hat Linux 4.0 (some things weren't quite formalized until
about 5.x), Red Hat has pretty much has a 2-2-2, 6-6-6 release model.
What is that?

  2 Months New Development -- formulating packages, etc...
  2 Months Rawhide -- _individual_ package testing
+ 2 Months Beta -- regression testing _all_ packages as a whole unit
===========================
  6 Month Revision Release

  6 Revision .0 "Early Adopter" (non-production)
  6 Revision .1 "First Production"
+ 6 Revision .2 "Mature Production"
===========================
 18 Month Stable Release

Well before Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this is what Red Hat done.
They even offered SLAs on Red Hat Linux 6.2 and called it 6.2"E".  Now
sometimes there have been 4 revisionary releases (e.g., RHL7-RHL7.3).

But this hasn't really changed since, and Red Hat still has 2-2-2 Fedora
New-Development-Test (instead of New-Rawhide-Beta).  Then after 2-3
Fedora Core releases, Red Hat comes out with its next Enterprise Linux
release.  No different than before.

Without the 2-2-2 and 6-6-6, you do _not_ get people testing packages,
testing packages as a distro, figuring out compatibility issues with any
changes, accommodating those changes and eventually making it into the
18 Month "Stable" Release.  Someone has to force the adoption of GLibC
2, GCC 3, SELinux, etc..., and that has been Red Hat.

So you can't demonize the development model without realizing how it
directly affects the quality of Enterprise Linux.  It's also why if
Fedora's quality suffers, so will that of RHEL.

But Red Hat cannot dictate the will on the community.  Yes, they fund a
lot of developers, and solve a lot of problems.  E.g., when people were
bitching about Qt-KDE, Red Hat helped GNOME.  Just recently, the whole
Java JRE requirement in OpenOffice.org 2.0 has been blown out of
proportion, but Red Hat helped put the people on GCJ to work towards
solving it -- instead of just arguing.

Sistina was going to close up LVM/LVM2 and not release it GPL anymore.
Red Hat bought them out to make sure it stays GPL.  There have been
countless other, core Linux packages where Red Hat hasn't just stood
around and argued, but actually done something _for_ the community.  It
listens very, very, _very_ well, typically because Red Hat is really
just the largest collection of GPL developers and projects itself!

To conclude, if you want something to bitch about, it's not hard to find
it.  But it's much harder to stop, think and appreciate what people do
to make RHEL and CentOS great, enterprise-quality distros.  Don't feel
you need to demonize Red Hat because you like CentOS.  It's not only
very inconsiderate of what Red Hat does for the community, but you're
only exposing your ignorance in how the quality behind RHEL/CentOS comes
into being.

Just as it always has -- by the 2-2-2 and 6-6-6 model.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                     b.j.smith at ieee.org 
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 
It is mathematically impossible for someone who makes more than you
to be anything but richer than you.  Any tax rate that penalizes them
will also penalize you similarly (to those below you, and then below
them).  Linear algebra, let alone differential calculus or even ele-
mentary concepts of limits, is mutually exclusive with US journalism.
So forget even attempting to explain how tax cuts work.  ;->





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