What's in a (CentOS) version number? [LWN.net]

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 0:02 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (9 responses)

Pardon, can you point me to the archived discussion in the context of either CentOS communication channels or Fedora communication channels where the idea to move EPEL out of Fedora and under the umbrella of the Centos community was brought up for discussion.

I was off the grid for much of January so I probably missed such the discussion as it happened as a reaction to the brand acquisition announcement. And my mailing list archive data dive isn't coming up with a salient thread dated within the last year. So if you could provide me with a best effort starting point to go back and read over the public discussion on the idea of moving the repo across brand boundaries, I'd appreciate it.

-jef

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 0:32 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (8 responses)

I think I brought that up as an ticket on the boards tracker as a sign of "trust" from Red Hat but I might be mistaken I did not have privileges to see my own tickets last time I logged in there so I think it's safe to assume that I do not have those now ( I needed to revisited an old idea I filed as a ticket there a while back ).

But I might have never filed that ticket based on response from those ultimately responsible for making that decision on infra, board and here on lwn, facebook and elsewhere.

Has the CentOS community been granted access to Red Hat's build system ( which basically is the same thing) If the answer to that is no then you have your answer to epel anyway...

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 0:41 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (6 responses)

So... just to be clear.

As far as you know...there isn't a public discussion about the idea, outside of your comments here on lwn. I easily found your proposal for the idea in an lwn thread from January. But so far I can't find a public record discussion where anyone has brought this idea forward, even as a rough outline as something for the CentOS community to be interested in taking on as part the CentOS branded deliverables.

Seems likes that an important part of laying the ground work for any transition. Just dumping EPEL on the CentOS community if they aren't ready and willing to take it on is a bad idea..regardless of how good an idea moving EPEL over. CentOS has to show a desire to take it, or its just going to be an unwanted burden.

-jef

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 1:08 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (5 responses)

This got discussed on Fedora's infra,Facebook page as well as Google+ page at the time of the acquisition all of which discussions which are publicly accessible so check there if you require that information and who responded and how they responded from both sides.

However interesting perspective hinting that the CentOS community would not be ready and willing to take it on since by my calculation it would it would be the wisest move since it would among other things strengthen it's community significantly without weakening Fedora which would certainly not happen now since Red Hat is pushing the CentOS community into copy pasting what Fedora does so it would be interesting to hear from someone from within the CentOS community if the community would be against that and or is incapable of doing that, which should answer that, those contemplation's.

In anycase at the time of those discussion it was clear that there where other forces than the CentOS community itself, keeping it from being moved.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 17:45 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (4 responses)

Fedora infra mailiglist... I'm not seeing anything in the infra mailing list archives from Dec-through-present that seems to match with any EPEL/CentOS proposal. Any point to a starting point to a publicly archived discussion is all i'm asking for. And sadly G+ is terrible as a citable reference for archived discussion. You would need to provide me a url for any discussion there as a starting point. Any reference to any discussion, preferable one where anyone else things your idea has merit, would be super.

So no discussion on fedora-devel, where I would expect this to pop up for a fist fight. no discussion on fedora infra list afaict, nothing on epel-devel.

What I have found is a pretty long discussion on centos-devel from Feb which goes into some of the sticky details of how CentOS wants to use a SIG approach such that currently conflicting addon repositories (which EPEL is but one of several) can live inside CentOS SIGscape. It is far from clear from that discussion that CentOS is structurally ready to subsume EPEL content as a preferred addon repository. Especially when EPEL and CentOS Extras still conflict with each other.

The EPEL specific discussion basically peters out on the note that the discussion between CentOS and Fedora concerning the future of EPEL needs to happen "at some point in the future"

http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2014-Febru...

That's where it stands. No dark conspiracy theories, just head-scratching over how to align processes and to get to a point where existing conflicting content can be merged with as little heartburn as possible. You seem to be suggesting that EPEL just be rammed into CentOS regardless of the fact the CentOS Extras conflicts with EPEL. That would be an unwise and insensitive coarse of action.

Look man here's the deal...
you don't drop a new work load on a volunteer staffed community just because you have _calculated_ its the best idea ever in the history of ideas.

