On Jan 13, 2015, at 8:15 AM, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca> wrote: > On Mon, January 12, 2015 11:47, Warren Young wrote: >> On Jan 10, 2015, at 7:42 PM, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca> >> wrote: >>> On Fri, January 9, 2015 17:36, John R Pierce wrote: >>>> >>>> Enterprise to me implies large business >>> >>> Enterprise literally means 'undertaking’. > >> >> Danger: We’re starting to get into dictionary flame territory. > > Is one to infer from that remark that the E in RHEL has no meaning > whatsoever? It has marketing value, and that only because people drag along baggage of what “enterprise” means. Red Hat could rename it Red Hat Spiffy Linux without any obligation to make any functional change in the end product as a result of the name change. That should tell you how much practical value the term has. (Spoiler: zero.) >> Just because the product has an “enterprise” label on it doesn’t mean >> it must behave according to rules set down by Merriam-Webster. > > This is, of which you are no-doubt quite cognisant, a straw-man > augment. Nowhere in this discussion has anyone defined 'rules' or > claimed that rules exist, in Merriam-Wester or elsewhere, in whatever > form you imagine them to take. I only dragged Merriam-Webster into this to show that third party arbitration doesn’t help settle the argument. That should tell you that we’re not dealing with a single universal sense of the word “enterprise”. If we can’t agree on its meaning, we can’t sensibly argue about how well RHEL adheres to that meaning. > This issue…is… > the path that RHEL seems to be following at the moment So get involved with the development of RHEL 8, rather than complain about a design that started taking shape three years ago, and which is now set in stone. > This forum is > where I find those who share my interest in RHEL, albeit in the form > of CentOS. I am seeking their views on the matter. I do not expect a > solution here. Nor would I look for one on any of the multitudinous > mailing lists associated with Fedora. If you don’t expect a solution, what *do* you expect to get out of this? What's the motivating drive that keeps you posting to this thread? Catharsis? I’d hoped we’d passed that point months ago. Agitation for rebellion? The only argument that’s going to matter is for someone to develop a viable alternative. Fork EL6, for example. Bikeshedding? I think we can all agree that the current bike shed is ugly, but that it keeps the rust off. Soapboxing? Leverage is more about position than force. The same amount of effort applied elsewhere would have a greater effect. My reason? https://xkcd.com/386/ > we need to be looking now for a replacement. No, you need to be helping develop that replacement now. Seriously: Look at all the Linuxes out there, decide whether EL7 is still the best *on balance*, and if so, decide whether it’s best to get involved with Fedora.next so as to drive EL8, or fork it now to create what you actually want instead. If some other Linux is better, the same argument applies. You’re not going to find “perfect.” All you’re going to find is the platform you think you’ve got the best chance of being successful atop. Free software is about freedom, and freedom isn’t free. Like a democracy, those who just complain about change after it’s been made don’t actually affect anything. It’s those who get up and push out the *next* change who affect where the passive observers go. >> Please point to an example of an OS or OS-like software distribution >> that does this. > > Why is that necessary? Because you agitators are all saying “just” do this, and “just” do that, and why can’t it be different? I am challenging you to show me a system that has done “just” those things, and succeeded. If there are no such systems, there’s probably a good reason for that, given that we do not lack for choice in the Linux world. DistroWatch returns 49 results for “server Linux”. (http://goo.gl/Hrto3R) If you drop the Linux requirement, you add another eight options. If it’s easy, why doesn’t your nirvana distro already exist? It’s because it *isn’t* easy. It’s actually work. Lots of it. Go ask Patrick Volkerding how much work it is to create a *successful* Linux distro that works differently from all the others. > As it happens a most useful, to me at least, piece of information was > revealed in the course of this thread. That was the existence of a > server based stream for Fedora. I have downloaded that ISO and intend > to install it on a VM in the near future. If the results of that > investigation prove satisfactory then that will go a long way to > alleviating the doubts that my, admittedly limited, experience with > CentOS-7 has engendered thus far. I think you’re going to find that it breaks things frequently, as is appropriate for a distro project that puts out a new version every 6 months. The point of running Fedora Server (or whatever they’re calling it) is to help drive the development of EL8. If that’s what you’re going to do, I fully endorse your choice to guide your own destiny. Those unwilling to do that shouldn’t complain when the currents of change take them somewhere they didn’t want to be. Grab a paddle, stroke for shore, and find a river that *is* going somewhere you want to be!