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On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 19:55 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote: |
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> In my humble opinion, Gentoo is missing too many points to be an |
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> enterprise Linux. We commit to a live tree. We don't have true QA, |
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> testing or tinderbox. We don't have paid staff, alpha/beta/rc cycles. |
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> We don't really have product lifecycles, since we don't generally |
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> backport fixes to older versions, requiring instead for people to |
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> update to a more recent release. We don't have, and probably will |
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> never be able to offer, support contracts. We support as wide a range |
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> of hardware as the upstream kernel, plus hardware that requires |
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> external drivers; we don't have access to a great deal of the hardware |
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> for which we provide drivers. We understand when real life gets in |
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> the way of bug-fixing, because all our developers are volunteers. |
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I don't feel that the list of requirements you have for "enterprise" |
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linux is necessarily what the enterprise needs.. |
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I think Gentoo has some steps that can be taken to be a better |
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enterprise player, but to come out and state that it won't work is a bit |
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bold. It might not work for HP's description of "enterprise", but that |
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doesn't mean it wouldn't work for someone else. I have talked with |
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people who have used Gentoo in HPC clusters with great success, and I |
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would consider that an enterprise arena. |
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> I think that attempting to take Gentoo in the "enterprise" direction |
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> is a mistake. I think that we are a hobbyist distribution. This |
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> doesn't mean that we should not strive to meet some of the enterprise |
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> goals. Those things can be important to hobbyists too. But I don't |
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> think we should be aiming for corporate America. |
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Wow... as a sysadmin who has run Gentoo in some very high profile |
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production systems that's a bit offensive to think I used it outside of |
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a hobbyist platform.. IBM didn't just donate a $30k system for ppc64 |
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development to make it better for someone's basement use, so I don't |
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think I'm alone in thinking that Gentoo is above "hobbyist". |
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> I don't even understand why that goal appeals to people. Let other |
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> distros go there! I want Gentoo to run in people's homes, in student |
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> dorm rooms, etc. Places where people want a fun distribution that |
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> they can tailor and work on easily. |
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Let other distros go there at $1500/year/node (RHEL AS)... |
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Gentoo is already a fun distribution.. I don't think that has to change |
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to meet enterprise goals. |
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> If RH or SuSE (or another for-profit Linux vendor) wants to take some |
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> of those developments and use them to make a profit, that's fine with |
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> me. We're over here having fun. |
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Personally, I was drawn to Gentoo by the community, which was a lot of |
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fun. I still have fun working with the people in this community. I |
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don't see why an enterprise goal should be equated with losing the fun |
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aspect of Gentoo. |
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Cheers, |
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-Corey |
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-- |
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