[TriLUG] CentOS status

[Kristopher Kane]

This doesn't mean much to you all but I use CentOS on all of my
systems.  I will admit that last month's news made me really think
about long term support but I use it for my desktop, local services,
RHCE practice and this distribution excels at those requirements.

The CentOS team is small and they want to keep it that way.  Much
argument has been going on in the mailing list for the past 1.5 months
about how non-members feel it is difficult to 'get in' or contribute
to the project.  I partially agree with them but on the other hand, it
is *their* rebuild distribution and the current team can see fit to
allow/disallow individuals to contribute on what ever level they want.
 The team's argument is that since they are a rebuild, they need
people to test, wiki garden, help in forums/mailing list, and other
things like the graphics and promo teams.  They further say that the
help they receive in these areas don't earn a @centos.org address or
other such "privledges."  Many close to the project feel this as a
push away and were greatly turned off by the lack of care.

My personal opinion about CentOS is that it is an enterprise operating
system in terms of software but is just another open source project in
terms of long term stability.  If one (Karanbir Singh -not the
Microsoft one-) or two team members were to drop it could have a huge
impact on turn around time, Hell, it is pretty slow as it is with 4.8
being released just yesterday.  This is not a complaint of mine but
just a fact that if it were truly an enterprise operating system it
would meet more criteria to obtain the level of 'enterprise.'   As
Hughes says on the mailing list; if you don't like it, pay for Red
Hat.

I would personally not use CentOS for a production system that
requires lots of 9s.  Some will reply to this with 100 reasons why I
am wrong but I work for the DoD in a very LARGE enterprise.  If ran a
func yum update on my >500 systems I have now, and they couldn't find
the mirror because a project member decided life was better hiking the
AT, I would be calling Red Hat asking them to forgo the "We told you
so." and help me migrate.

Anyway... all of us on the mailing list know that Red Hat kidnapped
him and made him the new TriLUG meeting "Darlene" babysitter.

-Kristopher Kane