[CentOS] Blog article about the state of CentOS

Hi Johnny,
thank you for your and all centos team works.

Many of us know how much work is needed for building new releases and
maintaining C6 and C7, plus CentOS Stream and modules (Appstream). This is
a huge work for a small team. Again thank you.

For me OL is not an alternative.

As reported in my previous message I'm not worried about how much time is
required to build the new (major/minor) release, it will be ready when it
will be. My major concern is about the "security update blackout" that take
long as the build process.

I would ask to you:

1. Why all security fix are stopped when a new release building process is
started? There is a way or possibility to run the two process in parallel?

2. When a build process is started and a security fix released there is a
way for your team to "suspend" the building process, release security
updates (for 6/7.x or 8.1) and resume the builing process? I think that
many users (included me) will have less disappointment having security
updates instead of receiving a  "signal lost" when building process takes
its way.

Thank you for your time.

Alessandro.

Il Mer 17 Giu 2020, 16:15 Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> ha scritto:

> On 6/17/20 8:06 AM, Simon Matter via CentOS wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I just read this blog article from austrian Linux expert Michael Kofler.
> >> For
> >> those among you who don't know the guy, he's my home country's number
> one
> >> Linux
> >> expert (known as "der Kofler") and most notably the author of a series
> of
> >> excellent books about Linux over the last 25 years.
> >>
> >> https://kofler.info/centos-8-wertlose-langzeitunterstuetzung/
> >>
> >> Disclaimer : I've been a CentOS user (and fan) since 4.x, I'm using it
> on
> >> all
> >> my servers, and yes, I know the difference between upstream RHEL and
> >> CentOS.
> >>
> >> The article is in german, but the statistics graph is eloquent enough
> for
> >> the
> >> non-german-speaking users. It focuses on updates for CentOS 8, and more
> >> exactly
> >> the extended periods of time where there have been no updates available.
> >>
> >> The author's theory ("unspoken truth"): while it's a positive thing that
> >> Red
> >> Hat is sponsoring CentOS, the amount of sponsoring is just insufficient
> >> enough
> >> so that the product is "starved to death" by Red Hat (e. g. IBM) to
> >> encourage
> >> users to move to RHEL.
> >
> > I think if Red Hat really wanted to improve the situation, they could
> > integrate the building of CentOS into the EL build system to produce both
> > versions, RHEL and CentOS, at the same time. In the end 99% of the bits
> > are the same anyway. If the delay of CentOS builds is really wanted by
> Red
> > Hat, it would be nice of them to speak it out - and change the name to
> > COS, because the ent is not true anymore :-)
> >
> > Up to now I thought the big delay with 8 is more an accident than wanted.
> > Would be nice to hear what Red Hat says about it. Maybe the problem is
> not
> > known well enough in the Red Hat universe.
> >
>
>
> No one is trynig to make anything slower.
>
> And CentOS Stream 'is' going to be how RHEL is developed in the future.
>  So, all this is happening.
>
> But modules introduced in RHEL 8 requires a who new build system (as
> koji set up) and a whole new module build back end (MBS).
>
> If you would rather use Oracle for your open source needs .. well, that
> is a decision you can make and be responsible for.
>
> If you would instead have feedback directly into the RHEL development
> process as a community .. then CentOS is where you want to be.
>
> This stuff is open source, and you are all gown ups who can make your
> own decisions.
>
> I can assure you .. I am working my butt off everyday to make CentOS
> Linux the best it can be.  If you want to compare what the CentOS team
> (a small team) can do compared to Oracle (a tmulti billin dollar
> corporation who bought Sun Microsystems .. took over Java and Open
> Office, etc)  .. well, we can not provide the resources they can provide.
>
> But Red hat heard the community .. that the community and Red Hat
> customers want more direct input into RHEL development.  And Red Hat is
> taking action to open up RHEL development in CentOS Stream.
>
> You get to decide who you trust.
>
> Thanks,
> Johnny hUghes
>
>
>
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