[CentOS] Any update on 5.6 / 6?

Wed Feb 16 13:15:32 UTC 2011
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

On 02/16/2011 04:31 AM, David Sommerseth wrote:
> On 15/02/11 17:25, Gilbert Sebenste wrote:
>> Let's see. 7 weeks after a RHEL release, we have:
> 
> For RHEL6, lets make that 14 weeks.  And RHEL5.6 got released 9 weeks after
> RHEL6.
> 

The FIRST build of a distribution (the .0 of 4.0 or 5.0) takes MUCH
longer than the subsequent rebuilds.  This is because you have NOTHING
to start from except SRPMS.  You also do not know the environment that
upstream is using to run their "Build Roots" in.  We also know nothing
about which packages will and will not build as written (there are many
that require us to research and provide hints to the build suystem.
Hints are things that need to be added that are not called out in the SRPM).

These "phantom" RPMS (non released by Red Hat, but in their build tree
for their initial development of the OS) are sometimes very hard to
replicate.  They are versions that are no where to be found.

Oracle has supposedly released their EL 6 build (last Friday) ... but
they have not released their sources as of this post.

http://oss.oracle.com/el5/     <=== EL 5 Sources

http://oss.oracle.com/el6/     <=== 404 Error

Red Hat still has not put several of the sources in their public tree
either.

> It's amazing how much smoother things would be, in regards to controlling
> the anticipation *if* we could find some regular updates on the progress.
> 
> We don't need exact dates, but an idea of how the progress is going.  Also
> some progress information of what is troublesome?  What is taking time?
> How can the rest of the community help?  This information could be given
> out even bi-weekly, and I'm sure it would calm down this tension a lot. 

And how much more time does that add to the development process.  It is
already taking too long for you, so you want the developers to spend
more time on other things?  They don't have enough time now to spend on
CentOS, how is adding time to the process going to help.  When they try,
it is seen as not enough (see you comments below).

> The whole CentOS release progress is surprisingly closed, considering it is
> an open source project.
> 

CentOS releases our source on exactly the same day as our binary files.

We published scripts and RPMS on how we generate our build system, on
how we check our binaries, on how we generate our ISOs.  How is that not
open?  (See if you can get Red Hat or Oracle to tell you what they use
as a build engine for their enterprise products ...)

We do not KNOW how long it is going to take to get this right ..
especially CentOS 6.  We have NO IDEA what problems we are going to
incur until we hit them.  There is NO WAY to know what RPM is not going
to build correctly until it fails to build.  There is no way to figure
out why it did not build until you see the errors.

Sometimes the build of a package seems complete, but the package does
not contain the correct files or it is not linked against the correct
packages.  Sometimes the order of building the packages is important.
Sometimes there are interim build packages that upstream had in their
build roots that do not exist anywhere outside their build system, and
that impacts how things build.

We have to design a whole new build system for the new TREE, we have to
bootstrap the packages in the correct order to build the tree.  Once we
have that tree, we need to build it again.  Sometimes the underlying OS
that the build roots run in (Build roots get built dynamically to build
each package in a clean environment) matters.

The bottom line is that is process is trial and error, especially the
first one in a series (the .0 build).

> Is it really too much to ask for information on the progress?   And
> frankly, these references below doesn't shed too much light on the situation
> 
> <http://twitter.com/centos>
> <http://www.karan.org/blog/index.php>
> <http://planet.centos.org/>
> 
> I'm sorry if I've missed some other more obvious places with more updated
> information ... so if that is the case, please enlighten me.

If you want timely enterprise open source software, you should:

1.  Pay for it from RHEL
2.  Learn to build it yourself, then you can ask yourself how long it is
going to take.  You still won't know ... but you will know who you yell at.


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