Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Wednesday 12 August 2009 20:34:55 lostson wrote: long snip We need to stand up and ask - How may I help ? What do you need to get this done. Ask yourself what talents do you have that you can offer the project. There are many ways to do this and you can find them here http://wiki.centos.org/Contribute I for one thank the Dev's for their work I know it is time consuming and you guys are doing one hell of a job. I know some of the barking can be discouraging but please do not let a few impede your progress, on what is a great os for us to use, and to finish up may I offer my help in any way I can. I am no super guru by any means but I do have some skills and would be happy to help, and yes I know I have to earn it, so be it I love a challenge, thank you again for the excellent os that is CentOS +1 Lostson, kill the fatted calf. It's time someone injected some positive thinking into the list. Anne -- New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org Just found a cool new feature? Add it to UserBase signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
This applies to 5.X as it stands, as 4.X. Once RH 5.4 hits the streets, then CentOS 5 users will be in the same boat. I would hope nobody feels they are getting beaten up about this. The intention is not to beat anybody up. Anyway, I am going to try *really* hard not to post on the matter again (I said that yesterday, but I am going to try *harder*) because I am just repeating myself now, which may come across as brow-beating. From: Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Wednesday, 12 August, 2009 3:41:24 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure Joseph L. Casale wrote: I didn't 'get' the security implications of the rebuild stuff til it was explained to me the other day. Share the knowledge:) Aside from the delay involved while the devs build rpm's from the srpm's, is there more to it? It's been covered already. When RH does a point release, CentOS has to match the full rebuild before any more security updates go out for some unavoidable technical reasons. RH 4.8 http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv4-announce/2009-May/msg0.html still isn't matched in CentOS, so no security updates in the 4.x line since May. But, if you want to be up to date you probably shouldn't be running a 4.x release anyway - so other than stating the facts I wouldn't want to beat anyone up over this particular issue. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: This applies to 5.X as it stands, as 4.X. Once RH 5.4 hits the streets, then CentOS 5 users will be in the same boat. I would hope nobody feels they are getting beaten up about this. The intention is not to beat anybody up. Anyway, I am going to try *really* hard not to post on the matter again (I said that yesterday, but I am going to try *harder*) because I am just repeating myself now, which may come across as brow-beating. Look ... either use it or not, how many times do we have to hear this? The same people keep posting the same things. Everything for 4.8 is built and in qa testing, including the updates after 4.8. We have a COMMUNITY QA team that we have test our distro, this adds a couple weeks to the process. I thought you guys liked community things. This adds a week or two to the release cycle. 4.8 should be released in a couple days as soon as the QA team finishes, assuming there are no major issues (which is how it is looking right now). If you want the updates when Red Hat releases them, buy Red Hat. We have a process to release normal updates without the QA team and a QA team period for point releases ... it takes time. I keep hearing Scientific Linux this and that ... Go back and look at release dates for all the releases and you will see this: Release SciLinuxCentOS 4.0 2005-04-21 2005-03-02 4.1 2005-08-06 2005-06-12 4.2 2005-12-03 2005-10-13 4.3 2006-05-08 2006-03-21 4.4 2006-10-10 2006-08-30 4.5 2007-06-26 2007-05-18 4.6 2008-03-10 2007-12-16 4.7 2008-09-03 2008-09-13 4.8 2009-07-21 *In QA 5.0 2007-05-07 2007-04-12 5.1 2008-01-16 2007-12-02 5.2 2008-06-28 2008-06-24 5.3 2009-03-19 2009-04-01 I post these only to show that in general, the dates are similar with CentOS usually finishing faster. I do not know how they QA test their distro or if they compare the binaries to upstream like CentOS does. I do know that they do more mods to the base OS than CentOS does: https://www.scientificlinux.org/about/customize I also point out that it takes at least a couple of days for us to sync to all the external mirrors so that we can distribute to our millions of users when we update (300ish mirrors in 56 countries world wide). We hold off our release announcement until after most of the external mirrors are updated. This is taking nothing away from Scientific Linux, they make a great distro. If I was not using CentOS, I would surely be using SL. I'll not bash them on this list, they are good people and do good work. I also have no idea what kind of mirror distribution they have for updates. If you want answers to these questions, I would suggest the SL Mailing lists. Thanks, Johnny Hughes signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Tue, 2009-08-11 at 20:42 -0500, Ron Blizzard wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: I am troubled by the window of opportunity that a hacker has between RH releasing a point release and CentOS releasing the equivalent. Every RH published errata for that stream is a known weakness to your system and there is not a sausage you can do about it until the CentOS project delivers the point release. The quicker it is, the less of a problem, but the slower it is, the more exposed you are. CentOS have not exactly been knocking out the updates very quickly. If security and immediate updates is your main criteria, then you probably are better off with RH. But a lot of people use CentOS and, as far as I can tell, there have not been any major security problems caused by the unavoidable delay between RH's release and CentOS's release. But, as someone else mentioned here, a mixture might be your best option. RH on critical servers and CentOS on less critical ones. Ok I have been reading and reading this thread and I finally had to say something. I am a fairly new user to CentOS and as such I supposed am not entitled to my opinion but here goes anyway. I really don't understand all the griping there has been alot of sniping and other such complaints in the past few weeks and to me it all got started with the open letter to lance, but that is moot now as the problem has been resolved and the powers that be are settings things straight and it has even been said that they have new things planned for us in the future, this is excellent news. It seems the two complaints thrown out there the most are A) lack of a contrib or community repo B) speed of updates Ok lets address A first - there are several repo's out there that you can use with cent as we all know and if you don't know I refer you here http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories Now if you still are missing a package that you want I would suggest either learning how to make your own rpm's and make yourself a nice little server and run your own repo I know a great OS that would be ideal for this : ) There has also been hints and such at a contrib repo that may or may not appear at sometime in the future, this is also more excellent news. But again questions have been raised about who can put things in this repo or not. Well that is left up to the powers that be not me or you. So Ideally this really is a moot point because one can use whatever repo they wish to add extra functionality to their machine, or build your own rpm's or dare I say it built it from source( although this is not reccommended). So on with B - From my understanding the main core of things in cent is maintained from a people that I can count on two hands. So lets put this in the simplest of terms, they are maintaining how many different versions, and as the link provided earlier to the 4 series update this is a large laundry list of things to do. So I can understand why somethings will take a longer time frame sometimes. And I have also did some reading on rebuilding the entire OS from rhel sources and this is not as simple as just rebuilding a src.rpm, be nice if it was though huh. Ok on with my .02 I am an old RH junkie I started with 7.0 and since they pulled the distro I have been bouncing ever since. With finding cent I have found a home again something I can use is stable and easy to maintain and break if I choose to break it. IMHO other distro's are all just racing for the latest features and who can boot the fastest while most simple and normal desktop features get neglected. My biggest disappointment in this thread is all I read is why cant this ? why cant I, why why why. Where is the How ? How can I help? How can I be of service? How can I help to push updates and releases out faster ? These are the questions that are lacking and should be asked. We are all after the same thing here, we like cent we use cent how can we make a better cent? The core group has made a clear and concise statement of what the goal of the project is, if this suits you great but you cannot bang on them for staying true to their goals, they never once said - oh you cant use that repo, or you cant do this. Once you download and install its yours use it as YOU see fit. If something should arise where you need help, ask, from my experience so far everyone has been very friendly and willing to help(though not spoon feed) I love that in the IRC topic. If you have idea's or questions by all mean's please ask but do so politely. The fact of the matter is this I understand all the concerns and questions in this thread but beating a dead horse will solve nothing. Again those of us outside of the core group need to stop griping and beating the core group up over it. We need to stand up and ask - How may I help ? What do you need to get this done. Ask yourself what talents do you have that you can offer the project.
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Hi, Late to the party, oops! Everything in this email is my personal opinion, and I speak for myself not the project here. Just as Russ and Johnny dont speak for the project either in their emails, they speak for themselves. On 08/06/2009 02:52 PM, Marcus Moeller wrote: I recently started thinking about how to make a project like CentOS more transparent and open (especially for new contributors). There are a lot of good ideas in your mail, Marcus - however some that are mis-aimed, not your fault, and maybe not taking the entire CentOS context in mind. But everyone of them put forward with good intent. The conversation that followed from there is also very interesting, some of it made me sad though. CentOS has been quite an experience over the last few years and I think a few things need to be put into context. Kai, if you dont want these emails, setup a filter for yourself or unsubscribe from the list for the duration of the conversation. Given the traction this has and the context of the conversation, I feel its important that it gets somewhere. Anyway to kick things off, here is a bit of history to start with : CentOS started way back when. We had no management, there was little or no direction and people didn't care much about things. A few of us ( mostly Johnny and me, to be honest ) took up the task of fixing stuff and making things happen. And because we used it and because we were able to[1], it was the norm spending the 36 hrs /week on the day job followed by the 30hrs/week on the CentOS 'job'. Its pretty much stayed like that for years, when Ralph and Tru got involved with the infrastructure side of things and Ralph took up the additional task for 'being chief executioner' on the wiki. Tim has been an even more recent addition to the 'team'. And this is even before we start talking about the distribution. Most of us do other things as well, like help and work on building a distro[2], Some of the people on this list might have heard of it. One of the important things to keep in mind is that CentOS hasent been an accident. We had decided very early in the lifecycle ( Jan 2005, I still have the logs from the conversation ) that we would either do things the right way, or not do them at all. I guess that paid off long term, even at the cost of personal loss ( I've lost count of how many times people have called me all sorts of things ). So, effectively late last year, we decided that things were getting a bit mad and something had to be done. And we setup the infrastructure group to keep things moving along while we looked at options and also tacked other issues, which needed attention. Much of whats been going on recently in terms of the 'project issues' with the media is negative spin to what I'd say is a good thing for the project. We are at a stage where we can restart, with much hindsight and a clearer idea of what needs doing and how it needs doing. We also realise that while we made mistakes along the way (eg. the QA Team ), somethings we did get right. So let me lay out what I'd consider an ideal situation that we can build on from here. Remember, that this is my personal take on things. Much needs to happen before some of these are even considered. The first thing that we need to do, all of us, is step back a bit and see exactly what CentOS is. I think about 80%(guess) of the contributors to the thread already, dont seem to know or prefer to ignore it as they foster a deam of something wildly different. Anyway, whichever way you spin it - CentOS is about the people. The people here. Its not about the distribution. Its not about any 'team', its not about the infrastructure or the means for the infrastructure. Its a group of people, who all use/abuse a common code base. Therein lies my take on what is the 'C' in community. I'd be happy to clarify and explain ( although Smooge and Mike already do a great job of that ), if anyone still cant 'get it'. CentOS, in its early days was about the optional setup to EL, in the last few years its become about the people. Even if you dont agree with me and try to spin it otherwise. At the core of this group-of-people is a codebase that we dont change, we dont edit, we dont 'develop' on[2]. Look at the wiki, look at the forums, this list, look at the companies who base their products on CentOS - and you will see this community. People who 'get it', and are offering to help others 'get it'. So, I think lets start by first defining what it is that the 'CentOS Project' stands for. Johnny already pointed people at the website and whats on there. I think now would be a great time to redefine that into a real 'charter' or a 'mandate'. Having said this, I also realise one thing that we got really wrong was calling people 'CentOS Developers' and others 'the Non Developers'. A more apt name for these people would be 'administrators' ( or even something else ). These are the people who
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
James B. Byrne wrote: Nonetheless, it is very evident from the heated exchanges on this mailing list that there exists a substantial divergence on which path to take from here. It seems to me insupportable that the past practices of a small coterie of initiates deciding on everything without community input will suffice for the future. If that does become the choice taken then I foresee the community splitting in the future in consequence. Finally, please drop the word meritocracy in future communications. It implies a natural worthiness of those to whom it is applied which is simply not appropriate to these discussions. The proper word in this circumstance is oligarchy. I've been reading this and other threads on the subject and feel compelled, though I know I'm straying OT, to add my US$0.02 here. vent IMNSHO, the 'heated exchanges' as you've said here, are the result not of fears that the project will collapse or splinter - that, again in my not-so-humble opinion, is FUD and nothing more - but that those of us who reap the rewards of a rock-solid, stable and secure, 100% upstream compatible OS should simply appreciate the golden goose (no disrespect to the CentOS team here, quite the opposite). From the typical 'when will version be out' to 'why don't you do it this way' to 'how dare that IRC op say that to me' are daggers which shouldn't be flung at the folks who freely give their time, effort, brain cells and often funds to make CentOS happen. I've also had a wealth of experience in volunteer organizations, and I still do volunteer my time to several. The work is hard, the rewards are entirely based in the feeling of satisfaction of having done something which makes the world better. The occasional 'thank you' from the folks being helped through the efforts of my chosen volunteer organization is of far greater value than one can put a price on. Do people sometimes get little napoleon complexes? Of course they do. But when there's a common goal, that is quickly evaporated with humor or, when needed, a stern reminder that we're all giving, not taking. In our little distro's volunteer organization, I am well aware that there are far fewer givers than takers. I, myself, am an admitted taker. I use and appreciate this distro and am amazed by the brain trust and dedication which make up our core developers. The issue of community involvement is simple. The community is free ( as in beer ) to use the mailing list, the forums and submit for publication to the wiki, any additions or updates they choose to provide. They can share their own repos or communicate with the commonly used 3rd party repos for CentOS for sharing what they've done to add to the community. For the core developers to require a vetting process for inclusion to that circle is entirely appropriate, just as it is entirely appropriate for me, if I choose not to endorse what they're doing, to go upstream or elsewhere (Which I'm not doing...but I am wholly free to do so). I'm cognizant of the pros and cons of using this rebuild of upstream's product and I've chosen to be responsible for systems I administer. Thankfully, the members of this community mailing list have saved my expletive many times - without an upstream entitlement. It is *that* level of support that makes for positive community involvement. There are countless professionals on this list, of which I am in the lower tiers of knowledge, who offer freely their experience and help. That those professionals include our core development team, makes this distro *very* special. I applaud the private attempts to get the project's domain owner in line. I further applaud the team for taking it public when no private channel was sufficient. I think it speaks volumes about the integrity of all those currently involved and makes me even more certain that this distro will continue down a healthy path of being 100% binary compatible with upstream and will remain my OS of choice. The bottom line is that neither meritocracy nor oligarchy are appropriate terms. A distro is a dictatorship (without forced citizenry). A good distro, like this one, is a benign dictatorship. /vent smirk Long live the kings /smirk -Ray ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
