On 03/25/2014 07:14 PM, Karanbir Singh wrote:
> RHEL 6.1 -->  SL 6.1
> RHEL 6.2 -->  SL 6.2
> where do you get the sources for 6.1 or 6.2 given that they are not
> published on ftp.redhat.com ?
>

Hi, Karanbir.

The 6.1 and 6.2 source is still out there, for instance 
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/linux/enterprise/6Server/en/os/SRPMS/389-ds-base-1.2.8.2-1.el6_1.3.src.rpm 
is a 6.1 source RPM.  SL has built up their own source tree, much like 
centos has with vault, and then as security updates are released they're 
built against the different point releases so that people can stay with, 
say, 6.3 but still get security updates built against that tree.  There 
are numerous reasons to do so, although no one here has replied to my 
query for those reasons.  Perhaps asking the same question in the users 
list would produce different results, but I was hoping to hear from the 
developers as to why they build it this way.

Again, in a nutshell:  SL rebuilds security updates on each point 
release, and as Pat has mentioned they run repoclose on that so that 
they can pull in any essential dependencies into that point release.  So 
if someone stayed at 6.0 for whatever reason (and, again, I'm not 
interested in debating why they might do that; it is assumed for my 
purposes that those reasons are valid) they can do so and have a 6.0 
that has all available security updates (with their deps) installed and 
in essence be fully up to date in terms of the security errata.

This is a key difference between CentOS and SL, and for many it is a 
value-add, even though it could potentially break strict binary 
compatibility with upstream.