I have been working on getting things done before leaving on vacation 
today.  I have read the emails concerning this topic and will ponder 
them while on vacation.

With the expectation that RedHat will release RHEL 5 next week we are 
planning on rebuilding the srpms .  If in the future we decide to be 
involved in Centos then we still can.

Note that "sites" are going to be based on the new repo availability.

Off to vacation

-Connie Sieh

 On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Jaroslaw Polok 
wrote:

> Hello all.
> 
> Just investigating for the future: or shall we (we = all
> of us using SL(X) go Scientific Linux 5 .. or maybe re-base
> to CentOS 5 ?
> 
> From what I can personally see, and looking at past years
> I believe we are seriously missing resources necessary
> to develop SL to become something more than a Red Hat
> 'clone' ... all of 4-5 (sorry if I missed some!)
> people contributing are obviously overloaded with their
> other work in the labs ...
> 
> The only added value of SL (comparing to CentOS) as
> I see it now is:
> 
> 1). Adding to anaconda the 'sites' functionality
> 2). Adding AFS client (plus few more packages).
> 
> (well, there are few more customizations but these are
> minor I would say)
> 
> I believe that above could be addressed by a different
> solution in the future: RHEL 5 anaconda should be able
> to use (during installation) additional
> yum repositories (therefore packages we put in 'site'
> could come from there..) :
> 
> - we could possibly use that mechanism in order to
>   build our own 'branches': Fermi, CERN, DESY .. etc ..
> 
> Additional packages (not already present elsewhere)
> could be submitted to CentOS contrib / centosplus
> repos (if general purpose) ... or a new addon
> CentOS repository.
> 
> Adopting the above would permit us to spend more
> time on something which was supposed to be one
> of our main goals ... and what is not really
> achieved: adding 'scientific' packages to the
> distribution...
> 
> What is you opinion about re-basing on CentOS ?
> 
> Pros ? Cons ?
> 
> Let me start the list:
> 
> - Pros:
> 
>     - Avoiding duplicating what already has been
>       provided by linux community.
> 
>     - Joining 'forces' with others having very similar goal
>       (free linux with long livetime 100% RHEL compatible)
> 
>     - Having more time for development of parts
>       of distribution really related to 'science'.
>       (or other areas used developed in our labs:
>        cluster management, HSM, managed desktops ... etc.)
> 
>     - Much larger 'userbase' (see mailing lists !)
> 
>     - Much larger 'expertbase' for community support.
> 
>     - Lots of personal time of some of us saved
>       (all these alpha/beta/rc releases
>        ... plus tests ... )
>       [well: I don't know how it is in your labs: but we
>       at CERN cannot spend more than 20%-25% of FTE (Full
>       Time Equivalent) on linux distribution preparation ..]
> 
> - Cons:
> 
>     - ?
> 
> 
> Please reply to the list what are your opinions about
> the above:
> 
>     - I believe that it is right time to discuss such
>       possibility:
> 
>       RHEL 5/CentOS 5/SL 5 are not out yet and I believe
>       there will be no urgency to deploy it in our labs
>       anytime soon (certainly not at CERN: we are just
>       migrating to 4: we will not be permitted to
>       go forward during LHC startup and also most likely
>       not in 2008 ..)
> 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Jarek (frequently overloaded SLC maintainer ;-))
> 
> __
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