vent /vent smirk Long live the kings /smirk -Ray I must admit, may be I missed something here, but there seems to be quite a bit of outpouring of appreciation on this thread. I am sure that all that give up their time and effort to make CentOS happen really deserve all the thanks and appreciation they get. I don't think anybody on this list would deny that, certainly not me. On the contrary, my concern is that some guys are potentially overworked or over stressed by the demands of the project. The slowing of the dot releases suggest to me that either the releases are getting technically harder or ppl are less able to give time time to them. Either way, with more releases and the long maintenance period that the CentOS team have committed to things are only going to get harder. According to Karanbir's comments in response to an article (http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/08/the-future-of-centos-and-crite.html), CentOS developers are easy to replace. I am not so sure if that really is true if the process isn't documented and there is some kind of induction to get guys on-board before a developer leaves. This represents a risk to the project. One which I am not comfortable with. Part of my professional work is risk assessing system upgrades. I have been doing so long now that everything I professionally do is considered from a risk perspective. Maybe those of us that have to assess risk on a daily basis understand what I am on about and the ones that don't don't. For the record, I don't care whether dictatorship, oligarchy or what ever. Just please don't spread yourselves too thin to a point where walking away is the only option to keep you sane. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: Part of my professional work is risk assessing system upgrades. I have been doing so long now that everything I professionally do is considered from a risk perspective. Maybe those of us that have to assess risk on a daily basis understand what I am on about and the ones that don't don't. Exactly. I once built things on ATT Unix and hardware. Nice big company with plenty of resources, dedicated, bright developers, a history of following through many releases, and then out of the blue it was gone. Dell was the next choice since it was pretty much the same code base as ATT SysVr4 with some extra drivers. Then when Windows95 came out, Dell dropped it and pretended they'd never heard of unix. (I understood much later after reading their transcripts in the Microsoft antitrust case...) Then there was Red Hat which didn't really work at the time but had the redeeming features that bugs you reported sometimes got fixed and you didn't have to count licenses - and then that went away too. So yes, I'm paranoid. There aren't many survivors in this business. Hmmm, I left out an interesting interlude with BSDI in there somewhere but they were killed by a lawsuit. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: Ian Murray wrote: Part of my professional work is risk assessing system upgrades. I have been doing so long now that everything I professionally do is considered from a risk perspective. Maybe those of us that have to assess risk on a daily basis understand what I am on about and the ones that don't don't. Exactly. I once built things on ATT Unix and hardware. Nice big company with plenty of resources, dedicated, bright developers, a history of following through many releases, and then out of the blue it was gone. Dell was the next choice since it was pretty much the same code base as ATT SysVr4 with some extra drivers. Then when Windows95 came out, Dell dropped it and pretended they'd never heard of unix. (I understood much later after reading their transcripts in the Microsoft antitrust case...) Then there was Red Hat which didn't really work at the time but had the redeeming features that bugs you reported sometimes got fixed and you didn't have to count licenses - and then that went away too. So yes, I'm paranoid. There aren't many survivors in this business. Hmmm, I left out an interesting interlude with BSDI in there somewhere but they were killed by a lawsuit. I look at CentOS' track record. The foundation has consistently put out a good, solid distribution with regular updates. When that changes, then I'll worry. But, as you've shown above, there are no absolute guarantees -- so, at some point you've got to go with your gut. Even if CentOS was shaky (which it's not) you still have Scientific Linux and Red Hat -- so it's not like you're putting all your eggs in one basket. From a risk management standpoint I think CentOS is a pretty good bet. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I am troubled by the window of opportunity that a hacker has between RH releasing a point release and CentOS releasing the equivalent. Every RH published errata for that stream is a known weakness to your system and there is not a sausage you can do about it until the CentOS project delivers the point release. The quicker it is, the less of a problem, but the slower it is, the more exposed you are. CentOS have not exactly been knocking out the updates very quickly. Having asked the question on the SL list, I've been informed that they release interim security errata and build all dependencies. They freely admit that doesn't always work and somethings do get missed, especially immediately after RH does a point release. However, as was also pointed out, you have the choice to take the updates or not, so you are never worse off than you are with CentOS, in that respect at least. From: Ron Blizzard rb4cen...@gmail.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Tuesday, 11 August, 2009 22:06:05 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: Ian Murray wrote: Part of my professional work is risk assessing system upgrades. I have been doing so long now that everything I professionally do is considered from a risk perspective. Maybe those of us that have to assess risk on a daily basis understand what I am on about and the ones that don't don't. Exactly. I once built things on ATT Unix and hardware. Nice big company with plenty of resources, dedicated, bright developers, a history of following through many releases, and then out of the blue it was gone. Dell was the next choice since it was pretty much the same code base as ATT SysVr4 with some extra drivers. Then when Windows95 came out, Dell dropped it and pretended they'd never heard of unix. (I understood much later after reading their transcripts in the Microsoft antitrust case...) Then there was Red Hat which didn't really work at the time but had the redeeming features that bugs you reported sometimes got fixed and you didn't have to count licenses - and then that went away too. So yes, I'm paranoid. There aren't many survivors in this business. Hmmm, I left out an interesting interlude with BSDI in there somewhere but they were killed by a lawsuit. I look at CentOS' track record. The foundation has consistently put out a good, solid distribution with regular updates. When that changes, then I'll worry. But, as you've shown above, there are no absolute guarantees -- so, at some point you've got to go with your gut. Even if CentOS was shaky (which it's not) you still have Scientific Linux and Red Hat -- so it's not like you're putting all your eggs in one basket. From a risk management standpoint I think CentOS is a pretty good bet. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marko Vojinovic wrote: Why don't you go with the SL or even pay RH, if you are that concerned about hacking attempts? It seems clear that CentOS is not a good distro for you if you are not satisfied with its update schedule. I believe it is better to make a different choice of distro, than to ask for substantial changes in the current one, especially if other people should do that extra work for you. And please don't tell me that SL has other flaws. If security is your first and most important concern, the best thing is to buy RH, it is definitely worth it. If you cannot invest money, go with SL, they have faster updates. If things break, well, at least you didn't get hacked. You should evaluate what is best for your situation and go with it, not ask CentOS to be both rock-solid and fast with updates at the same time. First off, after reading this thread, or should I say book, entirely, like a few others have said, I thank the CentOS developers greatly for all that they do. They spend an incredible amount of time keeping this project going, and I think they do a great job at it, considering it costs nothing to us as users. What we do at my employer is exactly that. We pay for RH support and updates on business critical servers, and servers that are facing the outside world. We get our updates quickly, and have support available should we need it on those machines that we feel are critical in this regard to security and support. CentOS fits into our organization by utilizing it for all non-critical deployments, PCs/workstations where they can be used, along with terminals and backup servers inside the network. A lot of our CentOS installations are actually virtualized too. It works out perfectly for us this way. If you absolutely need updates and your main concern is security, buy some RH support on all machines that you're worried about. Then utilize CentOS on the inside where it's probably not so critical that a patch isn't applied for a few weeks. This philosophy has served up very well over the years, and we've never had any issues in this regard. CentOS saves our non-profit organization a lot of money every year by applying this configuration, and we get the feel good fuzzy feeling that we have outside machines patched immediately. While I think there probably are or have been some communications issues with CentOS, I don't think it warrants beating up the developers over it. I cannot begin to understand the build process, since I'm not a developer, but I think people need to cut some slack to those that offer you a product free of charge. Personally my company chooses and sticks with CentOS because it has been rock-solid, and is always 100% compatible with upstream, which is important to us. I'm a very un-important CentOS user, but this is how my company runs things, and how we feel, and perhaps you should consider this as well. Regards, Max ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I believe it is better to make a different choice of distro, than to ask for substantial changes in the current one, especially if other people should do that extra work for you. Believe what you like, but I believe it's better to raise my concern for discussion in the first instance. For the most part, I am happy with CentOS. I am only trying to suggest how the product may be improved, in my opinion. Why shouldn't I ask for what I like, as long as I am polite? I am not obliging any one. Besides, as has been said before, what I speak of must have merit because there is clearly been an internal discussion about it. As for using another distro, *of course* that is what I am researching, how are problems solved elsewhere ,etc. Oh hang on a minute, I am reading too much into what you say Now that I think about it, I get what your saying if you don't like it, then push off somewhere else. Great. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Tuesday 11 August 2009 23:25:23 Ian Murray wrote: I am troubled by the window of opportunity that a hacker has between RH releasing a point release and CentOS releasing the equivalent. Every RH published errata for that stream is a known weakness to your system and there is not a sausage you can do about it until the CentOS project delivers the point release. The quicker it is, the less of a problem, but the slower it is, the more exposed you are. CentOS have not exactly been knocking out the updates very quickly. Having asked the question on the SL list, I've been informed that they release interim security errata and build all dependencies. They freely admit that doesn't always work and somethings do get missed, especially immediately after RH does a point release. However, as was also pointed out, you have the choice to take the updates or not, so you are never worse off than you are with CentOS, in that respect at least. Why don't you go with the SL or even pay RH, if you are that concerned about hacking attempts? It seems clear that CentOS is not a good distro for you if you are not satisfied with its update schedule. I believe it is better to make a different choice of distro, than to ask for substantial changes in the current one, especially if other people should do that extra work for you. And please don't tell me that SL has other flaws. If security is your first and most important concern, the best thing is to buy RH, it is definitely worth it. If you cannot invest money, go with SL, they have faster updates. If things break, well, at least you didn't get hacked. You should evaluate what is best for your situation and go with it, not ask CentOS to be both rock-solid and fast with updates at the same time. HTH, :-) Marko ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: I believe it is better to make a different choice of distro, than to ask for substantial changes in the current one, especially if other people should do that extra work for you. Believe what you like, but I believe it's better to raise my concern for discussion in the first instance. For the most part, I am happy with CentOS. I am only trying to suggest how the product may be improved, in my opinion. Why shouldn't I ask for what I like, as long as I am polite? I am not obliging any one. Besides, as has been said before, what I speak of must have merit because there is clearly been an internal discussion about it. As for using another distro, *of course* that is what I am researching, how are problems solved elsewhere ,etc. Oh hang on a minute, I am reading too much into what you say Now that I think about it, I get what your saying if you don't like it, then push off somewhere else. Great. Personally I think we'd have all been better off walking away from anything related to Red Hat on the day they changed their redistribution policy, but there wasn't a great alternative at the time. Now there's ubuntu and OpenSolaris if I weren't too lazy to learn a new administration style. Maybe if enough people switch RH will go back to selling service without restricting access. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