EPEL takes care and feeding, not unlike a beloved family pet. You don't just hand a dog over to your relative going... "I have calculated that you totally should be the one taking care of this dog instead of me or my immediate family. Like it totally suits your lifestyle better than mine....here.... no givesies-backsies." You don't do crap like that unless you hate your dog and you hate your extended family. A compassionate human being would make some effort to feel out the potential new owner and make them a stakeholder in the continued well being of the animal in question instead of just dropping the animal off on their door step before they have consented to be the new owner. Only an unfeeling skynet automaton sent from the future to destroy mankind would lack the necessary empathy to miscalculate the situation so badly.

And really, it seems to me CentOS is already trying to work out the details as to how they want to take advantage of having access to RH infrastructure and support. It appears to me CentOS does want to incorporate much of the functionality of the external repository space that has grown up outside of CentOS... and that's not just EPEL..several other repos are named in the discussion I cite.. under the SIG approach instead of trying to cram it all into the existing CentOS Extras repo.

Providing "just" EPEL which conflicts with other external repos seems to be a non-goal. CentOS doesn't just want to take care of EPEL, Fedora's family dog. CentOS wants to construct a dog yard to house a dog team, a team meant to harnessed together towards some goal. This may not be what you personal want to see, but its what CentOS seems to be working towards. The content now living in EPEL will most likely play a role in that new structure. But, I suspect EPEL itself may simply stop existing as a distinct thing once CentOS has an established onramp into its layered SIGscape of content, if the new onramp leverages enough of existing build infrastructure that Fedora contributors are use to working with.

-jef

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 19:36 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (3 responses)

Your signature colourful analogies aside and speculation about me dropping something on the Centos community without having thought it thoroughly through and our agreement or disagreement on various subjects wont change the fact I mentioned earlier about the CentOS community requiring access to Red Hat buildsystems.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 20:21 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm sure you have thought it through. But there's no evidence you've communicated the idea wide enough to have a positive impact on CentOS project direction.

I'm not even disagreeing with the soundness of the idea. History is full of examples of very intelligent people coming up with very good ideas but not having the skills or the interest necessary organize or influence the correct group of people to work to make it happen. Thankfully you didn't go so far as to file a detailed business method patent as part of your thorough calculation when doing the Pro bono benefit analysis on behalf of the CentOS community. Thank you for showing that much restraint, so as to not be an insurmountable hurdle for others to implement a similar idea months later, when they finally get around to catching up with you.

I believe the phrase is "an idea ahead of its time".. which again is exactly the sort of thing I would expect to see proposed again and again from a skynet android sent from the future. But what do I know, I'm just a self-aware AI from the matrix.

Credit where credit is due, you came up with the idea as far as I can tell. Good for you. I will think about spinning up a fedora badge to honor such impressive prescient thinking moving forward. It's really is an oversight that such effort goes completely unrewarded. Never again.

The only thing I find moderately distasteful is this propensity to jump to conspiracy theories and implication of some sort of behind the scenes strong arming of motivation because other people are moving at a more deliberate speed in implementing a more nuanced plan of action on a timescale slower than you would like to see.

The issue isn't just about where EPEL lives, that's just a part of the question. The issue really is how does CentOS get structured such that CentOS can build a contributor space which is attractive enough to drain as much of the swamp of overlapping/conflicting addon repositories as possible and make it easier to give users the layer cake they seem to want in practice.

Ironically pushing for an EPEL centric merger quickly, as you have proposed here in LWN in January, and seem to still be a proponent of now, smacks as exactly the sort of heavy handed corporate interest interactions that you'd rather not see. It's only because you thought of it that you want to see it done in a rush, without building stakeholder buy-in from inside the CentOS community itself.

Personally, I'm really much happier to see CentOS think about what they want to achieve with expanded resource support from shadowdaddy, without that discussion being dominated by insistent calls to rush EPEL under the CentOS banner. At the end of the process CentOS might come up with a structure where both EPEL and CentOS Extras as they exists today just do not map coherently and will disappear as recognizable distinct things inside the CentOS branded binary content space. Which is where I think they are headed with their variants idea.

-jef

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 21:01 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (1 responses)

Individuals cannot positively impact CentOS projects direction no more than you can do in Fedora, now that Red Hat is running things in the background.

Now this was not "an idea ahead of its time" from my point of view since I have always failed to see the purpose of EPEL being a part of Fedora in the first place and never been silent about that point of view of mine since it's sole existence is to overcome limitation in RHEL dont get me wrong I can see the convenience in it for people maintaining components both in Fedora and EPEL and the gain Red Hat has from it,

It's the same view I share with the "Software Collection" that Red Hat manage to push into the Fedora project to overcome limitation that did not exist in the project to begin with from my perspective.

