[CentOS] How can a company help, officially?

Mon Apr 11 18:19:22 UTC 2011
Dag Wieers <dag at wieers.com>

On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:

> centos-bounces at centos.org wrote:
>> On 4/11/2011 10:55 AM, Brunner, Brian T. wrote:
>>> centos-bounces at centos.org wrote:
>>>
>>>> The main support *I* need is timely updates and releases.
>>>
>>> This is the key indicator that says you want RHEL not CentOS.
>>
>> That's only true if you think the CentOS team is incapable of matching
>> some definition of 'timely'.
>
> Proved to be so, with great pain for some.
>
> To take a relativistic approach, entities (people or corporations) who
> are uncomfortable with CentOS's notion of "timely" will be less so with
> RH's notion of "timely", since RHEL defines the product for which we're
> waiting. RH is the Time(0) of the process.
>
> Speed costs money, time costs money and/or patience.
>
> You must either shell out the money for RHEL, or you must shell out time
> for CentOS.

Considering you follow the "it's released when it's ready" mantra, what 
are you comfortable with ? A one month delay between upstream and CentOS ? 
Two months ? Three months (CentOS 5.6) ? Four months ? Five months ? Six 
months (CentOS 6.0) ? When it's ready ?

Regarding CentOS 5.6, all users using it should not have a problem if the 
security updates are 3 months behind ? Maybe in 12 months Karanbir has a 
kid, Johnny disappears again. Would four months be acceptable ? Maybe five 
months ?

No no, it's released when it's ready. Even if it takes 6 months and the 
next release is out before CentOS is ready ? 3 months is halfway through 
the release, so you're vulnerable to security problems 50% of the time.

If you graph the releases since 2005, you can see it's becoming longer and 
longer. It never took 3 months before. A new base release never took 5 
months.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentOS

I have been ringing the alarm-bell 2 years ago (CentOS 4.8) and nothing 
has changed. But hey, don't let me spoil your dinner, there is no problem. 
It's free, so questioning things is out of order.

     http://dag.wieers.com/blog/centos-48-finally-there

The comments I got both came from the CentOS team, so you know where you 
stand if you provide a critical voice. I no longer expect any change.

-- 
-- dag wieers, dag at wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info at dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]