[WBEL-users] Product Comparison statements for rebuttal

[Matthew Hodgett]

Wow, isn't that the greatness of linux. A real comfort to know that
having chosen a RHEL product that there will always be someone out there
to turn to, even if a simple switch in alliance with yum is required.

And once again it looks like individual desire vs a collaborative
effort. One point to note is the difference in 64bit support. I'm also
not 100% sure that SciLin provides updates in a very responsive manner
from what they indicate, but that could be reading into it wrong. It
also does stray ever so slightly from the standard RHEL feature set.

Tao has this to say of note;

"If there are already two other projects, why didn't you just join
those?
I started this project nearly a year ago when I rebuilt RHEL 2.1 for
internal use. More recently I joined the RHEL Rebuild mailing list,
after I was mostly done rebuilding RHEL3. By the time White Box released
RC1, I was already putting the finishing touches on Tao. There are some
other good reasons, too: 
- It's more fun this way 
- I'm learning a lot about rebuilding a Red Hat based distro 
- I like our name and artwork 
- I can guarantee the project lasts as long as I need it 
- I'm in complete control of Tao Linux
The last item is a big one; like the other project leaders, I have my
own ideas about how I think things should be done, and we all make
different decisions. Besides; each separate project still benefits from
lessons learned by the others."

And Scientific Linux;

"SL is a Linux release put together by various labs and universities
around the world. It's primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of
the labs, and to have a common install base for the various
experimentors.
The base SL distribution is basically Enterprise Linux, recompiled from
source.
Our main goal for the base distribution is to have everything compatible
with Enterprise, with only a few minor additions or changes. An example
of of items that were added are Pine, and OpenAFS. 
Our secondary goal is to allow easy customization for a site, without
disturbing the Scientific Linux base. The various labs are able to add
their own modifications to their own site areas. By the magic of
scripts, and the anaconda installer, each site is be able to create
their own distributions with minimal effort. Or, if a users wishes, they
can simply install the base SL release."


Matthew


-----Original Message-----
From: csieh [mailto:csieh@fnal.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 10:08 AM
To: Matthew Hodgett
Cc: whitebox-users@beau.org
Subject: Re: [WBEL-users] Product Comparison statements for rebuttal


Matthew,

There are also Tao Linux and Scientific Linux.

-Connie Sieh
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Matthew 
Hodgett wrote:

> From what I have found there are essentially two products that deliver

> RHEL in a  brown paper bag; CentOS and WhiteBox. And they appear to be

> quite different, not in the product but in the delivery. I would like 
> to make a couple of statements and get some reaction on them (also 
> cross posted);
> 
> CentOS is concentrating on product delivery i.e. there are a group of 
> developers that are getting the product and updates out the door in 
> the best possible timeframe. The user community is not as active, and 
> the website developement not a priority (try and find information on 
> CentOS4).
> 
> Whitebox has a very active and loyal user community, and the website 
> is simplistic in nature representing that Whitebox is being driven 
> primarily by a single individual. The product delivery is problematic 
> with updates only available as time permits, and mirrors have a 
> history of difficulty.
> 
> Are there any known conflicts of interest/ideals between the two 
> products? What is the chance of future collaberation?
> 
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