On 09/01/14 22:53, jdow wrote: > Ian, I suspect the SL staff position is more proper engineering with > it's concern about what could possibly go wrong than it is about > minimizing their work or compromising their main sponsor's needs. I > suspect that the SL staff position is also tempered with a healthy > dose of, "What do our customers want and need?" I didn't suggest otherwise. However, I could have sworn I read somewhere that Red Hat would stop release their source as SRPMs (which would have a direct impact on the build process of SL I assume), but I can't find that now. Maybe I mis-read that. I'll keep looking.
> > The main SL customers are their sponsers, Fermilab and Cern. They do > not need the latest and greatest. They need stable support for "what > we already have for as long as practical." I thought core CentOS would still track Red Hat in releases and support lengths. If I have that wrong, then that does throw a spanner in the works. > > All the other SL customers, such as you and I, don't matter a hill of > beans against the billion dollar investments of their sponsors. I am > sitting back and watching. I certainly respect their work, appreciate > their work, and admittedly sponge off their work. So I'd not dream of > trying to tell them what to do. I wouldn't dream of telling them what to do either. All I am doing here is chewing the cud, as it were. FWIW, I don't feel link I sponge... I merely drink from the same open source cup that SL and Red Hat does. I have a few lines of code accepted in the Xen project; does that mean all Xen users (4.3+) are sponging off me? I don't think so. > > I do note that for the machine on which I use SL it is precisely the > sort of thing I want, too. > > {^_^} Joanne Dow > > On 2014/01/09 14:30, Ian Murray wrote: >> On 09/01/14 21:12, William R. Somsky wrote: >>> One thing people should keep in mind while discussing this is the why >>> the original Fermilab distro (and Cern distro) which then became >>> Scientific Linux was created, and why Fermilab continues to actively >>> commit resources to SL. Remember Fermilab (and Cern) are particle >>> accelerator facilities with million/billion dollar experiments that >>> *must* have long-term guarantees of stable and supported software. >>> >>> To make Scientific Linux a variant of Centos would be to introduce an >>> unknown/uncontrollable element as a controlling factor in the mix. >>> What if Centos pulled an Ubuntu and decided to start introducing >>> controversial changes in an attempt to become more "user friendly" or >>> to "win the desktop"? >>> >>> A merging w/ Centos would need to carefully consider such issues. >> I don't come from a scientific background, just more of a piggy-backer >> on what seems to be a well governed and reliably supported operating >> system. An O/S with some big names behind it, such as they ones you >> mentioned above. I was a longterm CentOS user until it became clear that >> there was surprising little opaqueness around the governance and >> processes of the project and it seemed overly reliant on one or two >> individuals. Despite it being having a huge userbase, I came to the >> conclusion that this was largely a vanity project for those individuals. >> >> Now, the Red Hat news has completely changed that situation. So for me, >> CentOS is now viable again. >> >> To answer your concern, directly:- >> >> "To make Scientific Linux a variant of Centos would be to introduce an >> unknown/uncontrollable element as a controlling factor in the mix." >> >> Scientific Linux is already based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so in >> that sense you are not introducing any new element, in my opinion. The >> press release talks about Special Interest Groups and official variants. >> Now if SL was to become an official variant, then part of the acceptance >> of the SIG from the Scientific side could be to get confirmation that >> ongoing support would suit the needs you speak of. >> >> Something else worth remember that I seem to recall reading on this list >> that a discussion had taken place sometime ago about a possible merger >> between CentOS and SL (or at least a common base). The wording in the >> list that I recall was that "the conclusion was that both projects goals >> were too different". Obviously, that is wide open to exact >> interpretation. Those differences may now be reconcilable or even moot. >> >> Having said all that, it would be a shame for the (now) only significant >> independent RHEL rebuild project to lose its independence. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> On 01/08/14 11:53, Connie Sieh wrote: >>>> We are in the process of researching/evaluating this news and how it >>>> impacts Scientific Linux. >>>> >>>> -Connie Sieh >>>> >>