You are probably right there. I lost interest in Linux for ages because of what RH did. It was CentOS that re-ignited my interest. I felt like I could 'get back' what I had lost when Redhat killed RHL. I didn't 'get' the security implications of the rebuild stuff til it was explained to me the other day. I spent some time this morning looking at alternatives to the rebuild type distro because I now realise there are flaws in the approach (not CentOS's fault, before anyone starts!). My day job is a Lotus Domino consultant. Domino is certified to run on RHEL and Suse, AFAIR, so the rebuild is a Godsend. I haven't tried running it on OpenSuse, yet! Personally I think we'd have all been better off walking away from anything related to Red Hat on the day they changed their redistribution policy, but there wasn't a great alternative at the time. Now there's ubuntu and OpenSolaris if I weren't too lazy to learn a new administration style. Maybe if enough people switch RH will go back to selling service without restricting access. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: I am troubled by the window of opportunity that a hacker has between RH releasing a point release and CentOS releasing the equivalent. Every RH published errata for that stream is a known weakness to your system and there is not a sausage you can do about it until the CentOS project delivers the point release. The quicker it is, the less of a problem, but the slower it is, the more exposed you are. CentOS have not exactly been knocking out the updates very quickly. If security and immediate updates is your main criteria, then you probably are better off with RH. But a lot of people use CentOS and, as far as I can tell, there have not been any major security problems caused by the unavoidable delay between RH's release and CentOS's release. But, as someone else mentioned here, a mixture might be your best option. RH on critical servers and CentOS on less critical ones. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I didn't 'get' the security implications of the rebuild stuff til it was explained to me the other day. Share the knowledge:) Aside from the delay involved while the devs build rpm's from the srpm's, is there more to it? Thanks, jlc ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Joseph L. Casale wrote: I didn't 'get' the security implications of the rebuild stuff til it was explained to me the other day. Share the knowledge:) Aside from the delay involved while the devs build rpm's from the srpm's, is there more to it? It's been covered already. When RH does a point release, CentOS has to match the full rebuild before any more security updates go out for some unavoidable technical reasons. RH 4.8 http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv4-announce/2009-May/msg0.html still isn't matched in CentOS, so no security updates in the 4.x line since May. But, if you want to be up to date you probably shouldn't be running a 4.x release anyway - so other than stating the facts I wouldn't want to beat anyone up over this particular issue. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Hi all, Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me. So, for those of you who consider this as in-fighting, know that some considers it learning. My intend in starting this thread was not to start a 'fight' like this. I have neither expected these kind of (in my pov. quite ingnorant and arrotant) replies of some core devs. Of course CentOS is a project with clear targets and being open to everyone is not the first. I have also never said that it would be a good idea to let everybody into the so called 'core team' which is responsible for building the distribution. My idea of a board stands besides of development responsibilities and of course only approved members should be able to elect it. But therefor clear instructions of how to gain membership needs to be added and mentorship could help new maintainers to learn how to contribute. The board itself could then help to clear legal aspects and directions of the distriubtion. As quoted, the direction of CentOS is quite clear and contributions can only happen in some parts (e.g. wiki, documentation, translation, artwork, newsletter, bugtracking, web/forums and even package additions as long as there is a repo called 'Contrib'). At least these areas have to be line out clearer and I would definitly like to help on that. A 'invite only' QA is purely arbitrary and could just be removed or replaced with something like 'contributors will automatically gain access to QA'. Besides that, I still think that the build process needs tobe described in detail and published publicly. I would also make much sense to let the public know who in the 'core team' is responsible for what. The website is just outdated on that. To let you guys who just jumped in know: I wrote this because of the frustration I felt in the past weeks while contributing to the project. I spent a lot of hours on CentOS tasks and have often been told that things will change (e.g. opening the wiki, contributable 'Contrib' repo...) but not much happened till today. In the past I have always talked to Karan, Dag or Ralph about things like these but to address a larger audience I decided to post it here, instead. But I also understand the position of ppl out there who just 'take' and do not want to contribute. Maybe these should just not comment on a thread like this. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
R P Herrold wrote: On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, Bob Taylor wrote: Personally, it disgusts me. Have I said I don't appreciate it? Yes, actually -- I call b*llsh*t -- you who have done nothing are here, and eat without charge at our table, and 'it disgusts' you So we begin to actively drive away people now who say they appreciate the distribution or others who are actively trying to help? Sorry, please make it clear that this is *YOUR POINT* of view and not of all the people who are making CentOS happen at the moment. Same goes for Johnny's replies: What crawled over your liver that you actively tell people to piss off? Ralph pgpC2vOdg1njL.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ralph Angenendt napsal(a): So we begin to actively drive away people now who say they appreciate the distribution or others who are actively trying to help? Sorry, please make it clear that this is *YOUR POINT* of view and not of all the people who are making CentOS happen at the moment. Same goes for Johnny's replies: What crawled over your liver that you actively tell people to piss off? Ralph Ralph, thank you for your words. David Hrbáč ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marcus Moeller wrote on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:08:45 +0200: Maybe these should just not comment on a thread like this. Yeah. And that's why I wrote very early on that this list isn't the right place ;-) Just one comment that someone gets in the wrong throat and the whole thread and purpose of it tilts. Kai -- Kai Schätzl, Berlin, Germany Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 03:23:57 +0100 Marko Vojinovic vvma...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunately, governments are typically not made of experts, but of opportunists. Name one president of insert your favorite political entity here that has been elected because he has a PhD in political sciences/history/law/whatever, or because he had enough hands-on experience in governing the state (maybe without a formal degree). Woodrow Wilson. Ph.D. in Political Science (John Hopkins), President of Princeton University, Governor of the State New Jersey, President of the United States of America. Even if one such exists, I doubt he would listen to whatever random non-initiated group of people are suggesting. Then you would be wrong. Once his mind was made up then Wilson became quite closed to further suggestion on a subject. Up to that point he sought as wide and varied a range of opinion as he could obtain. Your pride in what you know is blinding you to the value of knowledge of others in areas where you know little and presume much. I have had much experience with volunteer organisations. I now stay well clear of any involvement with them. This recent string of interrogations by concerned people, whether ignorant or not, and the aggrieved tone of the responses of some of the inner circle demonstrate the type of emotional blackmail which I frequently encounter and find so distressful in these bodies. I have no doubt that everyone involved with CentOS is pursuing some goal that they believe serves the greater good. However, difficulties ofttimes arise when one encounters another who either does not share ones belief or, as is more often the case, understands the nature of the shared goal, or the means by which it is attained, in a fashion fundamentally at odds with ones own. These uncomfortable collisions with political reality often occur at junctures such as CentOS recently experienced. Most of the people here were no doubt quite content to allow the sages of the project whatever leeway that the sages desired. In return we got a free (as in beer) copy of a very reputable Linux distribution. Had the recent inner conflict not become public then this happy arrangement might have persisted indefinitely. I still consider this arrangement a very good bargain having neither the talent nor the desire to become a sage myself. However, when the mortal nature of the sages is revealed together with the possibility of a project collapse as very real consideration, regardless how unlikely, then those dependent upon the stability of the project become fearful. Fearful people seek reassurance that their fears are baseless. A bald statement by the sages that the fear is baseless is in itself insufficient. Doubtless the fearful have told themselves that many times already. Having inoculated doubt it is now incumbent upon those who sowed it to address specific concerns raised by those who fear. Telling people who voice concerns to get lost and find another distribution, even if their concerns are presented in the form of ill-considered suggestions, smacks of arrogance to me, however it appears to others. Further, it does absolutely nothing to address the fears that prompted the suggestion. The baleful effects of these kind of replies upon those who read but choose not to participate may only be imagined, but be assured they are neither positive nor insignificant. The fact that one is a volunteer leader does not lessen the requirement that to receive the trust and support of others one must meet satisfactorily the expectations of those who follow. I am not clamoring for any immediate changes. I do not propose a program that I wish anyone else to follow. I do appreciate very much the efforts of all who contribute to the success of the CentOS projects. I further acknowledge that those who presently form the core support team are probably best equipped to evaluate the bona fides of prospective core members. Nonetheless, it is very evident from the heated exchanges on this mailing list that there exists a substantial divergence on which path to take from here. It seems to me insupportable that the past practices of a small coterie of initiates deciding on everything without community input will suffice for the future. If that does become the choice taken then I foresee the community splitting in the future in consequence. Finally, please drop the word meritocracy in future communications. It implies a natural worthiness of those to whom it is applied which is simply not appropriate to these discussions. The proper word in this circumstance is oligarchy. -- *** E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel *** James B. Byrnemailto:byrn...@harte-lyne.ca Harte Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca 9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241 Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757 Canada L8E 3C3 ___ CentOS mailing list
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 3:12 PM, James B. Byrnebyrn...@harte-lyne.ca wrote: Nonetheless, it is very evident from the heated exchanges on this mailing list that there exists a substantial divergence on which path to take from here. It seems to me insupportable that the past practices of a small coterie of initiates deciding on everything without community input will suffice for the future. If that does become the choice taken then I foresee the community splitting in the future in consequence. I think your conclusions are wrong. I don't think there is substantial divergence in the CentOS community, and I don't think the project is in danger of forking. I also think that if you open up the core development to community input you'll have endless discussion, and a degraded product (the when all is said and done, a lot more will be said then done principle). Again, what does community input have to do with the mechanical process of turning upstream code into a 100% binary compatible distribution? -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Monday 10 August 2009 21:12:11 James B. Byrne wrote: On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 03:23:57 +0100 Marko Vojinovic vvma...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunately, governments are typically not made of experts, but of opportunists. Name one president of insert your favorite political entity here that has been elected because he has a PhD in political sciences/history/law/whatever, or because he had enough hands-on experience in governing the state (maybe without a formal degree). Woodrow Wilson. Ph.D. in Political Science (John Hopkins), President of Princeton University, Governor of the State New Jersey, President of the United States of America. Born December 28, 1856, died February 3, 1924. I could also name someone from middle ages or ancient Greece, for that matter. But today is 2009. :-) However, you are right, I agree that I went over the line with this, and since it is OT, let me be the one to drop my own argument. ;-) Your pride in what you know is blinding you to the value of knowledge of others in areas where you know little and presume much. This is not about pride, just signal-to-noise ratio, as I stated. Also, regarding presumption, in areas where I have no serious knowledge (building a CentOS distribution from scratch being the one that matters here), the only thing I can do is build *trust* to the people who *do* have appropriate knowledge, and let them guide and make decisions about the project. I understand your argument that project consumers (ie. the community) are in a bad situation when their trust gets shaken, but in the CentOS case I see no alternative but to continue to trust the core developers. They have several years of demonstration of rock solid performance behind them, and that accounts for something. The proposed alternative is to change the inner structure of the project, expose more the development process and change the decision-making authority (the board proposal). This proposed alternative comes from people who have little to no credibility and trust established (in my eyes at least, and it seems in core dev's eyes as well). Therefore I would never support such an alternative over the old way. The way I see it, the multiple-years-rock-solid-distro showed an inner problem in public, and a couple of loudmouths (no insulting intended) took the opportunity to offer suggestions and criticize. Of course, holding as well no credibility with the core devs and the rest of the community, I myself also fall into this loudmouth category, the only difference being that I offer a counter-argument to previous ones. This is based on my point of view, and offers a balance of arguments to an outside reader of this thread. I also agree that everyone's motives are for the greater good, it's just that the approach is different. And every reader who cares for the subject will make up his mind based on the opinions presented. No pride and no presumptions here, except when I simply need to assume *something* (ie. trust someone) in order to have an opinion at all. I have had much experience with volunteer organisations. I now stay well clear of any involvement with them. This recent string of interrogations by concerned people, whether ignorant or not, and the aggrieved tone of the responses of some of the inner circle demonstrate the type of emotional blackmail which I frequently encounter and find so distressful in these bodies. [snip] The whole thread put shortly (the way I see it) goes like this: * A community member shouts Because of recent dev-internal events, I don't trust the developers any more, I want the project changed so that I can regain my trust! * The developers answer The changes you propose are unacceptable from our pov, so you have a choice to continue trusting us, or go find another distro. * The member than says No, I want in on development and decision-making in order to rebuild my trust, regardless of the fact that I have no appropriate technical skills. * The developers answer This is a ridiculous proposal, you are a fool to think we will ever accept that. Our product is there, use it or don't. During the discussion, things may get emotional and tense to the point of aggrieved tone and name-calling on either side, but essentially --- who is trying to make a blackmail here? As a casual thread-reader/ordinary-member-of-the-community, one can choose to ignore the discussion or to pick a side. When picking sides, the developers have some credibility in my eyes because of past performance. The other side has little to no credibility from my pov (being just another community member, afaik), and their behavior is as emotional as that of the developers. With pro's and con's evaluated, I say the developer's pov wins here. That is all I am saying. Others may have different opinion, of course. Having inoculated doubt it is now incumbent upon those who sowed it to address specific concerns raised by those who fear.
