[CentOS] Upstream and downstream (was Re: What are the differences between systemd and non-systemd Linux distros?)

Sat Oct 20 13:23:44 UTC 2018
Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org>

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 05:52:12PM -0700, Japheth Cleaver wrote:
> The wider EL community is trapped between a rock and a hard place
> somewhat. If you try to direct Fedora into the needs of EL users,
> you stand a good chance of getting told to pound stand, and that EL
> is getting in the way of bleeding-edge progress. Traditionally,

For what it's worth (I hope something!) I think this is an outdated fear or
assumption. Before Fedora.next, the "default user" for Fedora was assumed to
be an indiviual desktop user, and the overall Fedora OS offering meant to be
one-size-fits-all but modeled to that user. That wasn't working, partly
for the reason you identify here. Nonetheless, something like 20% of Fedora
usage is on servers, and a lot of people work with Fedora in parallel with
a Enterprise Linux deployment. We needed to find a place for those users to
have a voice.

So, Fedora Server was explicitly chartered as not just for its own sake
(although we intend to make that true as well) but also the intentional
upstream for downstream enterprise Linux consumers. That doesn't mean that
every change there goes into RHEL, or is RH blessed or even Red Hat aligned
— but the needs of EL users are *definitely* taken into account.


> wider EL-using community. Does it want direct feedback in the form
> of tickets? Should people form SIGs? Obviously RHEL7 is not changing
> init systems, but where should one talk about the future?

If this is your interest, I'd really encourage you to get more involved
in Fedora Server. We could use your input.


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader