Hi Jarek, Troy, Connie, Marc, John, Stephen, Axel, Knut, Jan, Urs, Oleg, and all those I've missed or who are just watching from the sideline, On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Troy Dawson wrote: > Hello, > OK, I've had a night to think about it, here is my opinion. > > If I have my way, Scientific Linux 5 continues on as has been planned. We [Stephan breathing a sigh of relief] Great! Some - very - random thoughts on this issue: We could switch the 400-odd SL systems we're maintaining here to using CentOS any day, with very little effort. We could have done it any day, for years. Yet, we haven't. There simply was and is no reason to do it. SL has worked very well. And not just from a purely technical point of view. CentOS has been our "plan B", and a very nice one, since we switched from SuSE to SL. Now if SL and CentOS were to merge, what would be the new "plan B"? There's no need for half a dozen TUVEL clones on this planet. But having two is fine, especially if they have sligtly different objectives. I don't share Jarek's opinion on the SL community being weak, at all. The SL mailing lists are probably those with the best signal-to-noise ratio I've ever subscribed to. Not just because they're completely void of spam (and could someone please convey my admiration for this to whoever deserves it), but because they're populated by experienced admins of large linux installations. It's not surprising that most of them mind there own business most of the time. But if you have a real problem getting serious hardware to work, sl-users IMHO is one the best lists on the planet to post your problems on. Jarek's idea isn't bad at all. CentOS seems a solid, well managed project. It's likely to be around for a while. It has a broader user base than SL. They've often beaten SL in providing rebuilds of TUVEL errata as timely as possible. "Going CentOS" should be something any SL user/developer should be considering. I've never met any of the CentOS developers in person. Unlike *all* the main developers of SL. Makes a difference to me. Someone said that this is the right time for this discussion. I disagree. The right time for this discussion would have been months ago. That was when TUV released EL5beta1, and we discussed about dealing with kernel modules and what the repository structure should be, in light of the changes TUV is making. Joining forces with CentOS, IMHO, is an SL6 topic. We started gearing up for SL5 here 7 months (!) ago, by looking into FC6T2. While we'll have to provide SL4 for folks working on the LHC experiments, probably for years, and we have to provide SL3 for WLCG, and it's unknown for how long, we have also have (significant numbers of) other applications and user communities that are not locked into an OS that's two years old already and would rather work with something contemporary. Having the "very alpha" SL5 was really helpful. It made us confident that there are no serious obstacles in creating SL5. We're looking forward to the next test (SL5 alpha?) release. And we have a strong interest in having an initial SL5 release asap. Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to sign up for long term involvement in CentOS QA, which means I don't get to see the CentOS5 beta yet, and have no idea when it may happen and what it will look like eventually. Please, this is not about, CentOS-bashing. They certainly have their reasons. But it shouldn't be hard to understand why I do *not* want to see SL vanish. "Sitting on a release" for years is not a requirement here. Yet, being able to apply the minor updates - which have become quite intrusive lately - at our own pace (say, after a couple of months of evaluation and testing) has been a huge plus. We seem to be in good company here: after all, TUV seems to have identified this feature as something that is worthwile to provide - and charge a premium for. SL lifetime of course is an issue. Like others, we'll most likely not be able to get rid of all SL3 systems before autumn here. But then I think the end of SL3 support is not set in stone, one way or the other. I remember the discussion during HEPiX at SLAC: The 4 years we have now for SL3 is a compromise, to be discussed again when the end of the term is coming up. And those who still need it should probably join forces and work on the problem, instead of just complaining. Of course, the existence of CentOS errata may help... -- Stephan Wiesand DESY - DV - Platanenallee 6 15738 Zeuthen, Germany