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Monday 10 August 2009 22:12:41 Ron Blizzard wrote: Again, what does community input have to do with the mechanical process of turning upstream code into a 100% binary compatible distribution? Nothing, of course. :-) There seem to be only two things such input would provide: (1) the *illusion* that the community is in control of the project, while having no technical skill to really enforce this control, and (2) the big *overhead* in the development process which could potentially make it more complicated. I completely understand why the core devs refuse this community input. If members of the community want to do something useful, they should simply follow the seven-point outline given in http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-August/080334.html Best, :-) Marko ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marko Vojinovic wrote: The whole thread put shortly (the way I see it) goes like this: * A community member shouts Because of recent dev-internal events, I don't trust the developers any more, I want the project changed so that I can regain my trust! That's not at all what I saw. I saw requests for some transparency and evidence that the project was not likely to fail due to other problems besides the one being disclosed. I saw offers to help being dismissed with no distinction of whether it was out of arrogance or because it was unneeded. * The developers answer The changes you propose are unacceptable from our pov, so you have a choice to continue trusting us, or go find another distro. * The member than says No, I want in on development and decision-making in order to rebuild my trust, regardless of the fact that I have no appropriate technical skills. * The developers answer This is a ridiculous proposal, you are a fool to think we will ever accept that. Our product is there, use it or don't. None of which really addresses the issue of whether delays like we see in the 4.x security updates are a one-time quirk or something the users should come to expect from here out - or worse. You can't make a decision about replacing your infrastructure product without at least a hint about what to expect next. During the discussion, things may get emotional and tense to the point of aggrieved tone and name-calling on either side, but essentially --- who is trying to make a blackmail here? As a casual thread-reader/ordinary-member-of-the-community, one can choose to ignore the discussion or to pick a side. When picking sides, the developers have some credibility in my eyes because of past performance. The other side has little to no credibility from my pov (being just another community member, afaik), and their behavior is as emotional as that of the developers. It's not a matter of sides. Everyone wants the project to succeed and continue, there just was not any information until pretty late in the thread. Having inoculated doubt it is now incumbent upon those who sowed it to address specific concerns raised by those who fear. I disagree here. The developers have been doing all the heavy lifting here from day one, and have demonstrated superb performance. They have no obligation to address raising fears from members of the community. Of course a volunteer doesn't have any obligation at all. But if they don't address the obvious issues they shouldn't be surprised at the uproar. Past performance is the only objective indication of future performance (however only potential this may be), and if this is not enough assurance for the members, they should indeed go elsewhere. Hmmm, I take it you didn't own any GM stock - or any of the other things that have tanked in spite of past performance... Nobody expected infrastructure issues, nobody expected late security updates. But all it would have taken to keep everyone happy would have been a simple explanation from a few insiders as to why they believe that everything will be back to normal and stay that way, explained in some detail instead of dismissing the questions or the reasons they are being asked. But the fearful members instead choose to press the developers into changing the project structure, only to address their fears. This is irrational and undeserved, especially when one looks at the details of the proposed changes. It is not irrational to choose something you expect to be supported in the future for your operating system. It's not irrational to worry about it when that future is in question. What happened may be undeserved, but shouldn't have been unexpected. Community can provide no useful decisions if the members are not knowledgeable enough to do so. A child cannot educate the parent. A patient cannot educate the doctor. (I seem to be reiterating my previous post... :-) ) I take it you don't actually have a child. And probably haven't had a doctor miss-diagnose you yet. And you probably don't have anything to do with producing an actual product that other people use. How do you feel about juries? -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem? The 'progress' I am talking about it making those 4 million installs into 5 million installs, if that is important. (I wish 4 mill installs hadn't been raised, because on that basis, we should all do it the MS way because they win on seat count.) Or the ability to release errata updates while a dot release is pending (see below.) From a fragility point of view, I guess its always been present but it is highlighted in the open-letter and the delay of 5.3. In the letter, there is talk of CentOS dying if developers walk away, etc. Emotive language, no doubt born from frustration, but still sent a chill down my spine. I think I did read somewhere on the list that errata aren't addressed when a dot release is due, but rather rolled up into said dot release (correct me if I am wrong). I didn't realise that and that represents a risk to any one that relies on CentOS. Maybe if the process was more open, then that activity could be spun out to some new guys or more ideally a mixture of old and new. What a don't want to do is to pile more and more work on the current guys. That's when ppl do walk away because it starts affecting their life outside of CentOS, e.g. work, family, etc. There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all. If updates and upgrades stopped coming and there was no impact to you, then my words will not mean much to you. If however it does have an impact, then you may start to consider which basket you have put your eggs in. If the CentOS project is not interested in retaining the latter, then carry on as you are. Anyway, I am rambling myself, so I will *try* to shut-up. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem? The 'progress' I am talking about it making those 4 million installs into 5 million installs, if that is important. (I wish 4 mill installs hadn't been raised, because on that basis, we should all do it the MS way because they win on seat count.) Or the ability to release errata updates while a dot release is pending (see below.) From a fragility point of view, I guess its always been present but it is highlighted in the open-letter and the delay of 5.3. In the letter, there is talk of CentOS dying if developers walk away, etc. Emotive language, no doubt born from frustration, but still sent a chill down my spine. I think I did read somewhere on the list that errata aren't addressed when a dot release is due, but rather rolled up into said dot release (correct me if I am wrong). I didn't realise that and that represents a risk to any one that relies on CentOS. Maybe if the process was more open, then that activity could be spun out to some new guys or more ideally a mixture of old and new. What a don't want to do is to pile more and more work on the current guys. That's when ppl do walk away because it starts affecting their life outside of CentOS, e.g. work, family, etc. There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all. If updates and upgrades stopped coming and there was no impact to you, then my words will not mean much to you. If however it does have an impact, then you may start to consider which basket you have put your eggs in. If the CentOS project is not interested in retaining the latter, then carry on as you are. WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge. First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year). Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream. Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries. We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream. We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about. That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago. People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. Thanks, Johnny Hughes signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: Ian Murray wrote: snip WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge. First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year). Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream. Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries. We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream. We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about. That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago. People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. Let me get even a bit more technical. Firefox-x.y.z gets released after the CentOS-A.b release. Firefox needs nss-x.y.z-3. The released version of nss before the CentOS-A.b is nss-x.y.z-2. No problem, build the new nss-x.y.z-3 first, then build Firefox-x.y.z. Well, dang, nss-x.y.z-3 needs nspr-x.y.z-99 and nspr-x.y.z-98 is currently in CentOS-A.b ... so now we need to also build nspr-x.y.z-99. There is a new version of glibc and gcc in the point release and it corrects ISSUE #ABCDE in the bugzilla, which impacts Firefox-x.y.z, so we have to build those 2 things to. They require PackageQ and PackageT to be rebuilt. Now, while we are trying to figure out the complex relationships required to build firefox, would could have been testing and producing the point release. Add a couple more updates and what you have is a hodge podge mess of things released at different times. You are also introducing bugs into CentOS that are not upstream in this kind of scenario (firefox-x.y.z running against xorg-x.y.z-3 does this thing ... but when running against xorg-x.y.z-4 it does not). Hopefully I am making this issue clear. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. What you explain makes perfect sense and so thanks for taking the time to explain. I was only basing my understanding on what Karanbir wrote on an earlier posting, which suggests that it can be done, although I am not sure how given your explanation. (http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-July/079311.html) Geoff Galitz wrote: If I understand this correctly... we have critical updates with patches available but they are waiting about a week before they become available in the form of Centos 4.8? you need to evaluate if they are relevant to your install or not. Is that accurate? yup. We have already looked into the possibility of getting updates out during a point release cycle, and will prolly be moving to that process with the next point release ( 5.4 ). -- Karanbir Singh ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument there is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS project. Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with me on a Sunday! ;o) From: Johnny Hughes joh...@centos.org To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 13:54:50 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure Johnny Hughes wrote: Ian Murray wrote: snip WRT to the one valid issue that you raise ... let me explain the TECHNICAL reason why you can not release these things hodge podge. First ... Red Hat releases point releases at regular intervals (3-4 times per year). Second ... we do not release anything that does not pass our checks and is linked to the same libraries as upstream. Now, when the upstream provider does a point release, that means they have released a whole bunch of NEW libraries. It also means that every single update that comes out after their point release is built against the NEW libraries and not the OLD libraries. We can NOT build and release the security updates you talk about against the OLD libraries that you have installed on your machine (prior to the point release) as it will make the NEW updates we are building NOT like they are upstream. We have to build the new updates against the point release instead. The point release will either not be done yet (it takes time to build) or in testing/qa and not yet released. When we build against it, we will have to release all the pieces that are required to also get the updates you are talking about. That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago. People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. Let me get even a bit more technical. Firefox-x.y.z gets released after the CentOS-A.b release. Firefox needs nss-x.y.z-3. The released version of nss before the CentOS-A.b is nss-x.y.z-2. No problem, build the new nss-x.y.z-3 first, then build Firefox-x.y.z. Well, dang, nss-x.y.z-3 needs nspr-x.y.z-99 and nspr-x.y.z-98 is currently in CentOS-A.b ... so now we need to also build nspr-x.y.z-99. There is a new version of glibc and gcc in the point release and it corrects ISSUE #ABCDE in the bugzilla, which impacts Firefox-x.y.z, so we have to build those 2 things to. They require PackageQ and PackageT to be rebuilt. Now, while we are trying to figure out the complex relationships required to build firefox, would could have been testing and producing the point release. Add a couple more updates and what you have is a hodge podge mess of things released at different times. You are also introducing bugs into CentOS that are not upstream in this kind of scenario (firefox-x.y.z running against xorg-x.y.z-3 does this thing ... but when running against xorg-x.y.z-4 it does not). Hopefully I am making this issue clear. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. What you explain makes perfect sense and so thanks for taking the time to explain. I was only basing my understanding on what Karanbir wrote on an earlier posting, which suggests that it can be done, although I am not sure how given your explanation. (http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2009-July/079311.html) Geoff Galitz wrote: / If I understand this correctly... we have critical updates with patches // available but they are waiting about a week before they become available in // the form of Centos 4.8? / you need to evaluate if they are relevant to your install or not. / Is that accurate? / yup. We have already looked into the possibility of getting updates out during a point release cycle, and will prolly be moving to that process with the next point release ( 5.4 ). -- Karanbir Singh We have looked into it (in depth) and it is possible within the limitations and with the errors that I pointed out above. We might do it, with some packages, if we have an extended delay. However, if we do, it will be difficult and not something we will undertake lightly. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago. People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. But if it is so problematic, wouldn't it make sense to join forces with Scientific Linux at least on the slow parts of the work? -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:52 AM, Les Mikeselllesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: Johnny Hughes wrote: That is the problem ... therefore, we HAVE to finish the point release and get it out before we can build new updates released after the point release. This is not new, it has been an issue since the first rebuild more than 5 years ago. People who do not understand the technical issues involved do not see why we can't just snap our fingers and put out the packages ... well, we can't. But if it is so problematic, wouldn't it make sense to join forces with Scientific Linux at least on the slow parts of the work? Because joining forces with Scientific Linux is not as easy as snapping fingers either. Scientific Linux is a joint project done by Fermi Labs and CERN Labs. It has its own architecture and needs. It also has government budgets and requirements that have their own entanglements. CentOS is a controlled anarchy of people who are doing it for their own needs. Combining the two items would require a lot of forethought and work. I would expect it would take about a 6 months to a year to make that happen. -- Stephen J Smoogen. Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for? -- Robert Browning ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:23 AM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: There is nothing wrong with the distribution itself, long may it live. My concern is that it is too reliant on individuals. A concern the devs raised themselves through the open letter. I am raising the same concern about the 'core' that the 'core' raised about Lance, that's all. Just a few comments -- I'm not going to go on forever here. All (or almost all) community Linux distributions are reliant on a few individuals -- except for those that are backed with corporate money (Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE, etc) and (maybe) Debian. Most are controlled by one person. Look at the problems PCLinux had when its developer got sick. So, from that point of view, CentOS is on solid a solid footing. As for updates and upgrades stopping -- I see no indication that will happen. But if we're going to look at all worst case scenarios, Red Hat could be bought out by Microsoft and mothballed, or a meteor could destroy Red Hat's headquarters. Sure that would have an impact on me -- but I would find another Linux distribution and move on. As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument there is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS project. Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with me on a Sunday! ;o) But isn't this the point of RPMForge and the other repositories -- to allow us to customize our CentOS boxes to our heart's content. As for starting a new (Fedora-like?) project under the guidance of 'core,' I don't think you realize how much time and effort something like that would take. If you've ever trained anyone (I used to have to do that) you know how much easier it is to it yourself then walk someone else through it. Do you really want the CentOS developers sifting through someone else's work, for another side project, in addition to developing CentOS? How many hours a day do you think they have? What I love about CentOS Linux is that it compatible with Red Hat. That's all I want it to be (which, in my opinion, is quite a lot). If I decide I want to use Firefox 3.5.x instead of 3.0.12 (or example), I'll either find an add-on repository or I'll download it from Mozilla. You can't be all things to all people without losing your focus. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
