Hi Matthias,

> Michael Mansour wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> >> This affects us.  Imagine that all the CentOS users show up to use
> >> Scientific Linux.  Imagine all their maintainers and developers show
> >> up, too.
> > 
> > I personally don't think that's a bad thing especially if it allows SL to have
> > the ability to open more of it's infrastructure to 3rd party "extensions" like
> > the CentOS team have done for CentOS Plus etc.
> 
> You are assuming that it is only the lack of developers that 
> prevents SL from having more "extensions" and newer versions.
> 
> I rather see it as the desire of the maintainers to stay in sync and 
> compatible with The Upstream Distribution. And that is a policy I support.

There's nothing wrong with that policy and there's also nothing wrong with
having "extensions". If people didn't want them then those "CentOS developers"
wouldn't exist, as they maintain unofficial/unsupported extensions to the base OS.

It's like getting an iPhone and saying "I'm happy with the standard apps that
Apple installs on the iPhone", for some people that's fine, for others it's
not and they want to extend the functionality with apps by 3rd party developers.

> Some authors in this thread said something about 'competion' and 
> 'getting more users for SL'. I do not think at all that CentOS is a 
> competitor, and I see no fight over clients.
> 
> The purpose of SL is to provide an enterprise quality distribution,
>  with a well defined community in mind. The aim of SL is not to take 
> over the world.
>
> > For example, EL5 is stuck in the php 5.1.6 and MySQL 5.0.45 days and when you
> > want applications which relay on at least php 5.2.x (and so many do) then you
> > have to go to 3rd party repo's which may be incompatible with other repo's
> > used in the environment.
> > 
> > It's really like opening a can of worms
> 
> Exactly. Better keep it close.

Agreed, but still, for many apps and services TUV doesn't provide everything
you need, so either don't run it on EL5 and move to another dist (not for me),
compile from source (not for me either), or use another repo.

The incompatibilities of some repo's is just annoying and doing nothing for
the community at large.
 
> > and IMHO CentOS got the right mix by
> > having their own team of developers providing those packages which TUV
doesn't.
> 
> Long live CentOS. I wish they find a satisfactory solution for the 
> issue, and keep providing CentOS, and satisfy all the clients for 
> which SL is not new enough.

I've been around Linux and Open Source since 1994 and there's one thing which
is consistent about this community, resilience. We all adapt to change, learn
from our mistakes and usually make things better in the long run.

Regards,

Michael.

> Matthias
> 
> > 
> > In case there's a question, I use SL exclusively for over 30 Linux servers,
> > never used CentOS.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Michael.
> > 
> >> Keith
> >>
> >> ------------------------ forwarded message ---------------------------
> >>
> >> (http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/07/30/130249/CentOS-Project-
> >> Administrator-Goes-AWOL):
> >>
> >> Lance Davis, the main project administrator for CentOS, a popular 
> >> free 'rebuild' of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux, appears to have gone 
> >> AWOL. In an open letter* from his fellow CentOS developers, they 
> >> describe the precarious situation the project has been put in. There 
> >> have been attempts to contact him for some time now, as he's the 
> >> sole administrator for the centos.org domain, the IRC channels, and 
> >> apparently, CentOS funds. One can only hope that Lance gets in 
> >> contact with them and gets things sorted out.
> >>
> >> * Open Letter (http://www.centos.org/):
> >>
> >> July 30, 2009 04:39 UTC
> >>
> >> This is an Open Letter to Lance Davis from fellow CentOS Developers
> >>
> >> It is regrettable that we are forced to send this letter but we are
> >> left with no other options. For some time now we have been attempting
> >> to resolve these problems:
> >>
> >> You seem to have crawled into a hole ... and this is not acceptable.
> >>
> >> You have long promised a statement of CentOS project funds; to this
> >> date this has not appeared.
> >>
> >> You hold sole control of the centos.org domain with no deputy; this 
> >> is not proper.
> >>
> >> You have, it seems, sole 'Founders' rights in the IRC channels with 
> >> no deputy ; this is not proper.
> >>
> >> When I (Russ) try to call the phone numbers for UK Linux, and for you
> >> individually, I get a telco intercept 'Lines are temporarily busy' 
> >> for the last two weeks. Finally yesterday, a voicemail in your voice 
> >> picked up, and I left a message urgently requesting a reply. 
> >> Karanbir also reports calling and leaving messages without your reply.
> >>
> >> Please do not kill CentOS through your fear of shared management of the
> >> project.
> >>
> >> Clearly the project dies if all the developers walk away.
> >>
> >> Please contact me, or any other signer of this letter at once, to
> >> arrange for the required information to keep the project alive at the
> >> 'centos.org' domain.
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> Russ Herrold
> >> Ralph Angenendt
> >> Karanbir Singh
> >> Jim Perrin
> >> Donavan Nelson
> >> Tim Verhoeven
> >> Tru Huynh
> >> Johnny Hughes
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> Michael Lauzon
> >> --
> >> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> >> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> >> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
> >>
> >> --------------------- end forwarded message ---------------------------
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]         Voice (503)-520-
> >> 1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
> >> Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
> > ------- End of Original Message -------
------- End of Original Message -------