[CentOS] Any update on 5.6 / 6?

[David Sommerseth]

On 16/02/11 14:15, Johnny Hughes wrote:
[...snip...]
> 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.

Fair enough.  But please misunderstand me correctly.  We all *do*
understand that there is a lot of work behind it, and we *do* appreciate
the work all of you do put into CentOS.

But *not* knowing what you're fighting against, just leaves the community
restless ... and the more restless the community gets, the more noisy it gets.

[...snip...]

>> 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).

Does one or two hours (which I believe is a major over-estimate) bi-weekly
for writing an little update (which could be as little as one or two
paragraphs long) by one of those of you who are deeply involved and knows
what going on really set you back *that* much?

We're not asking for a full executive summary.  Just to have a feeling how
the progress is going forward.

>> 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.

I said release *progress*, in the context that CentOS is an open source
project, being community driven.

The result, when it is released, is very open - just as it should be.

[...snip...]

> 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.

Fair enough!  I don't expect exact dates, which I stated earlier.  I simply
asked for an *estimate*, and an estimate can be adjusted as time goes on.

It's as easy as "We estimated 2 weeks in the last report, unfortunately it
will probably take 3 more weeks to get this right due to some unexpected
issues with {short simple brief summary}" ... do you have any idea how much
such a sentence can calm down anticipating people?

[...snip...]

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

I do completely understand, and I'm sure more of the community does as
well.  We do understand this is difficult and time consuming.  And my
responses have not been a critique of *what* the developers/packagers are
doing.  All who are involved in the hard work are doing *a lot* of good
work, which we all *do* appreciate.

But we are missing *some* information on the progress.  And *something* is
way better than *nothing*, which is the current situation.


kind regards,

David Sommerseth