2009/8/9 Ron Blizzard rb4cen...@gmail.com On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: I did understand it the first time, but thanks again for the further clarification. This kinda illustrates my point. Couldn't you have a different repo with these updates maintained by other community members, under the guidance of the 'core'. Ppl could decide whether to trade-off security vs compatibility/reliability. I suppose your counter argument there is that there is nothing stopping that happening outside of CentOS project. Anyway, I am sure you have better things to do than argue the toss with me on a Sunday! ;o) But isn't this the point of RPMForge and the other repositories -- to allow us to customize our CentOS boxes to our heart's content. As for starting a new (Fedora-like?) project under the guidance of 'core,' I don't think you realize how much time and effort something like that would take. If you've ever trained anyone (I used to have to do that) you know how much easier it is to it yourself then walk someone else through it. Do you really want the CentOS developers sifting through someone else's work, for another side project, in addition to developing CentOS? How many hours a day do you think they have? What I love about CentOS Linux is that it compatible with Red Hat. That's all I want it to be (which, in my opinion, is quite a lot). If I decide I want to use Firefox 3.5.x instead of 3.0.12 (or example), I'll either find an add-on repository or I'll download it from Mozilla. You can't be all things to all people without losing your focus. as the old saying goes I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosbyhttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/billcosby105051.html -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos -- Linux counter #213090 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, 2009-08-09 at 14:04 -0500, Ron Blizzard wrote: snip As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that. OTOH, one man's squabbling is another's open discourse, depending on attitudes, presentation, etc. That's one reason I tend to not freely speak my mind, even with all due respect. Just too many issues can arise and none of it is worth the potential aggravation unless I feel I might have something to contribute that might actually provide some benefit - even stimulating a positive thought in another. As one could surmise, that kind of filter saves a lot of time. -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me. So, for those of you who consider this as in-fighting, know that some considers it learning. From: William L. Maltby centos4b...@triad.rr.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 20:44:00 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure On Sun, 2009-08-09 at 14:04 -0500, Ron Blizzard wrote: snip As for getting more people to use CentOS, I don't think squabbling on a public mail list is exactly the best way to do that. OTOH, one man's squabbling is another's open discourse, depending on attitudes, presentation, etc. That's one reason I tend to not freely speak my mind, even with all due respect. Just too many issues can arise and none of it is worth the potential aggravation unless I feel I might have something to contribute that might actually provide some benefit - even stimulating a positive thought in another. As one could surmise, that kind of filter saves a lot of time. -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Well, I know I have benefited from the discussion because I understand the challenges that face the CentOS team with regards to security updates whilst they are rebuilding a point release. As has been pointed out to me, we're between a rock and a hard-place and it isn't just a simple matter of not enough resourcing - which is what I thought the issue was... now I stand corrected. Obviously, the security concern is not unreasonable because the CentOS team are considering a different approach for 5.4. What I also now know is this is inherent in any rebuild, so I know have to consider whether a rebuild is the best approach for me. So, for those of you who consider this as in-fighting, know that some considers it learning. I'm glad something good came out of this thread. Thanks. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
To all, especially the developers, people who work on the support documents in their various forms, and everyone who contributes their knowledge to this project: I am another one of those people who reads the lists frequently, but usually don't have much to contribute since there are many others who are MUCH more knowledgeable than I am. But one thing I do find, and appreciate immensely is the simple fact that almost every time I have a problem all I have to do is a search on it, and without fail the answer is either there, or is under discussion in the forums or mailing lists, most often with a solution or workaround. Or, a discussion leads me to check for symptoms of a problem, thus minimizing future downtime. These reasons are why I use CentOS! It just works (I think there is supposed to be a (tm) there?) And when it doesn't the solution is close at hand. I don't run a lot of stuff on CentOS right now, just 2 or 3 servers mostly for my personal use. But I am in a position where I may be (would like to be) using it a lot more in the future, so I certainly would like to see the project grow and flourish. I have been heavily involved in a very ego-centric environment for years, public safety - in both paid and volunteer positions. While I think from what I've read the CentOS developers and other inside track folks are no where near as ego-driven as others I have seen. I do think that they take great pride in their work, as they should, and thus defend it to the end. IMHO, there are just a couple of simple things to say about releases, release contents, and timing of releases. And I apologize because probably this has all been said before, and I believe are reflections of the main goals of the project: 1. New versions and updates of CentOS should become available ONLY when the developers are satisfied that they are ready to be released. If pushed out too quickly, there will just be more (avoidable) problems. The why isn't version x.xx available has been and can continue to be given the simple answer because it's not ready yet. 2. Other supplementary packages should be available as they currently are, in the various additional repos, and that's where they should stay. The maintainers of these repos do a great job. No need for CentOS to duplicate or compete with that effort. CentOS is first and foremost a distribution that is binary-compatible with the upstream provider. Anything else is something different. 3. The CentOS project is made up of volunteers. While the insiders may achieve some level of notoriety by being involved in it, in all the volunteer positions I've been involved with, the labor and hassle takes much more out than is returned by any notoriety. The aforementioned pride usually makes up the difference. If this difference isn't made up somehow, the person becomes a candidate for burnout. 4. Should the CentOS project introduce compensation to certain people in the future, do it with EXTREME caution. I have been involved with several volunteer organizations which changed dramatically (not for the better) upon introduction of some kind of payment system. Often it was because people then became involved or stayed involved for the wrong reasons. And there was also a sometimes a PR problem from outsiders. Instead of doing what we were doing because we wanted to, we would get why won't you do x, y and z. You're getting paid for it. It didn't matter that the payment was pennies. This cycle of turmoil in organizations is very common! One organization I'm involved with goes through it about every 5 years. The people who are in it for the wrong reasons usually quit, and the ones who are in it for the right reasons compromise. I won't say it makes the organization stronger, but sure keeps it interesting. I am certainly not opposed to some of the heavy lifters getting some compensation for their work, but the project should be ready for some of this kind of noise should it come to pass. Hopefully I will be in a position to contribute, both financially and in other ways to the best of my ability sometime within the next year. But for now, I will say keep up the good work and ... Thank You! -Ben ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Bob Taylor wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: [snip] Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this unbelievable amount of time and effort.. *for*? Not for you, for people who appreciate it. I have never been paid a dime for any work to the CentOS project. If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job. Enough said. Let me see. First, I give you a free product that people pay thousands of dollars for. I do so voluntarily. Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass? What kind of attitude should I have when you come into my organization, take a free product, tell me that everyone working on the project sucks, tell me that they need to work harder and get you the free product faster, tell me that you need to have a say in how the organization works? If you want to use the product, do so. If not, don't. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 08:28 +0200, Andrew Colin Kissa wrote: On 07 Aug 2009, at 8:14 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote: (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge. --- Russ, Those of us that are in the file server business may would like to contribute a package for centos 3 4 5 and beta6. Will you point us to a reference link please or provide a little info. JohnStanley ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 11:05 -0400, JohnS wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 08:28 +0200, Andrew Colin Kissa wrote: On 07 Aug 2009, at 8:14 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote: (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge. --- Russ, Those of us that are in the file server business may would like to contribute a package for centos 3 4 5 and beta6. Will you point us to a reference link please or provide a little info. JohnStanley Sorry I found a link in the dev list. John ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 05:48 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: [snip] Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this unbelievable amount of time and effort.. *for*? Not for you, for people who appreciate it. I have never been paid a dime for any work to the CentOS project. Have I said I don't appreciate it? It so happens I do. More than I can say. Have I indicated you have been paid? If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job. Enough said. Let me see. First, I give you a free product that people pay thousands of dollars for. I do so voluntarily. Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass? Is it necessary to insult me? I have said *nothing* to you to warrant this. What kind of attitude should I have when you come into my organization, take a free product, tell me that everyone working on the project sucks, tell me that they need to work harder and get you the free product faster, tell me that you need to have a say in how the organization works? I said *nothing* of the sort. BTW, my organization??? Sheesh! -- Bob Taylor ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Bob Taylor wrote: On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 05:48 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass? Is it necessary to insult me? I have said *nothing* to you to warrant this. Jeez, people, take it offline. -Alan ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Alan Sparks wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 05:48 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Second, I am supposed to also kiss your ass? Is it necessary to insult me? I have said *nothing* to you to warrant this. Jeez, people, take it offline. -Alan Sorry Alan, but with the greatest respect I believe it important that these types of discussions are allowed to happen openly within the community. This thread was started on a community mailing list by a member of that community expressing what he would like to see from his Community Enterprise OS. Why people feel the need to be so aggressive, I'm not sure but we are all adults and I'm sure no one will be mortally wounded by a few ill chosen words in the heat of debate. Some within the community have expressed what they would like from their Community Enterprise OS and the developers have made it perfectly clear that it is their Community Enterprise OS (not the community's), and that the community can go whistle (my interpretation). That's a useful discussion to have openly and in public IMHO. Please do not try to stifle it. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, R P Herrold wrote: On Sat, 8 Aug 2009, Bob Taylor wrote: Personally, it disgusts me. Have I said I don't appreciate it? Yes, actually -- I call b*llsh*t -- you who have done nothing are here, and eat without charge at our table, and 'it disgusts' you Begone, troll Russ, I am quite concerned about your responses (from a @centos.org address). You can agree or disagree with the content of criticism, you can ignore it or refute it. But it's poor judgement to dismiss it the way you do because people have not contributed. (Unless you want users to simply shut up) It shows that you (as a project's representative) are not interested or concerned about the users. And any opinion is only worthy if coming from a contributed user (which limits you to the selected few that are in the inner circle). Is everything else b*llshit ? You equally torpedo'd Marcus Moeller who _is_ a contributing user, even if you don't think high of his contributions, I feel you should refrain from discouraging users the way you do in this thread. It's not the community fostering that we need right now. Criticism is good if you handle it well. Channel it. Enable people to contribute to fix it. Give orders and provide details. I am sure that this approach is more fruitful in the long run. A potential contributor is not willing to spend effort if there's no hope it is worthwhile. Give hope ! Show it is worthwhile ! PS We started the newsletter (which Marcus is now leading) to highlight success stories. Show who helped contributing and how one could contribute. Give credit where credit is due. More positivism... -- -- dag wieers, d...@wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/ -- [Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors] ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dag concern is good and you are right about how CentOS people should have a solid testimony for the projects big picture the thing is that since day one, as near as i have experienced and can tell, most of them have many years of rock solid CentOS work as a testimony. rock solid! we haven't had one *MAJOR* issue with anything the Dev Team has put out since day one and that is across versions 3, 4, and 5. all of the servers have been online 24/7 for years. that is one incredible CentOS group testimony. yet, the people that are *poking the bears* (tm) in the CentOS Dev team should put up or shut up and need to work on as good a testimony in thier work lives and in their postings. some time ago, i wanted to see if our organization would be a good fit to be of assistance and i was politely told that what is required is to do work... i.e., *get work done* and possibly join the team... one need to really prove themselves that they have what it takes with little to no handholding. ... and not just flap their typing gums on the list please stop poking the bears... ;- it isnt productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked - rh ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 19:31 -0400, Mike A. Harris wrote: snip Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, the talkers want to dictate to the doers how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o) I was with you up to that last line. In any organization, *sometimes* one of the most important skills (if it is lacking in other community members) is that of organizing and motivating and coordinating, ... All of this is just talking (well, planning, etc. - but the results of that is often only exhibited in talking). And what is characterized as whining can be seen as folks who mistakenly believe their input, as a community member (if that's what the core folks choose them to be viewed as) is valued and are trying to contribute. I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread now. Who is the project serving? The core themselves or a community of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the core can be more clearly stated and understood. My observations in the past has indicated that this is not truly decided and inculcated in the project's core members. This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread. - -- Mike A. Harris http://mharris.ca | https://twitter.com/mikeaharris snip sig stuff -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 18:28 +0100, Ned Slider wrote: snip Sorry Alan, but with the greatest respect I believe it important that these types of discussions are allowed to happen openly within the community. This thread was started on a community mailing list by a member of that community expressing what he would like to see from his Community Enterprise OS. Why people feel the need to be so aggressive, I'm not sure but we are all adults and I'm sure no one will be mortally wounded by a few ill chosen words in the heat of debate. ++ Some within the community have expressed what they would like from their Community Enterprise OS and the developers have made it perfectly clear that it is their Community Enterprise OS (not the community's), and that the community can go whistle (my interpretation). ++ That's a usefuldiscussion to have openly and in public IMHO. Please do not try to stifle it. ++ snip sig stuff -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 15:04 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Possible Perception Problem? When a non-contributing user sees an opportunity for improvement in the projects insert your preferred project activity here, the user should not only make a suggestion but also state why it is a good idea and situations that support the need for an improvement. This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of unwarranted criticism, whining by someone who paid nothing, lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do, etc. snip sig stuff -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of unwarranted criticism, whining by someone who paid nothing, lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do, etc. snip sig stuff -- Bill Bill, Good points... yet you forgot about presentation if a person makes a poor presentation of possibly helpful and/or valid criticism, then it is similar to the wisdom that says... As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. plus... ...maybe some are forgetting that the upstream does close to 700 million a year in sales and has no debt... after all the number crunching it appears they show a profit in the 80 million a year range. in my humble estimation, CentOS if run reasonably well and truly supported by it's community could have a good fraction of to a full 1% of that yearly The Team does extremely well technically now, yet imagine how well the CentOS Dev team could do if they could take paychecks as well as hire other needed positions. eh? I'd like to see CentOS flourish in all possible ways !!! i want to ride on the CentOS Lear when it is ready please ;- again, it really will be best if people would stop poking the bears. - rh ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Marko Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 16:14 -0700, Robert wrote: This presents a ripe opportunity for a perception of unwarranted criticism, whining by someone who paid nothing, lack of appreciation for all the *free* hard work we do, etc. snip sig stuff -- Bill Bill, Good points... yet you forgot about presentation if a person makes a poor presentation of possibly helpful and/or valid criticism, then it is similar to the wisdom that says... As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. Well, this thread had presented so many examples of presentation issues, by both sides (IMO), that I felt it need not be mentioned (and it was mentioned by another already). Plus I felt if I expressed my feelings about presentation I'd seen over time it would not add anything *useful* and might make the thread even less productive. I think Dag's recent post puts it best. And if one accepts what he suggests, there's a lot of implications attached to it that I think some folks in the project wouldn't like. But to each his own. plus... ...maybe some are forgetting that the upstream does close to 700 million a year in sales and has no debt... after all the number crunching it appears they show a profit in the 80 million a year range. in my humble estimation, CentOS if run reasonably well and truly supported by it's community could have a good fraction of to a full 1% of that yearly The Team does extremely well technically now, yet imagine how well the CentOS Dev team could do if they could take paychecks as well as hire other needed positions. eh? I'd like to see CentOS flourish in all possible ways !!! Ditto. And if there is a common and unifying attitude adopted by everyone inside the project that includes a concious effort to make folks feel welcome, within acceptable and well-documented limits, then the chance of success is increased. Without the buy-in to a corporate ethos by the project members, success is likely harder or less. But it may still satisfy their individual objectives, and so be considered successful. But I've seen other projects come and go. This one is no different. Problems almost always include (and even stem from) one thing that is the most difficult to obtain in a project of this sort - the suppressing of an ego-centric outlook for a more altruistic attitude and behavior. Not an easy thing when there's no paycheck with which to buy commitment. i want to ride on the CentOS Lear when it is ready please ;- again, it really will be best if people would stop poking the bears. - rh snip sig stuff -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Who is the project serving? The core themselves or a community of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the core can be more clearly stated and understood. In the end, most F/LOSS projects seem to be created to scratch an itch as it were in the founder/developers. That itch can be anything from needing a tool for a problem to something as noble as bringing technology to others who couldn't otherwise afford it. What I see this group's itch being is the need to bring a free (as in beer) version of what IMO is probably the most widely recognized enterprise Linux distribution to those who want the benefits of that OS but don't need/want the support package built in at said upstream vendor. If that means the devs are more demanding of those they let into the ranks then your typical F/LOSS project, so be it. From my perspective it shows they are serious about keeping the project true to it's aims, and that makes it easier to sell CentOS to my boss. A meritocracy maybe, but I haven't seen any business out there that runs like a typical F/LOSS project. I was hired into the firm I admin because I was able to demonstrate I had the skills needed, and my boss could verify those skills. In a project like CentOS it's not easy to verify a person's skillset so the process of earning your way into the inner circle is an acceptable, in my view, way to show a person is cut out for position. CentOS in this case seems to have more stringent requirements. Myself, I know I'm not cut out to be a dev so I hang around various mailing lists, poking my head up when I have answers to questions and/or questions myself. My contribution to Linux as a whole is to work on promoting it within my sphere of influence. That I can do, and it allows me to promote CentOS along the way. -- Drew Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. --Marie Curie ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