Now my so called conspiracy theories is just based on responses I received from Red Hat employees as well as community members when mentioning this possible future for EPEL in various places.

Anyway less about me more about EPEL where I have to agree with you on the point where distributions like CentOS was and Scientific Linux still is, that arguably there should never have existed nor should exist in the future the distinction of community maintained components from their src rebuilds.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 21:45 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Oh you've had discussions about this with red hat employees? Any public archived discussion between you and a red hat employee concerning the epel idea you can point me to? Now of course I haven't mapped every lwn username to a flesh and blood persona yet, so some of the feedback you got here has been from a hatter and I've miscategorized it. If so then I apologize. But as of now, I'm not aware of any publicly archived discussion on the EPEL idea specifically between you and anyone employed by red hat.

It's difficult to judge the conclusions you are drawing without some modicum of public record from which to read for myself. I'm disinclined to believe you without at least one public record conversation to review. So please, if you are going to refer to conversations with red hat employees, please provide the public record citation to them so I can verify they happened and the things you said were said were said.

Protip, if you are going to make it a habit of talking trash about policy decisions happening across a corporate fenceline, you really need to make sure your conversations with key people you are in disagreement with are happen in the public record as much as possible. If you are going out of your way to have...disagreements..in private conversations.. and then taking those disagreements into public forums (like here), that's a bit uncool and doesn't really help substantiate your policy argument or grow wider support for your opinion (even if you have the better reasoning).

It's generally not a good idea to reference private conversations, unless of course, your goal is to just besmirch reputations and you really don't care about seeing policy decisions changed.

That's not your goal right? You are still trying to have a positive impact on policy direction right? Contrary to your last statement that you believe that as individuals you and I are both powerless to have a positive influence, right? That was just silly talk. Of course you are still endeavoring to have a positive influence, your just doing it wrong, terribly terribly wrong. That previous statement was just your defensive cynicism talking earlier as a batter you with my indomitable rhetoric. Sorry about that. And we all now inside every cynic there's just a disappointed idealist underneath. But once we surgically remove your idealism and replace it with synthetic lab grown pragmatism, you'll be feel much better about everything.

-jef

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 4:25 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

I don't recall seeing any such ticket, and I can't find one filed by you in the board trac.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 0:06 UTC (Thu) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (11 responses)

Can you *please* stop playing the scorned lover every time RH gets mentioned even tangentionally. It's getting really old.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 0:40 UTC (Thu) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (6 responses)

You may view me pointing out how Red Hat truly operates with non upstream community's as an act of a scorned lover but I will stop the moment Red Hat get's it's act together or eight years have passed or am I dead before those eight years have passed which is not unlikely to happen sooner rather then later.

Either way the outcome for you is the same so prepare yourself to get used to it until it does...

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 6:46 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (5 responses)

There is a basic problem here: Red Hat may be a huge US-based company, a Linux leading light and an innovator but it has no coherent, voiced strategy for what it is about. I'm unsure whether it is trying to become a pure services company, get out of the Linux distribution business altogether, become part of a New World Order super-cosortium ...

This is becoming worse not better and is has its roots in the way that Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora were split all those years ago. Fedora was left as a rump, feeding the commercial product line but at several removes - but Red Hat had to release sources so the copycat distributions followed.

Pink Tie, White Hat and others were either shut down by legal action or by the weight of managing a distribution build on too few shoulders. CentOS and Scientific remained as the only two successful clones. CentOS was alternately disparaged / recommended as the way to learn proper, paid for supported Red Hat (but without support) and Fedora was for very committed bleeding edge enthusiasts, for Red Hat to cherry pick and for no support ever. Scientific just ticked over.

Now Red Hat has a huge legacy support burden of installed Linux on its hands 4,5,6 still in support, 7 just released and is now pushing cloud, SAAS, PAAS, Docker, Openhatch ...

Meanwhile, CentOS and Fedora now occupy the same space and CentOS is being made deliberately incompatible with RHEL as the days and months go by. The people who may have built a business on CentOS now have nothing and Fedora have a new adoptive sibling in their space, competing for their toys and their parents' money.

