[elrepo-devel] CentOS interactions

[Phil Perry]

On 28/02/14 20:44, Ken Dreyer wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Two days ago Johnny Hughes mentioned on centos-devel that CentOS had
> reached out to ELRepo to see if ELRepo would like to join CentOS or
> become a CentOS SIG.
>
> I wasn't able to find references to that discussion anywhere online,
> so I was wondering about the details? From my naieve perspective, I
> think it could make a lot of sense for ELRepo to join in the new
> things that CentOS will be doing.
>
> - Ken

Hi Ken,

Please excuse the rather impersonal nature of this reply, but it's 
intended to be a general statement of our position as raised by your 
question rather than a personal reply to you :-)

The ELRepo Project's remit is to provide software packages that provide 
enhanced hardware support for (Red Hat) Enterprise Linux. As such, we 
view ELRepo as a member of the (Red Hat) Enterprise Linux community. The 
CentOS Project is also a member of that community.

All ELRepo packages are built on genuine Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 
for the Enterprise Linux community. As such, ELRepo packages support 
CentOS by virtue of the fact that CentOS "aims to be 100% binary 
compatible" with RHEL. By the same token, ELRepo also supports all other 
binary compatible rebuild projects and our software userbase consists of 
users of genuine RHEL and all rebuild projects.

Some rebuild projects aim to keep their offerings as close to the 
upstream offering as possible (e.g, CentOS) whereas others allow other 
packages into their distribution. For example, Scientific Linux, whilst 
aiming to provide a 100% binary compatible base, also distributes our 
elrepo-release repository file which makes it easier for their users to 
install the ELRepo repository from within yum or the graphical package 
management software. We have no objection to rebuild projects 
redistributing our software in this fashion, and work
closely with all rebuild projects that we support.

We are not overly familiar with the CentOS SIGs, but from our somewhat 
limited understanding believe that they appear to be aimed more at those 
wanting to ship/distribute something (a stack, application, appliance, 
variant, etc) built on top of a CentOS (or Enterprise Linux) base. That 
is not what ELRepo does - we are simply an independent repository of 
software packages designed to provide enhanced hardware support in RHEL.

We are unable to see what advantages being a member of a CentOS SIG 
would provide to ELRepo and it's users. We don't wish to ship a product 
based on CentOS or use the CentOS brand. We already have our own genuine 
RHEL build systems that are specifically set up for the sole purpose of 
building kmod packages. We have total control over the signing and 
release process for our packages. We have our own dedicated mirror 
system for the distribution of our packages. We have total autonomy.

We believe that ELRepo is best placed to serve the whole Enterprise 
Linux community by being independent rather than being associated with 
any one particular rebuild project. All of the ELRepo members are active 
in the wider Enterprise Linux community, be it with Red Hat, CentOS, 
Scientific Linux etc. We have also supported some non-binary compatible 
projects, such as ClearOS, to help them port our packages to their 
distribution. We continue to work closely with the CentOS devs, a number 
of whom personally use ELRepo packages and regularly provide invaluable 
feedback. Above all, we aim to continue to support all of our users, 
whichever flavour of Enterprise Linux they may wish to consume.

The ELRepo Team.