[scl.org] Image naming for centos-based images

[Jim Perrin]

On 10/21/2015 03:22 PM, Brian Gollaher wrote:
> On 10/21/2015 08:23 AM, Jim Perrin wrote:
>>
>> On 10/21/2015 01:14 AM, Honza Horak wrote:
>>> On 10/20/2015 11:29 PM, Honza Horak wrote:
>>>> Anyway, there is still the risk of using names without rhel7 and
>>>> centos7
>>>> suffix like `centos/mariadb-100` or `rhscl/mariadb-100`, that user
>>>> won't
>>>> be sure what is the OS version in the container -- that is considered
>>>> relevant in more parts of
>>>> https://github.com/projectatomic/ContainerApplicationGenericLabels/blob/master/vendor/redhat/names.md.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That ^ is also the view I'm more leaned towards, simply because I agree
>>>> with the points in the document above and because I don't think
>>>> platform
>>>> version makes any harm in the name.
>>> Thinking about a typical example where platform matters -- let's say a
>>> developer wants to speed-up a ruby application, so he implements a part
>>> of it as a binary extension (written in C and using a library from the
>>> base OS).
>>>
>>> The developer builds the app locally, so the rubygem links to the
>>> particular system library (libfoo.so.2). Once our images would move from
>>> rhel7 to rhel8, his application wouldn't work any more, because we have
>>> libfoo.so.3 in rhel8.
>>
>> This level of breakage happens outside containers even in the minor
>> point release updates. This was shown quite recently with the
>> ImageMagick update in 6.7 [1]. To me this isn't a good enough
>> justification (on the community side) to duplicate names. None of the
>> fedora containers specify OS version, nor to the CentOS containers.
>>
>>
>> For RHEL support and RH's own container registry it's fine and the
>> occasional edge case makes sense there. From the community perspective,
>> we should align with where the entire ecosystem as a whole is going.
>>
>> Right now we're lagging in usage, and doing things very differently from
>> what the ecosystem expects is only going to further isolate us.
>>
>>
>> In the world of containers, the application is the visible component,
>> not the OS. It's a shift away from what we've been doing for the last
>> decade, but it's happening.
> Yes but our business is selling a secure, stable OS with long term
> support so keeping the -rhel7 helps customers understand where they can
> confidently use the container.


No, we're talking about something larger here. Fedora and CentOS don't
sell anything. This is where community and RH business interests
diverge. If RH wants to add to the naming schema within their own
registry, that's entirely fine and understandable. I don't see a need to
drive a business mandate into the community space, especially when the
larger container community is moving in the opposite direction.




-- 
Jim Perrin
The CentOS Project | http://www.centos.org
twitter: @BitIntegrity | GPG Key: FA09AD77