[WBEL-users] Upgrade Path

[Scott Silva]

Vic spake the following on 11/29/2006 7:24 AM:
>> I suspect that you are reacting to some perceived pressure that wasn't
>> intended by CentOS users.
> 
> I wholeheartedly hope you're right. I think it's completely unethical to
> spend one's time on the mailing list for a particular distribution, but
> contribute little but pressure to switch to an alternative.
> 
> Nonetheless, the pressure does exist; it might be from a minority of
> users, but it reflects on the whole community.
> 
>> The fact is that it is relatively easy to switch a system over from WBEL
>> to CentOS and continue on and I think that was the point that people
>> have been trying to get across.
> 
> That's never been debated, AFAIK. I believe we all know how easy it is to
> switch between the two distros. The fact that some of us do not is not a
> technical problem.
> 
>> The problem with WBEL is that from its inception, it was driven by the
>> efforts of just one person and that's just too much work load for any
>> one person and your efforts, though similarly well-intentioned are
>> likely to suffer the same fate.
> 
> This is a distinct possibility; nevertheless, I intend to try. My job is
> made the harder because there is so much to be done; I expect that to
> become easier over time as the backlog is cleared. There will be times
> when I have trouble getting things out as quickly as other people might -
> but I don't see that as an enormous problem. The updates will happen in a
> timely fashion, even if they don't set any World Speed Records :-)
> 
>> In the end, it makes sense to join a
>> project where the workload is shared by a group so that the efforts can
>> be spread amongst many and there is overlap of responsibility.
> 
> I fully take your point. However, I do not wish to be associated with a
> distro that spends significant effort bashing others. My dislike of CentOS
> is based almost exclusively on a distaste for the behaviour of some (and
> not all) of its leading lights.
> 
>> If and
>> when you finally get to the point where you have update packages built,
>> there still remains the problem of distribution of these updates which
>> is no small hurdle itself.
> 
> I think I've got that covered. I have server space & bandwidth for the
> foreseeable future, and just this morning, I was offered a mirror. If
> there is still as much interest in WBEL as my BitTorrent machine implies,
> I might need more mirrors - I expect those to arrive at opportune moments,
> but if they don't, there are all sorts of ways of getting cheap server
> space. I don't mind putting some of my money into this venture - it's
> saved me enough over the years.
> 
>> The reason I believe that WBEL is dead is that I see John Morris post on
>> Red Hat's Nahant mail list but won't respond on his own list here.
> 
> This worries me somewhat - but that's John's decision. I'm rather hoping
> he'll come back to the status he had once (in which case I'll happily fold
> the Updates project), but if he doesn't, we'll carry on without him.
> 
> Vic.
I waited to get to the end of this thread to throw in my 2 cents. I in no way
or manner was bashing Whitebox. I was just offering a bit of a heads up to
someone that was planning to do an upgrade anyway.

I was a faithful follower of Whitebox in the beginning, as were several other
people that moved on to CentOS. Many people offered to help John maintain
Whitebox, and he politely declined. No angry words, no hatred, no bashing, he
just declined the offer. Only John knows why, but that is in the past.

I know that there was some "bad blood" over the whiteboxlinux.net site, but
that is long over, and now there is just a search redirector there. The fact
that people like Karanbir and Craig still watch this list is a testament to
their willingness to help. I also hang around to help, But to really take over
a distribution, you need to be given the "keys", and without the signing keys,
you will lose a certain amount of trust.

I feel bad for any project to drop out, and do not wish Whitebox to go away,
but sometimes the pressures of life do get in the way. It seems that the
damages that Katrina placed on the Louisiana region might have been what has
kept John so busy, and I wish him the best.

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