Respins

[lists at ralii.com]

> 
> From: Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>
> Date: 2006/01/25 Wed PM 12:12:02 EST
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> CC: Eric Harrison <eharrison at mail.mesd.k12.or.us>
> Subject: Re: Respins
> 
> On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 18:02, Eric Harrison wrote:
> 
> > In response to Les' statement that I have a very different opinion about
> > respins, that has to be viewed in context. The K12LTSP problem set is
> > different than the Fedora problem set, as such it is a apples-to-oranges
> > comparison.
> > 
> > I'd love to see official re-spun FC isos, but I certainly understand the
> > issues and work involved.
> 
> Thanks for responding, Eric.  I didn't mean to minimize the
> effort you put in, but just point out that it can be done
> and it is a great service for the users.
> 
> > As Les notes, K12LTSP is a stock updated fedora plus a few add-ons
> > (almost all Fedora Extras packages these days). Not only does it carry
> > the extra QA baggage of a respin, but it is not a 100% "pure" respin. As
> > such, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to recognize K12LTSP as a
> > re-spun Fedora Core.
> 
> I think a "pure" respin has been arranged elsewhere now. However
> on a second thought, much of the reason I prefer the k12ltsp
> version has to do with your choices about extra packages and
> default settings for a lot of things not even directly relating
> to LTSP and getting the updates included was just a nice
> side effect.  Perhaps going forward life would be easier if
> (a) fedora had a "seriously-minimal" install that was just
> enough to get yum working and (b) things that are almost-rebrands
> could be easily built with an rpm that adds one or more
> repositories where high-level choices are done in meta-packages
> or groups.  This would permit installing a minimum of outdated
> code and let all concerned parties maintain their philosophical
> purity concerning what they permit in their own repositories
> without making a complete rebranding operation necessary.
> 
> 

I believe part of this idea is already being done....  If you look at the work being done on anaconda, it sounds like they are trying to allow it to connect to a myriad of backends (currently: CD, HD, NFS, FTP, HTTP) which would allow it to connect to a yum repository, it sounds like.  Once this work is done, the idea of re-spins becomes minimal for those with connections, as I could do the install off of a network-based repository or perhaps a "local mirror" that I am copying.  It might even open up the ability during install of saying go get "Extras" or "livna" or whatever, but that may be a couple of versions down the road (i.e. maybe not in FC5, but perhaps FC6 time frame).....

--Rob