William L. Maltby wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 19:31 -0400, Mike A. Harris wrote: snip Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, the talkers want to dictate to the doers how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o) I was with you up to that last line. In any organization, *sometimes* one of the most important skills (if it is lacking in other community members) is that of organizing and motivating and coordinating, ... All of this is just talking (well, planning, etc. - but the results of that is often only exhibited in talking). And what is characterized as whining can be seen as folks who mistakenly believe their input, as a community member (if that's what the core folks choose them to be viewed as) is valued and are trying to contribute. I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread now. Who is the project serving? The core themselves or a community of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the core can be more clearly stated and understood. Well, then I think I can easily clear this up. Our Project purpose has been stated for 4 years, and it has not changed. http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=3 The CentOS team provides a product that people can choose to use or not to use. It is designed to be 100% binary compatible with the upstream build. Here are our goals: http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=5 Furthermore: The CentOS Project will build, sign and provide the packages. We will provide an infrastructure to distribute the packages. We will provide an infrastructure where the Community can be involved and help each other (via things like a Wiki, the Forums, the Mailing Lists, the bugzilla and IRC). These things are where we want community participation. We have even added Special Interest Groups where we accept some code from the community for some things. Each SIG has a team member who is responsible to validate the code. From time to time, we will PULL a community member INTO the Development team. We have done this on a number of occasions. I'll give you a brief history with example: 1. CentOS 3.1 released as part of cAos foundation early 2004. 2. I (Johnny Hughes) was added as a CentOS team member from the Community in late 2004, as were Karanbir Singh and Tru Huynh. Several other people (Lance Davis, Donavan Nelson, Russ Herrold, John Newbigin) were already team members. 3. The CentOS Project forms and moves away from the cAos Foundation in March of 2005. 4. There have been other team members added from the Community since then including Jim Perrin, Ralph Angenendt, and Tim Verhoeven. 5. NedSlider and Akemi Yagi are added as Forum Moderators. Akemi has also been given the added responsibility to make the Plus kernel changes. When we pull people in from the Community and give them increased responsibility, we do so after many months of interaction. Not everyone has access to the Signing Keys, Not everyone has access to make changes to www.centos.org, Not everyone has access to submit packages to the builder. Not everyone is Forum Moderator. Not everyone has Root access to all CentOS infrastructure machines. We have some other repositories (Extras, CentOSPlus, maybe in the future contrib) HOWEVER, these are not trying to be 3rd party repos or build the latest and greatest things. They are designed to add ENTERPRISE level software that we are going to maintain for the lifetime of the project. If we add something, then someone has given assurances that they will take care of it for 7 years. There are already plenty of 3rd party repos available including these: http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories?action=showredirect=Repositories We do not desire to REPLACE any of these repositories ... these are INDEED part of the community as well. If you have something to contribute to a 3rd party repository, then contact them and ask how they would like your help. When we add something to CentOS, then someone in the core team is going to maintain it for 7 years. Every package will be verified by a team member and be the responsibility of a team member. If that team member leaves, someone else in the team will maintain that package. Therefore, adding things to CentOS will not be something that is taken lightly ... see 3rd party repos above. My observations in the past has indicated that this is not truly decided and inculcated in the project's core members. It has been decided from the beginning and articulated many times. This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread. How we manage the Project is not a
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On 8/8/09, Marko A. Jennings marko...@bluegargoyle.com wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Makro: If I implied that, I did not express myself properly. Good suggestions, if submitted in the proper way, will probably be welcome by the developers. Criticism will not be welcome. The problem will be if the people who are not developers try to take control of the project or change the goals of the project. snip And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. I agree with you on that. There are more polite and courteous ways. I suspect that the recent Open Letter to Lance, brought out a lot of things that have caused the developers great stress and frustration, for a year or more and now they need a chance to recuperate and regroup. Lanny ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marko A. Jennings wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Marko Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use. They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc. They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project. They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, August 8, 2009 8:44 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote: Marko A. Jennings wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Marko Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use. They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc. They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project. They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS. Where exactly have I said, or even implied that? All I have tried to convey is that when people offer suggestions, they ought to be considered and answered in a polite manner. As I said before, it's not what is being said, but rather how. Do we agree on this? ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 19:37 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: William L. Maltby wrote: snip I only have one question that I want to add to this gawd-awful thread now. Who is the project serving? The core themselves or a community of users as well? If that is effectively and accurately answered, then the dynamics of the relationship(s) between users of the project and the core can be more clearly stated and understood. Well, then I think I can easily clear this up. Our Project purpose has been stated for 4 years, and it has not changed. snip It has been decided from the beginning and articulated many times. This one definition might have saved 90% of this thread. How we manage the Project is not a community based, it was never intended to be community based, and it never will be community based. Hopefully this clears up any ambiguity. There was never any on *my* part. But maybe it will help those who mis-understood. snip sig stuff -- Bill ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marko A. Jennings wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 8:44 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote: Marko A. Jennings wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Marko Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use. They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc. They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project. They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS. Where exactly have I said, or even implied that? All I have tried to convey is that when people offer suggestions, they ought to be considered and answered in a polite manner. As I said before, it's not what is being said, but rather how. Do we agree on this? If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree. I also can certainly try to be nicer, yes. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o) Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise. So, I suggest the product is renamed as... Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell. I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a meritocracy and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress. From: Johnny Hughes joh...@centos.org To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Sunday, 9 August, 2009 1:44:47 Subject: Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure Marko A. Jennings wrote: On Sat, August 8, 2009 4:04 pm, Lanny Marcus wrote: On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Robertlist...@abbacomm.net wrote: snip please stop poking the bears... ;- it isn't productive and many of you that are critical of CentOS and the people running it should just move on and go away as asked +1 How easy it is to criticize people who have put in a tremendous amount of hours, without pay, working on the CentOS project. There is always room for improvement, but the criticism from those who have not put in the hours over the past years is not deserved. Lanny, Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Marko Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever CentOS is not a government or a Democracy ... it was not designed to be. It is a product that we produce for people to use or not use. They get to choose to participate in the mailing lists, the forums, etc. They get to choose to donate money or servers or bandwidth to the project. They do NOT get to tell us what to build, when to build it, how to use donated resources, etc. Just like I don't get to login to your servers and do what I want when you use CentOS. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ian Murray wrote: I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o) Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise. 4 million unique machines do not agree with you, regardless of what you want to believe. So, I suggest the product is renamed as... Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell. I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a meritocracy and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress. CentOS is now what it has been for the last 5 years. It is not any different now than it ever has been. snip signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sunday 09 August 2009 00:50:16 Marko A. Jennings wrote: Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion. Of course, this is a very common and useful line of reasoning in human society. Put shortly, it increases signal-to-noise ratio. Being a theoretical physicist, I can confirm that I will flat-out refuse to listen to any idea or suggestion (regarding physics) from a person who doesn't at least hold a PhD degree in the area. I expect to find constructive/useful suggestions only from peers, simply because amateur thinking is just too naive or irrelevant. My typical response is on the lines of go learn first, come and suggest after. If I were a chess master, I would never listen to advice from a person who played (and won) less than (at least) 500 chess games, against appreciative opponents. If I were attorney defending a man charged for murder, I would be the one to give suggestions what to do, not the other way around. If I were a doctor, I would be the one prescribing the therapy to my patient, and would refuse to listen to his ideas about what therapy he needs. If I were a CentOS developer, I would accept suggestions only from a person who proved to be almost equal in skill, has a similar point of view regarding my project and can thus be trusted. If I were an expert in any area of life, I would simply refuse to listen to non-experts regarding the topic of my expertize. It keeps noise low and signal high. Human society functions very well when upholding to this behavior. Besides, an amateur giving suggestions to an expert is usually considered foolish at best, or rude in worse cases, even by third parties. Following that line of thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants. If the governments were made of experts, than yes, we should. Unfortunately, governments are typically not made of experts, but of opportunists. Name one president of insert your favorite political entity here that has been elected because he has a PhD in political sciences/history/law/whatever, or because he had enough hands-on experience in governing the state (maybe without a formal degree). Even if one such exists, I doubt he would listen to whatever random non-initiated group of people are suggesting. Also, people who are involved in politics are usually given power because they are well advertized by their political parties, not because they have proper expertize in governing the state. And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread. Suppose an amateur gives a suggestion to an expert. This is how it typically rolls out: First of all, if the amateur hopes to be listened to, he needs to give a suggestion in a way that is *humble enough*, typically in a form of a question (please tell me why whatever is not feasible thing to do? Or is it?), demonstrating his faith in expert's authority and superior knowledge on the subject. Criticism is completely out of question --- the amateur has not demonstrated enough competence to be considered a worthy critic (he wouldn't be an amateur in that case). The expert usually kindly answers that whatever is not feasible for this or that reason. The amateur can be happy or sad about it, but he should appreciate the authoritative answer and leave it at that. But if the amateur pushes the suggestion again, usually in a form that looks more like a critique, or whines because his suggestion/wish was not acknowledged, the most polite thing an expert will generally do is to ignore him. Silence is a polite way of saying your suggestion is not good enough, give up and go away. If the amateur keeps insisting that he has a point and keeps building pressure on the expert, the expert will get annoyed enough and eventually respond in a way that gets increasingly rude (Demonstrate that you have competence before you insist that I listen to you., Who are you to play smart with me here, you low life form? and such). And the expert has a good point here, because the amateur was being quite rude by pushing his suggestion beyond any good measure, after being given a polite NAK. All in all, the developers are not required to even listen to community suggestions, let alone obey them. They know *their* job better than the rest of us (non-developers) know *their* job. Unless you can prove yourself to be a peer developer (a process which takes a lot of time, effort, expertize, humility and good relations with other developers), you have no business giving suggestions and expecting to be listened to. Meritocracy is not democracy. You can ask questions, and be thankful when/if you are given an answer from a
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, 2009-08-08 at 20:01 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree. I also can certainly try to be nicer, yes. I am very tired of this whole thread - I think you have covered it well. But I will say this...you were always the nice one in CentOS and I think this list has suffered some from your lack of interaction. Craig -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
4 million unique machines do not agree with you, regardless of what you want to believe. I don't think the machines have an opinion, either way. :o) Seriously, I suppose you are using the '4 million machines we must be doing something right' argument which is fair comment, if perhaps a touch arrogant, IMHO. Have you rechecked that number after this thread?!? CentOS's success is based on confidence in the product and the 'support' infrastructure that surrounds it (i.e. upgrades, security, etc - I don't mean break/fix). Those 4 million machines are relying on a handful of (dedicated and hardworking) individuals. What is the contingency if any one of those gets long term sick, personal crisis or something worse? You only get contingency when you bring ppl in, pass on the knowledge, etc. This discussion harks back to the slowness of the release 5.3, were a wedding got in the way. Not doubt the 'core' team at CentOS are some pretty (scratch that... very) smart and hardworking guys but you are not the only ones in the CentOS world. CentOS is now what it has been for the last 5 years. It is not any different now than it ever has been. Why pick a name that was so misleading, then? snip Anyway, best of luck with it all. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: snip If you mean that I can be an arrogant SOB sometimes, then YES, we (and my wife) can agree. Before making an admission like that, you should re-read http://wwwf.centos.org/127_story.html?storyid=127 I thought then and think now that you were 'way too humble in dealing with that blithering idiot. Regards ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:12 PM, Ian Murraymurra...