Collaboration

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 4/25/07, Johnny Hughes <mailing-lists at hughesjr.com> wrote:

>
> Answer to both ... EPEL wants to be "THE" Master 3rd Party repo, not
> just a 3rd Party Repo.  There can be no misinterpreting that, it is just
> plain fact.
>

Or it wants to be another repository. There are multiple reasons for
multiple repositories containing the same RPM with different options.
No one repository is going to meet those needs and no one repository
is going to rule them all. But we all seem to be forgetting that (me
included in a nice rant that was almost as long as this one that I
didnt send because I couldnt find an appropriate Devils Advocate
definition).

The questions I have NOT seen really asked or answered with serious
thought/debate are:

1) What do system administrators want in the way of packages, and how
many different repositories are needed to support say 80% of the
audience?
    Ideas:
       some people need latest stuff on old OS
       some people need old stuff on latest OS
       some people need stuff supported for 7 years
       some people need stuff supported for 6 months

2) What can help system administrators meet multiple needs of their customers?

3) How can the various repositories advertise what they are aiming
towards so that customers know how to meet their needs better?

4) How would documenting outstanding best practices, needs that each
repository is using better benefit everyone.

5) How can repositories better figure out where they can share items
that meet common best practices.

6) How can we ask the customer questions of:
      Does mixing repositories have problems?
      How can I mititagate these problems if I have to mix repos?
      If I can't mitigate problems.. can there be a common repo where
my needs are met?

7) How we can all remember that at the end of the day, most problems
are due to incompetence, accident, or forgetting to check ones ego at
the door.. and not malice aimed at others.

In the end, these are part of the most important questions that any
business, consultant, organization can answer: Who is my customer, and
how do I give them better service?

These are MORE important questions that knowing what options we pass
on EL3.8 versus EL4.4 or how many build servers we need, or even
repotags (which I like)... because most of the answers to those
questions are best answered by knowing what our customers
want/need/etc.

Does this mean that EPEL should drop what its doing and stop putting
packages in its repository.. no more than it means that FreshRPMs,
DAG, ATrpms, etc all have to pull out their differing versions of
Clamav/perl-yet-another-module/etc.

It does mean that each person should come to a to be determined table
in the future.. with some idea of how to answer the above questions
and know why they differ from the other sites.



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"