XML Feeds
RHEL 6.1 and CentOS 6.x
Earlier in the day today Red Hat released RHEL 6.1 ( http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2011/Red-Hat-Delivers-Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-6-1 ). Congratulations to them, it looks like a great release with lots of cool new stuff in there.
Most people will want to know how this impacts CentOS and the CentOS-6 plans. We are, at this time, on course to deliver CentOS-6 within the next couple of weeks. We will carry on with those plans as is, and deliver a 6.0 release and then goto work on 6.1. I am fairly confident that we can get to a 6.1 release within a few weeks of the 6.0 set being finalised. Partially due to the automation and the testing process's being put into place to handle the entire CentOS-6 branch.
If you would like to follow progress of the QA and Release team, you are welcome to drop in at http://qaweb.dev.centos.org/qa/ . Jeff has been keeping the calendar as updated as possible and is doing a good job of keeping a fair bit of information flowing through there. At some point next week, we will try and get some dates in place for the 6.1 process as well.
So what happens if 5.7 comes along in the mean time ? Well, the CentOS-5 process is now completely disconnected from the CentOS-6 one, and a 5.7 release should have no impact on the progress of CentOS-6 and the release cycles. We have also been working on plans for an opt-in, by design process that would allow users to get early access to packages being built for a point release. More details on that soon.
Comments and feedback are always welcome!
- KB
19/May/2011 05:12:21 pm, 13 comments
Great news! The work on automation is worth the effort. 
Thanks for the update. 
Keep up the good work Kanabir, and please ignore the stupid comments on CentOS fora :-) 
Great! Looking forward to release CentOS-6! 
Good news for long waiting CentOS fans!Thanks for hard working of CentOS team!
Thanks alot CentOS team,Really good news for Die hard CentOS fans.
This is hypothetically good news but I'll believe it when it's out. I'm sure the developers worked a lot on v6.0 but the lack of transparency and communication with the outside world is by far the worst thing that could happen to CentOS. I still have high hopes about the project but at this point... not expectations.Good luck, guys!
Kneekoo, the whole idea of transparency and communication is based on FUD being sent around by people who have ill intentions or are generally hostile to the project. There are plenty of opportunities for people to get involved and help, but they prefer to sit around the sidelines, make lots of noises about stuff they dont understand and prefer to be negative. The good thing is that most people who do actually want to get involved, do so - and prefer to ignore these FUD generating people.
- KB
Kneekoo,Instead of waiting and complaining, why don't you throw in some contributions such as funding? The only thing to make any project move faster is money right?
Lindley,actually - more than funds, people doing things to help the process along would help more. eg. There have been multiple calls for helping with tests, but very few people care to help. The few who do - are then repeatedly sighted by people who neither know what is going on, nor really care to help.
@ KaranbirThere have been several that want to help with this project in both testing and developing. When the question is posed in the #centos irc channel the reply is always negative and seemingly unwelcome. The replies by the more prominent channel dwellers always discourage helping in the way you suggested above. Instead they want to say "no one wants to help unless its time for a release". That to me does not make much sense since because the complaint from the CentOS developers have been lack of help and testing.
I suggest CentOS puts a way to sign up to help with developing or testing on the main CentOS site. Give people a clear way to help other than just sign up to hand out CD's. Take a page from the Fedora Project and get more people involved. I would be the first to sign up if there was a clear way to do so.
I personally love to use CentOS and I am glad for the project. I understand the troubles that you guys go through and I want to help in any way I can to alleviate it. I am sure there are others who want to help this project in any way that can be done. Please give us a clear and easy way to sign up to help. :)
Some reasonably sized consumers of CentOS, such as myself, have found that:1. RHEL subscription costs are not reasonable.
2. CentOS is good enough that we run 80+ physical and virtual hosts.
3. CentOS is free. We like free. But we also recognize the value of the CentOS product to our business, and feel that our business should (and would) be willing to contribute something to the development, in particular if a release schedule can be assured. Perhaps $100 per vm/physical per year... for me, that might be $8000/yr to contribute to the project. Surely there are several more businesses that would be willing to contribute, again, for an assurance in return? A requirement of this, though, is for you to have a formal purchase order and billing process in place.
Bottom line is, my company (a very large company) does not have a process or a desire for "donation". If there's not a process for it, in a big business, it nearly can't be done. But ordering software, licenses and subscriptions, is something that happens every day as part of the regular business process.
I realize that for some devs it may be the love of the work, or a need for a good distro, or prestige more than money; but some who might be willing could jump in and help if their income were supplemented.
Nice! Questions. Is this the free and best way to get acquainted with Linux emphasizing on Redhat. I dont mind getting the source and compiling as long as i can learn redhat 6 syntax and. I eant to start with "6". Is Centos the way to learn for free?