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: I can't say I have been following this thread in its entirety, but the beauty (?) of free speech is that even the ill-informed get to have a say. :o) Anyway, I think there is a general problem with the name Community ENterprise OS. Well, Community can't refer to us users because every O/S has a community, including Windows. So at first glance at the name, I would say that CentOS was produced by the community but that clearly isn't the case, as we know, so perhaps a simple name change would suffice: CsentOS... Closed-Shop Enterprise OS. Now, I bet that sounds like a criticism and I bet it smarts a bit. It's not meant to be either, just simply the truth. Actually, while we are on, where does the Enterprise bit come from in the name?... because I keep hearing that if you want to anything more than is currently being offered (speed of delivery,deadlines, trust that it isn't all going to fall apart, etc.), then go and buy upstream or use another distribution. That's a fair argument, but then remove the 'Enterprise' from the title... it's misleading as it suggests its suitable for the enterprise. So, I suggest the product is renamed as... Closed-Shop-Binary-Compatible-With-Upstream-OS... CSbcwuOS... not as snappy but much closer to the goals and project structure, as far as I, as an outsider, can tell. I'm a CentOS user, that's about it. I do what I can to promote CentOS, I wrote a Wiki entry for installing CentOS on a particular laptop (basically just a matter of filling out a form) and I answer some really, really simple questions on the Forums. That's what I know, so I try to do what I can. But even though my contributions to the CentOS Project are about as minimal as you can get, I still consider myself a part of the CentOS community. Quite bluntly, no one needs me trying to tell anyone how to build CentOS. And I can see no reason for community input in that process as the goal is simple -- a community rebuild of Red Hat -- 100% binary compatibility. This is why people use CentOS and what they expect it to be. What the rebuild process takes is competency and, unless you know something I don't know, the developers seem to be pretty damn competent to me. What really irritates me about all this criticism at this time is that the developers have been putting out a great distribution, true to its mandate, despite some less than perfect conditions. They recently took a stand, have averted a crisis -- and are still in the middle of ironing out other problems. This is *not* the time to dump on them. This is the time to sit back, chill, and see how everything shakes out. I am sure a lot of people, including myself, are now asking how fragile this project is and what risk that fragility poses to our individual ventures. CentOS itself lives in a meritocracy and right now CentOS's merit is going down quite considerably. Not a criticism, just a reminder like so many others that the project may needs to adapt to progress. Adapt to progress? It's a cliche, but what's it supposed to mean here? What is the progress you want CentOS to adapt to? How is progress supposed to work on a rebuild project? I asked that of someone else in this thread. I'm honestly curious as to what you want to progress toward? Personally the reason I like and use CentOS is because it stays true to its roots. Of all the Linux distributions, CentOS probably has the least wiggle room of any. I'm absolutely ignorant of the development process -- but to me (from the outside) it seems more like a mechanical exercise than an artistic endeavor. What community input would change any of this? As for the bit about CentOS seeming fragile, I ask, what makes you think that? I certainly don't look at it that way. Until the Open Letter I didn't even know there were any major issues (though I did sense a little tenseness). And despite those issues, a great distribution was released and updated. Now that some major problems have been ironed (and, I assume, others will be ironed out) what makes you think the project is suddenly more fragile now then it was before? I think you ask for real problems when *everyone* has a say in how the community should progress? I've rambled on too long. But seriously, what is you want? CentOS is a great Linux distribution, so what's the problem? -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dear Russ, Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of what if those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though. As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization. * chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking. I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again? Thats a great offer and what I titled as mentorship. In the meanwhile some things (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On 07 Aug 2009, at 8:14 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote: (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dear Andrew. (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge. The Contrib repository has been re-invented in CentOS 5.3 but it's still not clear what it's for. From the official announce: ... Given the widespread requests for user contributed packages directly being hosted within the centos repositories, the contribs repository is now back with CentOS-5.3. There are no packages yet, but over the next few weeks we hope to have a policy and process in place that allows users to submit and manage packages in the contrib repo. ... Karan started to line it out on this: http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2009-August/004833.html recent centos-devel thread. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Kai Schaetzl wrote: Marcus Moeller wrote on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:52:01 +0200: Dear Community, I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here. I think it would have been perfect on the centos-devel list - which isn't overrun and still has many readers/writers. So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list centos-community or centos-management or so. If deemed needed at some time - yes. At the moment I hope we can live without it :) Cheers, Ralph pgpqLnRsh9B01.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Russ, Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of what if those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though. As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization. * chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking. I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again? Thats a great offer and what I titled as mentorship. I think the issue here, at least as perceived by those outside of the project core, is that little is done to actively encourage contributors (ie, mentorship). It's all very well noting and observing the talent develop and calling upon said talent down the line so long as said talent hasn't lost interest in your project in the meantime. What concerns me is that I see absolutely no effort on behalf of the project to nurture/develop/mentor the next generation of CentOS developers. Who will step up to the plate and commit to being lead dev on EL6 with a 7 year lifecycle, a full update set every 6 months, security updates to rebuild at no notice. It's a huge undertaking. From my own experiences when trying to contribute, I have repeatedly been told not to bother, not to do it and to go away. So in the end that's what I did out of frustration - I went away and founded the elrepo project with a few others who also wanted to contribute but found themselves unable to do so. Initially I viewed this as a failure - I would much rather have seen the elrepo driver project be done as the CentOS Dasha project (and likewise, for fasttrack). But now I see it as an advantage not being part of a CentOS project - by not being part of CentOS we are able to support and work with the whole Enterprise Linux community (incl. RHEL and SL), not just CentOS. Red Hat have recognised our value and we are already engaged with Red Hat developers in discussions regarding the direction of the driver update programme in RHEL6. It would be nice if the CentOS Project wanted to engage too :-) IMHO I think it's a shame CentOS doesn't presently offer rebuilds of the FasTrack channel. I know there is a need within the community (our own logs from our fasttrack offering show us that). Let me say this isn't particularly about fasttrack or about me, it's about highlighting how the process doesn't work - I merely use my own experience as an example to highlight this. I have expressed a willingness to contribute. I have shown a commitment over a reasonable length of time, so I'm not the here today, gone tomorrow type. I have been rejected, gone off and done it anyway, so I have demonstrated resilience and determination - I've demonstrated I'm a do'er not a talker. My product is out there for others to view and judge my level of competence (I don't and never have claimed to know everything or be perfect, I only display a willingness to continue to learn and develop). I merely seek to contribute back to a community from which I have taken something of value. Yet at every step of the way I have been rejected and knocked back. Never once has a CentOS dev approached me with an offer of mentorship or advice or anything else. As I said, this is absolutely not about me - my circumstances are not unique. For every person like me who is knocked back or rejected, there must be dozens more onlookers who see that and don't even bother trying to engage with the project. Another example is the forums. I started engaging with the CentOS project back in 2005 in the CentOS forums. For years I worked diligently helping users there and was rewarded for my efforts in 2008 being made a forum moderator/administrator. My fellow forum moderators both have @centos.org email addresses, something I was denied? How is one supposed to represent the project when one isn't given the tools to do so? It's only an email alias - why would some be afforded that and others be denied? You may think this is a moot point and I'm complaining for the sake of it, but it's about how
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Andrew. (like the Contrib repo) are getting a bit clearer so I guess we are on the right track. Contib repo !!! What Contrib repo ? The last time i tried to contribute i was told to head on to Fedora or rpmforge. The Contrib repository has been re-invented in CentOS 5.3 but it's still not clear what it's for. From the official announce: ... Given the widespread requests for user contributed packages directly being hosted within the centos repositories, the contribs repository is now back with CentOS-5.3. There are no packages yet, but over the next few weeks we hope to have a policy and process in place that allows users to submit and manage packages in the contrib repo. ... Karan started to line it out on this: http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2009-August/004833.html recent centos-devel thread. Well, if something is going to be released as part of CentOS (contrib repo or not), then it is going to be correct and it is going to be vetted by someone that I PERSONALLY trust ... or it is going to be personally tested by me prior to release. Otherwise, it is not going to be released. If you meet those requirements (I know you, know your work, and personally trust you with my servers), then you can get on a team to do things ... if you don't, you can't. Until I get kicked out of CentOS (I don't think that is happening any time soon), that will be one of the standards that we use. The community can get in and get access to things ... Akemi Yagi and Ned Slider (both have admin rights to the CentOS forums, Akemi does the spec files and changes to CentOS Plus kernels) are both examples of this recently. Tim Verhoeven and Jim Perrin are examples from a few years ago, and Karanbir Singh and Ralph Angenendt are examples from a few years before that. We add developers as we get people who do things for the project and as we come to know them, develop a relationship with them, and see their work. We have a responsibility to an estimated 4 million unique machines to not allow code into our repositories unless it is correct and we take that responsibility very seriously. A broken CentOS package can cost people millions (maybe billions) of dollars worldwide. We do add people as developers ... if we don't do it fast enough for an individual person's tastes then I am sorry. There are other options out there ... including Fedora and EPEL ... for people who want to contribute faster than we allow. Thanks, Johnny Hughes signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Ned Slider wrote: Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Russ, Don't misunderstand. I think you have done and are doing a great job but some things are out of any single person's control. All I'm suggesting is that it would be nice if there were an easy answer to the question of what if those things happen to a few of you. I think it is a good thing that the question is being asked, though. As an outsider (as far as CentOS development goes), I think this would probably be a good time to just back off a bit, chill out, and see what comes out of the current reorganization. * chuckle * Actually I was appreciated Les' comments, in the first instance today and later. If I cannot respond to thoughtful comments, I've probably not thought the matter through enough. I may choose to ignore matter of course where comment is not yet ripe Akemi, Ned and Marcus [and others who have contacted me and some of the others on the core group off-list] are obviously concerned, want to help, and want to participate more as well, and I'll probably do yet another run at describing some ways to increasingly grow as a sysadmin, a developer, and as a 'person worth watching' as posts of each and others in recent days have set me to thinking. I've done such coaching on the ML, in the wiki, and in private email, so why not yet again? Thats a great offer and what I titled as mentorship. I think the issue here, at least as perceived by those outside of the project core, is that little is done to actively encourage contributors (ie, mentorship). It's all very well noting and observing the talent develop and calling upon said talent down the line so long as said talent hasn't lost interest in your project in the meantime. What concerns me is that I see absolutely no effort on behalf of the project to nurture/develop/mentor the next generation of CentOS developers. Who will step up to the plate and commit to being lead dev on EL6 with a 7 year lifecycle, a full update set every 6 months, security updates to rebuild at no notice. It's a huge undertaking. From my own experiences when trying to contribute, I have repeatedly been told not to bother, not to do it and to go away. So in the end that's what I did out of frustration - I went away and founded the elrepo project with a few others who also wanted to contribute but found themselves unable to do so. Initially I viewed this as a failure - I would much rather have seen the elrepo driver project be done as the CentOS Dasha project (and likewise, for fasttrack). But now I see it as an advantage not being part of a CentOS project - by not being part of CentOS we are able to support and work with the whole Enterprise Linux community (incl. RHEL and SL), not just CentOS. Red Hat have recognised our value and we are already engaged with Red Hat developers in discussions regarding the direction of the driver update programme in RHEL6. It would be nice if the CentOS Project wanted to engage too :-) IMHO I think it's a shame CentOS doesn't presently offer rebuilds of the FasTrack channel. I know there is a need within the community (our own logs from our fasttrack offering show us that). Let me say this isn't particularly about fasttrack or about me, it's about highlighting how the process doesn't work - I merely use my own experience as an example to highlight this. I have expressed a willingness to contribute. I have shown a commitment over a reasonable length of time, so I'm not the here today, gone tomorrow type. I have been rejected, gone off and done it anyway, so I have demonstrated resilience and determination - I've demonstrated I'm a do'er not a talker. My product is out there for others to view and judge my level of competence (I don't and never have claimed to know everything or be perfect, I only display a willingness to continue to learn and develop). I merely seek to contribute back to a community from which I have taken something of value. Yet at every step of the way I have been rejected and knocked back. Never once has a CentOS dev approached me with an offer of mentorship or advice or anything else. As I said, this is absolutely not about me - my circumstances are not unique. For every person like me who is knocked back or rejected, there must be dozens more onlookers who see that and don't even bother trying to engage with the project. Another example is the forums. I started engaging with the CentOS project back in 2005 in the CentOS forums. For years I worked diligently helping users there and was rewarded for my efforts in 2008 being made a forum moderator/administrator. My fellow forum moderators both have @centos.org email addresses, something I was denied? How is one supposed to represent the project when one isn't given the tools to do so? It's only an email alias - why would some be afforded that and others be denied? You may think this is a
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Ned Slider wrote: Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Russ, [huge snip] Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8. If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them. There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :) There are always other distros if you don't like this one ... Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. -- Bob Taylor ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dear Russ, [huge snip] Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8. If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them. There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :) There are always other distros if you don't like this one ... Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. I'd like to double this: It'd be exactly the same (or one of two) response(s) that one would get from the OpenBSD guys, at least the less social ones that don't have a clue to control themselves. The other one would be 'Shut the f*** up and code!'. After a really long odyssey I ended up (almost) where I started: Using NetBSD and CentOS (at least, what's OSS). Best, Timo ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Bob Taylor wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Ned Slider wrote: Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Russ, [huge snip] Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8. If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them. There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :) There are always other distros if you don't like this one ... Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, August 7, 2009 12:54 pm, Johnny Hughes wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 10:40 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Ned Slider wrote: Marcus Moeller wrote: Dear Russ, [huge snip] Look ... if you understand how build work, and I know you do, then you understand that one can not release updates that are built on 4.8 without releasing 4.8. If you need the updates faster, feel free to pay Redhat for them. There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :) There are always other distros if you don't like this one ... Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. Johnny, With all due respect, it is not what you are saying but how, especially considering your prominent role on the project. Marko ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: There - I feel so much better getting that lot off my chest :) There are always other distros if you don't like this one ... Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. *sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. Meeting expectations is at least partly a matter of setting the expectations realistically. If we wanted to hear 'it ships when it's ready', we'd probably be running debian. That's not what we've been led to expect from Centos nor, I think, what you want people to expect. I no longer run 4.x so the delays there don't affect me, but in general I'd give about equal weight to having timely security updates as to never having mistakes in the repository - failure of either can have equally disastrous results. While I don't personally have many qualms about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Les Mikesell wrote: *sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I think he did - use RHEL, it's a drop in replacement. Red Hat seems to be a pretty healthy company at this point and I at least don't expect them to go away in the near-mid term. I'm kind of surprised of some of the folks on this list how high their expectations are of the CentOS team, they do the best that they can, they don't require anything in return, though I'm sure they appreciate donations and stuff. about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence. I'd rather the team be honest(which it seems they have been) on their expectations and stuff rather than spin PR stuff to boost themselves/distribution. As time goes on it seems more and more sad the volumes of folks that seem to believe everything should be free and at the same time work perfectly, the number of corporations that base their systems/products off of CentOS is pretty big, and I'd be surprised if they contributed anywhere near the value of the product back into the community. It's a fight I have on occasion even at my company, where some people want to replace solutions that they previous paid for with free ones just because they are free. I think in those situations companies should at least strongly consider some sort of contribution back to the community, the easiest is just in some $$, but contributing code and fixes would be nice too, but companies that do that seem to be very few and far between. Going with RHEL can be a good compromise, which is one reason I'm pushing for RHEL here as a good chunk of what is paid for RHEL goes to the open source community in the form of developer hours and stuff. Unfortunate times we are in.. nate (CentOS user for about 4 years now, Debian user for about 11 years) ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dear Johnny, Well, if something is going to be released as part of CentOS (contrib repo or not), then it is going to be correct and it is going to be vetted by someone that I PERSONALLY trust ... or it is going to be personally tested by me prior to release. Otherwise, it is not going to be released. Then you should not perhaps not call it 'Contrib' repository if noone that you do not personally know can add content to it. The Fedora project has published very good guidelines which explain how to build high quality packages: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines As mentioned before, spec files or SRPMs can be reviewed locally (using lint) and via bugtracker. Mentorship could help new packagers to build 'standard conform' packages. Rebuild could happen automatically in koji. If you meet those requirements (I know you, know your work, and personally trust you with my servers), then you can get on a team to do things ... if you don't, you can't. In my pov the requirements that have to be met to become a developer could be lined out very clearly. Membership applications could then be discussed within a board. Until I get kicked out of CentOS (I don't think that is happening any time soon), that will be one of the standards that we use. Which means you are the king, feeding the folk? Not very 'Community' orientated, sorry. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