Red Hat should make some decisions - pure Linux distribution or Linux-based services in cloud / independent existence at the head of a vibrant Linux community or only as a more anonymous part of the big consortia (think Fujitsu / HP / Oracle). Sadly, Red Hat hasn't had ordinary users since Red Hat 9 ten years ago - it's had corporate paid for customers and "freeloaders" and customers on its certification courses.

If I were advising someone to build a heavyweight Linux based business today, I couldn't recommend Red Hat (or SUSE) and Ubuntu also seems slightly too widely focussed - is it that commercial Linux has had its day?

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 12:52 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> Now Red Hat has a huge legacy support burden

That's not a burden, that is their main product. Stable versions supported for a very long time. You see doom and gloom, while Red Hat saw it (ages ago) as an opportunity to make loads of money :-P

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 13:42 UTC (Thu) by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033) [Link] (3 responses)

As I understand it, Scientific Linux is the result of a large mistake or misconceptualisation by Redhat concerning CERN. They did not understand the vast number of instances that CERN requires, of which a very tiny fraction would ever give rise to support calls. A pay-per-instance licensing scheme was unthinkable for CERN, a perpetual site-wide licensing scheme wasn't acceptable to RedHat, so CERN used the source ....

Unlike CentOS, Scientific Linux did not set out to be bug for bug compatible, but so far there has been very little divergence between RHEL and SL. It will be very interesting to see where they go with Scientific Linux 7.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 14:09 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

Scientific Linux is out of Fermi Lab (a US Department of Energy Laboratory) which they built in coordination with CERN. [The rest of the items may be correct, I just wanted to not leave the people from Fermi not getting the credit for the hard work on rebuilding).

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 16:45 UTC (Thu) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (1 responses)

The future of SL is very much up in the air, but there's been serious consideration of its being a CentOS SIG in the future.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 17:23 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

The comments on SL are very interesting. I knew, of course, that it was well maintained by Fermi labs and CERN. They are hard working enough that they will maintain backports of all security fixes for each point release and also maintain archives of all point releases.

I knew also that there was discussion about SL becoming a CentOS SIG. That would be good and useful so long as it doesn't impact the level of support SL currently provide.

The rationale behind starting SL does make sense - I can't see anyone paying for 10,000+ servers and the servers needed to run an additional PB of storage each and every month for the LHC :)

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 17:33 UTC (Thu) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] (3 responses)

If you don't like his comment, don't respond to it, babe. Telling him to shut up is not productive. These defensive posts for Red Hat are starting to look like astroturfing, which is never a good thing.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 12, 2014 18:12 UTC (Thu) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link]

Meh. I don't particularly care about RH. I've never personally used it and professionally I don't have very much contact either. I just find those rants incredibly repetitive. Voicing your opinion once or five times is OK. But were long past that.
There's enough real discussion to be had instead of the same back and forth.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 13, 2014 8:15 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (1 responses)

He didn't ask to shut up, he asked to respond in a different way or not to respond. That's perfectly acceptable. It also is a mischaracterization to call it "defensive post". If someone sees conspiracy theories all the time, at one point the normal thing to do is to say something about it. Suggesting that's not productive: why? If you dislike some behaviour that you notice you'd not say anything? Not everyone is the same, I prefer people who are polite but this doesn't mean never saying anything.

Lastly, "babe", wtf?

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 13, 2014 9:49 UTC (Fri) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link]

> Lastly, "babe", wtf?

I felt so enthralled by the diminutive that I've since privately asked for a date.

What's in a (CentOS) version number?

Posted Jun 18, 2014 23:18 UTC (Wed) by hughesjr (guest, #29949) [Link]

I would agree with you that based on "Content" alone (ie, the RPMS themselves), that EPEL belongs in CentOS more than Fedora ... however this is not just about content.

Just as important is the Authentication structure used and the VAST majority of EPEL maintainers also maintain the SAME package in Fedora. Since they are already maintaining more than one version of that package inside Fedora already it is significantly easier to just add one more RPM within the Fedora infrastructure than do it at a completely separate place with separate logins, etc. SO most of the maintainers want to stay right where they are.

Not only that, BUT CentOS has no mass community builder yet as it is currently being developed ... and EPEL is up and running in Fedora land right now.

So this idea has been discussed and it has merit .. but it is not something we need to do right now. It might happen in the future or it might stay the same. That's the thing about community projects.