sigh
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Aug 02, 2009 6:33 PM EDT |
CentOS was never at the brink of death. sheesh. |
| caitlyn Aug 03, 2009 11:49 AM EDT |
This whole situation with Lance Davis was hyped way out of proportion. The whole time development moved forward, patches were released, etc... CentOS was never a one man show. The problem which lead to the overhyping was the decision to put an internal squabble on the front page of their website. Nothing good ever comes from airing your dirty laundy in public. Of course, if that is what caused Mr. Davis to show up to the last developers' meeting maybe this was an exception. My remaining concern about CentOS is that thay have been really slow with security patches lately and that has nothing to do with the developers' issues which made the press lately. Red Hat got Firefox 3.0.12 (security patch) out the same day Mozilla did. Scientific Linux (another RHEL clone) had it available within 24 hours. It took CentOS more than a week. That isn't good for something with known, significant vulnerabilities. I think, for the moment anyway, I'm going to recommend Scientifc Linux over CentOS for folks who need a free RHEL clone. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 03, 2009 1:35 PM EDT |
Whether or not CentOS was on the actual brink of death, or brink of a name/URL change, what this does illustrate is the notion that many of these open-source software projects we depend on are a lot more precarious than we might like them to be. Not that there aren't thousands of proprietary, closed-source software products from companies and entities large and small that aren't just as precarious, but we need to aim higher. A lot of people -- me among them -- aren't eager to use just "any" operating system distribution for a critical task. I am grateful for "hobbyist" distros because of the choice they bring to the mix of 300+ Linux distributions. But questions of security, both of patches and of the distro's internal systems (hardware, software and people) make it hard to put too many eggs in one of these particular baskets. That's why Red Hat does so well. They're going to be there, they're going to continue doing what it is they do, and you can rely on the whole thing to be there now and in the future. And as hobbyists ourselves, we can and should experiment with the hundreds of OSes and thousands of applications out there. But for many tasks, we need an OS that is stable and extremely secure from end to end, meaning not just with security patches but with repositories, internal processes and an organization that is designed to maintain the integrity of that software now and in the future. I don't begin to know how important this REALLY is, or how everything from the Linux kernel to the userland, individual applications and full distributions measure up under this criteria. ... Or are we at the point where there's such "safety in numbers" of projects that a suddenly dead project means that it's time to roll in a new distro or application? This is where the notions of choice, competition (friendly or otherwise) and diversity come into play. The more choices we have, the better insulated we are as users from the demise of any one software project. Still ... I personally feel better in my "mission-critical" situations when I use software that I have a good feeling is going to be around and be secure for a good long while. |
| rijelkentaurus Aug 03, 2009 1:58 PM EDT |
Quoting: Still ... I personally feel better in my "mission-critical" situations when I use software that I have a good feeling is going to be around and be secure for a good long while. I agree. I also think Caitlyn is correct in recommending Scientific Linux, given that it is developed and maintained by several large and prestigious universities and labs. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 03, 2009 5:26 PM EDT |
Having both Scientific Linux and CentOS as choices for RHEL clones is exactly what I've been talking about -- it's great to have MORE choice (and you could probably add Fedora and RHEL itself to those choices). All of these RHEL-based systems tend to feed each other, i.e. using one would probably make you more likely to use the others. ... Just as using Ubuntu might prompt someone to try Debian. |
| caitlyn Aug 03, 2009 6:49 PM EDT |
FWIW, I agree with rijelkentaurus that using a distro developed by stable institutions, whether they are financially solvent corporations, governments,or educational and research institutions in the case of Scientific Linux, is the way to go for most everyone who isn't a hobbyist. I think some distros who don't have that backing but do have a long history, a large pool of developers, and something like a foundation to manage things are fine too. Debian would fit into that category. Right now I'm using Pardus 2009 (next week's DistroWatch Weekly subject) which is developed by the Turkish government and I am very impressed with it. It may well be a keeper :) I really wasn't worried about CentOS because it really is just a clone, albeit a very nice one. It should be no big deal to point someone running CentOS at a Scientific Linux repo or vice versa if one project or the other were in trouble. I've written about projects like VectorLInux and Wolvix, small private projects that get a lot of things right. From a purely technical standpoint they are great. I've written about Slackware which, in many ways, does thing better than those big, well funded distros. I still wouldn't use any of them for paying customers and I am wondering if I should move away myself and stick with what I want to support. VectorLinux at least has a large enough number of developers and the long history (now almost 11 years) and, knowing a bit more about the folks behind it than most, I also know that the loss of any one or two or three developers won't sink the project. I still worry a bit. Slackware has a fantastic track record both in terms of quality of releases and keeping security patches coming quickly. It has the longest history of any distro out there today. I still remember Patrick Volkerding's health scare a few years back. While there are people he trusts to pick up the pieces I wonder if they would be able to keep things at the high level he has achieved. What he has done as a one man show really is quite remarkable but I fear it depends on him. |
| gus3 Aug 03, 2009 7:27 PM EDT |
Regarding Slackware, if anything were to happen to Mr. Volkerding, I believe Robby Workman, Eric Hameleers,and Piter Punk could pick up and continue the tradition of excellence. |
| bigg Aug 03, 2009 7:41 PM EDT |
As far as Vector is concerned, I'd be very surprised if it would continue without Slackware. Not to say it couldn't happen, but there's a lot of Patrick Volkerding in Vector. My guess is that with all the Slackware derivatives, plus the fact that a lot of the development, testing, construction of SlackBuilds, etc. is done by others anyway, Slackware would be similar to what it is today. There doesn't seem to be a lot of magic, just be conservative in incorporating new low-level components, don't bite off more than you can chew, and do a really good job of squashing bugs. The CentOS 'scare' is an example of why FOSS is much safer than proprietary. I know of authors who were writing books that depended on closed software. When the company shut its doors or stopped selling the relevant software, the authors were screwed. If you use CentOS and for some reason it stops (unlikely because it's popular and others will probably jump in to continue the project) you face inconvenience, but nothing is locked into your current CentOS setup. 100% of your programs, data, and files can be transferred to a similar OS. And in this case, RMS is as pragmatic as you can get. |
| caitlyn Aug 03, 2009 8:11 PM EDT |
Quoting:As far as Vector is concerned, I'd be very surprised if it would continue without Slackware. Not to say it couldn't happen, but there's a lot of Patrick Volkerding in Vector. Considering that the Vector devs are considering rebasing off of Slackware for the next major (7.0) release I seriously doubt that's true. |
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