nate wrote: *sigh*... Don't take this as a complaint about the quality of the project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. If we wanted a one man show we'd probably be using whitebox. Things happen - people need backups. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I think he did - use RHEL, it's a drop in replacement. Red Hat seems to be a pretty healthy company at this point and I at least don't expect them to go away in the near-mid term. No, that's a possible contingency plan for each of us if the Centos project dies. SL is another. But, will the Centos project really die if Johnny gets hit by a bus? That's not what you expect from something called a 'community' project - you expect someone else to be able to step in instead of suddenly leaving everyone to fend for themselves separately. I'm kind of surprised of some of the folks on this list how high their expectations are of the CentOS team, they do the best that they can, they don't require anything in return, though I'm sure they appreciate donations and stuff. That's what happens when you do things right for several years... about your ability to continue the best balance possible, I don't think you are saying the right things to inspire public confidence. I'd rather the team be honest(which it seems they have been) on their expectations and stuff rather than spin PR stuff to boost themselves/distribution. I'm not asking them to be dishonest because I don't doubt their abilities and really don't expect the project to fail if a person or two drops out or has some time issues. I think they can be honest and still say the project has a plan and infrastructure to continue. They just haven't said it that way yet. As time goes on it seems more and more sad the volumes of folks that seem to believe everything should be free and at the same time work perfectly, the number of corporations that base their systems/products off of CentOS is pretty big, and I'd be surprised if they contributed anywhere near the value of the product back into the community. Don't forget that the biggest reason Centos works perfectly is the quality control that has gone into the code base before they touch it. That's not to belittle the amount of work they have to do or their competence in not breaking it while making the required changes, but really we'd all be better off if Red Hat still permitted binary redistribution as they did back when they acquired their base of community support. It's a fight I have on occasion even at my company, where some people want to replace solutions that they previous paid for with free ones just because they are free. I think in those situations companies should at least strongly consider some sort of contribution back to the community, the easiest is just in some $$, but contributing code and fixes would be nice too, but companies that do that seem to be very few and far between. Going with RHEL can be a good compromise, which is one reason I'm pushing for RHEL here as a good chunk of what is paid for RHEL goes to the open source community in the form of developer hours and stuff. Don't forget that most of the code doesn't originate with RHEL either and the applications we really care about running mostly aren't unique to any particular distribution. Unfortunate times we are in.. On the contrary, we have an embarrassment of choices - so many that one of the big deciding factors has to be a consideration of the project's likely ability to survive. Centos has been and probably will continue to be among the best. I just wish they'd say so in terms that give confidence in the future. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
2009/8/7 R P Herrold herr...@centos.org: On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote: Then you should not perhaps not call it 'Contrib' repository if no one that you do not personally know can add content to it. You don't like reputational vetting and a meritocracy, or how it is run by the people in charge who have as one goal: not distributing malware. I get it. Thank you. Hey Russ, it's open source. You can just review the spec and comment it until it's ready for release. Source could be fetched directly from upstream and patches could be verified easily. I do not see any problem here. The Fedora project has published very good guidelines which explain how to build high quality packages: You may be happier there. Mind their CLA. Enjoy the food fights. Maybe, but I like the idea of setting up a community backed Enterprise OS and CentOS is a great choice for that task. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
R P Herrold wrote: project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on? Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise. That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture? -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
So is it contrib repo or my buddies repo ? All we are asking is put in place the mechanisms to vet the reputation. The project can not be a true community project when there are no mechanisms for contribution. On 07 Aug 2009, at 9:00 PM, Les Mikesell wrote: That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Les Mikesell wrote: R P Herrold wrote: project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on? Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise. That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture? There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more. There are only 2 people building SciLinux. I am tired of all the complaining. Use it or don't, at this point I don't care. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: Les Mikesell wrote: R P Herrold wrote: project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on? Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise. That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture? There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more. There are only 2 people building SciLinux. I am tired of all the complaining. Use it or don't, at this point I don't care. I want to point out as well that we have SIGs with people in them who can commit limited code an items ... and those groups each have a team member who validates the code. We are not trying to become Fedora, it already exists. There are 3rd party repos as well for things that are not part of CentOS proper. Our goal is 100% compliance and testing that compliance with upstream functionality. The community is the Mailing Lists ... the Forums ... the Wiki, etc. Not building packages and submitting packages to the repositories. (Although we do allow that also in a limited fashion in the SIGS and the testing repo.) signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Johnny Hughes wrote: Johnny Hughes wrote: Les Mikesell wrote: R P Herrold wrote: project, just the PR vibes here. You aren't giving people the warm fuzzies about the project's ability to survive when you make it come across as having a stranglehold of control. I missed the memo -- what do we have a stranglehold on? Remember, I'm just commenting on appearances and wording, but all you have to do is read this thread to see that there are people offering to help and being refused. And meanwhile there are things that aren't on schedule. Or maybe there isn't a schedule - or maybe no one is supposed to expect one. We'd feel better if you shared your contingency plans. I've done that repeatedly -- either people do not read, or will not believe what we write. Nothing of human creation cannot be all things to all people and it is foolish to think otherwise. That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture? There are several other people all with the capability to build things ... we are just not adding more. There are only 2 people building SciLinux. I am tired of all the complaining. Use it or don't, at this point I don't care. I want to point out as well that we have SIGs with people in them who can commit limited code an items ... and those groups each have a team member who validates the code. We are not trying to become Fedora, it already exists. There are 3rd party repos as well for things that are not part of CentOS proper. Our goal is 100% compliance and testing that compliance with upstream functionality. The community is the Mailing Lists ... the Forums ... the Wiki, etc. Not building packages and submitting packages to the repositories. (Although we do allow that also in a limited fashion in the SIGS and the testing repo.) Oh, and I forgot the bugs database. All the bugs are open, anyone should feel free to go there, look at the bugs, scour the redhat bugzilla and the other upstream sites and post patches and/or other fixes. Anyone can register an account and write post there. If it is a fix to an upstream package (which we will not publish until they do), we will gladly post it upstream and get it rolled into the upstream code (if/when THEY decide to roll it in). I have, in the past. maintained many patched packages while waiting for things to get into an upstream package and posted it to the testing repos. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Les Mikeselllesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: That was in response to Johnny's comment about having to personally know someone before they would be allowed to touch anything in the repository. What if something happens to Johnny? Is there a bigger picture? I'm not quite sure what it is you want. From what I see, there were eight developers who signed the Open Letter to Lance Davis. I assume (don't know) that these eight developers are the ones who rebuild Red Hat into CentOS -- so how could it mean that if one gets hit by a bus, the project ends? As you've also mentioned (in another post) they basically take upstream code and rebuild it (removing upstream's name). So, my question is, what kind of input from the community would change any of this? And what is it that you actually want community input to change? I look at it this way. CentOS is 100% compatible with upstream. By using RPMForge and the other repositories I can modify CentOS to my heart's content. From my point of view, this non-problem is completely solved. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Stephen John Smoogen wrote: On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Ned Slidern...@unixmail.co.uk wrote: R P Herrold wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote: snip everything The bit that causes all the confusion here is the C in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is. I guess the Community bit refers to the community of users, nothing more. The word Community has multiple definitions and is usually what the people living in it want. A community can be a commune or a dictatorship of the meritocrit. Its rules do not have to be democratic or even open to outsiders (or insiders who are not 'blessed') And a community does not mean that anyone who 'moves in' are automatically part of the community. +1 I think you've totally hit the nail square on the proverbial head with this post Smooge. ;) A community is nothing more than a group of individuals congregating together for whatever particular purpose they choose to be in such a group, and does not specify the manner in which the group is organized, governed, managed, etc. As you state, labelling a group as a community certainly does not imply or require that group to be an elected democracy, nor does it imply that everyone's opinion counts equally within the group. Popular opinion/vote makes for nice statistics, but often for poor decision making, especially if those forming and spreading the opinions and/or doing the voting aren't held to the high standards that are needed for good decisions to occur. The majority of successful open source/free software projects out there are meritocracies - not wide open democracies. One need only look at the Linux kernel, all of GNU, and the various other well known projects in the OSS landscape to see that it is meritocracy that reigns supreme in the world of OSS. If the naysayers of such meritocracies actually have things of value to add to a given OSS project, and spend their time working on such contributions instead of whining about exclusion on public forums, etc. they'd likely find themselves climbing the meritocracy food chains of said projects in short order if they truly have things of value to offer. And each person coming to an online community will bring whatever of the above views of how a community works .. which is why a lot of people grump, flame, and disagree violently about why XYZ community initiative is not a community. Yep, I think it is because people often want to travel straight from A to Z without having to go through B, C, D, etc. Another subset of people, the talkers want to dictate to the doers how things should be done, often without wanting to (or perhaps without having the skills to) actually do any solid contributions themselves. They can safely just be ignored. ;o) - -- Mike A. Harris http://mharris.ca | https://twitter.com/mikeaharris -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFKfLk/4RNf2rTIeUARAjwhAJ91UbCyaRAaDBW/TSTKD2JTKuqlhgCfaEIs vhWfRzPvsLe7r0bk1+IQkaM= =VKYK -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:54 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote: Bob Taylor wrote: [snip] Exactly the *wrong* response. I wonder if responses similar to this loses potential users or loses existing customers. Personally, it disgusts me. It is not *wrong* ... any more than your response is *wrong*. Your opinion is for you and my opinion is for me. And the GREAT thing about open source is, there is always another project if you don't like the current one. Let me add: As a *developer* you are saying the wrong things. My point is, the CentOS team has put in an unbelievable amount of time and effort to build this distribution. We will continue to do so. If you like it use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. And my point is: Just *who* are you doing this unbelievable amount of time and effort.. *for*? If someone has a major problem with the distro, then they should find one that they don't have a major problem with. I don't want hard feelings or anyone to be upset, but if we are not meeting your expectations then you might be able to find another that does. I do not think you will ... but trying is certainly better than being upset. It's your *attitude*, Johnny. I'm attempting to help you with your people skills. OK? It is not helpful nor desirable to talk to people in such an apparently arrogant manner. If you did so with clients, you most certainly wouldn't have any in short order and possibly be looking for another job. Enough said. -- Bob Taylor ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Just to answer two of those questions: Marcus Moeller wrote: THE WIKI: For me a wiki is a collaboration platform which should be accessible to every contributor in the same manner (except the front and user pages). That means there should be a join process (where you have to agree to the cc license) which then leads to EditGroup membership. Yes. That hasn't been furthered by me because of what is in the open by now. I wanted to have some things cleared first - this has now happened. A comment function could be a good feature but in a comparatively small community like ours, most of everything can be discussed via ML or could be handled through page changelog. There is no real functional comment function for moin, afaics. THE BUGTRACKER: The CentOS bugtracker contains a lot of upstream bugs that cannot be fixed here. We have to make sure that these are tracked upstream and fixed there. Everybody is invited to help us to do that. Looks like there are only about 4 to 5 people who regularly look at bugs and take care about them without being pointed to specific bugs by others. This is something which has *no* barrier at all. Ralph pgpbZ7LAEO9mu.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
R P Herrold wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Marcus Moeller wrote: snip everything The bit that causes all the confusion here is the C in the name CentOS. It would all be so much clearer if the project would just rename to EntOS because that's what it is. I guess the Community bit refers to the community of users, nothing more. BTW, I and many others really like the Wiki - we see it as a way we can add value to the existing (excellent) upstream documentation. Where I see little added value is in incomplete reproduction of the upstream docs. ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:40 AM, R P Herroldherr...@centos.org wrote: Some people are perhaps offended that the less public CentOS infrastructure levels do not invite them in -- I cannot help their wounded feelings. Indeed, in part it may be that some talented people drift away or withdraw for such a reason. While I regret the loss of their enthusiasm, there is an art to 'keeping the lights on' at a major distribution Russ, During my 'relatively short' history with CentOS, I have seen a number of talented people giving up on helping in the CentOS community. This is sad and I was hoping the core CentOS admins would make an effort to prevent this kind of loss from happening. I still believe they do and the above statement is strictly your personal view (as you rightly said). Akemi ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Marcus Moeller wrote on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:52:01 +0200: Dear Community, I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here. So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list centos-community or centos-management or so. Kai -- Kai Schätzl, Berlin, Germany Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Re: [CentOS] CentOS Project Infrastructure
Dear Kai, I think the community would benefit from opening a new mailing list for these issues. There's already a promo list, but a discussion like this doesn't really fit on it. I also think it doesn't fit here. So, I think everyone interested about CentOS management should be able to do so on a mailing list centos-community or centos-management or so. I think that 'centos' is the correct list to address these issues as it's the most commonly read list and where the 'community' lives. I have to agree to Russ in some points: The 'rebuild' process is clearly defined and automated in most tasks. But that is not what I meant. CentOS offers much more. It has a wiki with (in my pov) very good documentation of admin tasks, a vital forum and mailinglists with a technical orientated user base. There are several different tasks besides the rebuild itself. I was thinking about things like the new website, artwork, LiveCD spins (which was often requested) a well populated 'Contrib' repository (free and non-free) , active SIGs (even promotion and marketing) and even architecture ports. Russ, I also share your conservative attitude, because it needs a well structured and trusted backend to build up an enterprise os many ppl rely on, but there is a community waiting in front of the door, and I personally see no reason not to welcome them. A legal entity for the project and an elected board (or at least a community manager who acts as 'bridge' between the community members and the so called core team) are necessary in my pov. Best Regards Marcus ___ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
