On Mon, 2008-10-13 at 17:42 -0300, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de> wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-10-12 at 16:48 -0300, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> > Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 16:53 -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Ralf Corsepius
<rc040203(a)freenet.de> wrote:
> > > > > On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 12:38 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> > > > >> Dmitry Butskoy wrote:
> > > > >> > Itamar - IspBrasil wrote:
> > > > [snip]
> > > > >> The fact that they switched to CentOS is *good* for Fedora.
> > > > > I can not disagree more - To me, it's yet another evidence
of Fedora
> > > > > being on the loose.
> > > >
> > > > You're going to have to expound on that. I do not see Centos in
any
> > > > way as in competition with Fedora.
> >
> > > EPEL drains away resources from Fedora.
> > > > Centos is something everyone should be proud
of.
> > > Well, to me CentOS is as important as any other arbitrary Linux distro.
> > > I am glad they are around, but not more and not less.
> > It is around becase RHEL is popular, and open source.
> And non-free
It /is/ free... you pay for support only.
Wrong. RHEL is opensource, but it is not
free. You can't get RHEL
binaries anywhere.
> - If it was free, the CentOS folks could start directly
> contribute to Fedora
No...
Why not? CentOS would go out of business, because RH binaries could be
used instead => their resources would be freed.
> > > > >> CentOS's goals are better oriented
to the needs of someone
> > > > >> that wants to deploy a system and run it for years. Fedora
is
> > > > >> good for people who want to get the latest technologies
from
> > > > >> upstream as soon as they're stable enough to integrate
into a
> > > > >> running system.
> > > > > Right. But why can't Fedora do better?
Define "better"... "Good Fedora" is bleeding edge, not fully
stabilized
software, experimental stuff that may pan out (or it might not, being
replaced by something else), changing APIs (literally and sysadmin-wise),
fast turnaround.
Yes, this is what it is supposed to be. Unfortunately this
doesn't
apply.
Current Fedora isn't much more than a single-user desktop-focused RH
development/rawhide snapshot.
> > > > > I
feel Fedora could do better.
> > > > Sure. With more devs, servers, time, etc.
> > > ... less bureaucracy, less committees/less chiefs/more Indians,
> > > different people, different strategies.
> > Show how!
> Ease reviews, bodhi, packagedb, koji, bugzilla, track, re-consider FTBS,
> work-flow, trademark policy.
Definite proposals that can be discussed?
What does "trademark policy" have to do with anything, BTW?
A lot.
> E.g. right now, the tools being in use are a heterogenious
mixture of
> separate tools,
Unix...
My point is: Lack of integration and them being over-loaded with
features.
> are often broken,
Fixing hands are presumably wellcome...
Well, ...
> are far from easy to use
Concrete proposals on what to change how?
Many, many tiny details. In fact, there
are tons of usability issues
with all of them.
One pretty obvious example: bugzilla.
IMO, it has never been less usable than it is now. It isn't possible
anymore to reopen bugs, automatic CC:-adding when commenting to BZs,
many lists are hidden in dropdowns, tags have changes (assignee), FTBS
activities have rendered bugzilla "unsearchable", flagged review stuff,
etc.
> and
aim at
> implementing a highly bureaucratic process/work-flow.
Again, proposals, please?
E.g.: Work-flow: branch fc11 early (discussed and shot
down last week).
> > Telling everybody here how awful things are going
isn't helping
> > an iota. Everything has its limits, and for every desirable quality (newest
> > shiny toys, support for the newest fad in hardware in software) there is a
> > cost (can't be supported in the long range, fast turnaround, set
procedures
> > to handle a huge stream of new stuff)
> >
> > > > But baring a sudden increase
> > > > in those, I would much prefer to see Fedora focus on dev and
testing,
> > > > let other distros pretty things up.
> >
> > > ACK. Unfortunately, Fedora is drifting away from this group towards
> > > single-user desktops (e.g. OLPC).
> >
> > Then work towards drifting the opposite direction...
> One reason why I am agitating ...
"Agitating" doesn't help much.
Of cause it does. It help making
people aware about problems.
> > Fedora (or any other large group of people) will move where
the majority
> > wants to go...
> Well, deployment of an OS to servers, will always be a "minority use
> case" and will always collide somewhere with mere desktop oriented
> developments.
So?
Examples: NetworkManager, PulseAudio, setroubleshoot, SELinux-policies,
PackageKit, defaults ...
> > > > Why would they, after often suggesting that
Fedora _not_ be used on
> > > > production servers, use Fedora on their production servers?
> > > Depends on how they mean it:
> > > - if they are referring to "long term maintained/everlasting
support"
> > > servers, they are right.
> > "Servers" are "long-time maintained" by definition...
> To me, "server" is a "use-case of an OS" and is not at all
connected to
> running the same OS for many years.
That is "testing an OS with server workload", something different entirely.
Just because some piece of hardware is labeled "server" or caged into a
rack, doesn't make it a "server".
A server is a use-case of software, the hardware doesn't actually
matter.
> Yes, no doubt, running the same OS on a larger number of
machines for a
> longer time helps maintenance, but I do not see how this is connected to
> a particular machine serving as "clients" or "servers".
>
> Yes, no doubt, there are use-cases where "long-term API" stability is
> important, but this applies to client use-cases as well as to server
> use-cases.
Those /are/ the "server" use cases you want so badly!
NO! I am talking
about file-, yp/ldap-, nfs-, print-, streaming-, audio
(mpd etc.)-, video-, VCS (CVS, svn, git, etc.)-, http-, SQL (postgres,
mysql, etc.)- servers and similar.
> Finally, yes, no doubt, Fedora is not the "shoe that fits
all sizes" nor
> are CentOS or RHEL, but ... this doesn't mean that Fedora may not be
> applicable to server scenarios.
>
> > > - if they mean it as "Fedora is technically too unstable",
> >
> > Because there is no "long term maintenance"...
> Again, I don't see how "lack of stability" and "no long term
> maintenance" are linked together at all, nor how server and client
> use-cases matter.
Again: "stability" is /not/ "when run on 10 thousand machines only one
crashes a day", it is "runs for thousands of days before crashing", and
/that/ is as un-Fedora as it gets.
Again: server is a use-case of SW. Like on
desktops, I can live with
rebooting once a week due to kernel updates and don't need 1000hrs of
uptimes nor do I have 1000s of users nor machines.
> What matters in use-cases of short lived-distros such as Fedora
is:
> Upgrades "must simply work" and (admin-) personnel must be able to
> handle them in a particular scenario.
Sure. Test upgrading for a few months until everything is A-OK,
No, rolling
release, respun distros.
> Lack of stability,
Design objective.
No, mismanagement, lack of QA
> ... tools
Huh?
koji, bodhi, bugzilla, packagedb ...
One detail: The amount of administration emails I am receiving from
koji, bodhi, packagedb: Often, several 1000s per month.
> The lack of people to me is not a cause, it's a consequence
of mistakes
> in Fedora's history.
Is there /really/ a lack of people?
Yes, all over the place.
Examples:
* reviews
* Fedora infrastructure "wining" on "lack of people"
* Fedora infrastructure "signing" issues.
Are any statistics of contributors (and
contributions) at hand?
None that I am aware about.
Ralf