[fedora-astronomy] new to the list

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Wrolf <wrolf at wrolf.net> wrote:
> I do not understand why anyone from the Astronomy SIG would be
> rebuilding Fedora packages for RHEL.

> I do not see where EPEL comes in.

First of all I think you should understand that EPEL is actually a
piece of Fedora, its just another branch for the Fedora build system.
As a Fedora maintainer you can choose to maintain the EPEL branch or
let another Fedora contributor maintain that branch for you.  I
currently maintain scipy and some related packages for EPEL as well as
active Fedora branches as part of my Fedora contributions. So in a
very real sense any SIG could in fact be contributing to EPEL. As a
Fedora Project Board member, I'm actually trying to see things
re-structured so SIGs can choice to formally have a EPEL role that can
recruit contributors for so users of the software for all the binaries
that come out of the Fedora build system can use a SIG to communicate
with maintainers and developers.    See my role based SIGs initiative
posts on the fedora-advisory-list for more information concerning
roles.

But more to the point.....the original poster mentioned Scientific
Linux....which is itself based on the RHEL sources.
So the EPEL description was meant in the context of what I thought the
original poster was looking for in terms of a life cycle for a
distribution.

I very much encourage the idea of an Astronomy livecd(actually with
the advent of the usb image stuff..we probably just say Astronomy
images..though even that's confusing). I think such images would have
absolutely great value.  But the reality is such a livecd would have a
usable lifetime constrained by the Fedora release policy... of
approximately 13 months. This will be fine for some people, and it
will be too short for others.  If it is too short for the original
posters needs, then contributing to Fedora by building Astronomy EPEL
packages in coordination with the Astronomy SIG may very well be the
best available option for him.  It really comes down to what the
original poster is looking for in terms of usability lifetime. If the
original poster was looking for an opportunity to have a long-lived
distribution, then contributing to Fedora by maintaining Fedora
Astronomy packages in EPEL and then using EPEL on CentOS for his own
needs might best fit what he is looking to do. Hell, EPEL might
actually work directly on Scientific Linux since its a enterprise
rebuild as well, someone would have to check that for sure however.

-jef