[El] Re: IMPORTANT: Fedora, EPEL and ELGIS

[Mathieu Baudier]

Hello,

I have reported the principles below in the wiki page:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Enterprise_Linux_GIS#Collaboration_with_Fedora_and_EPEL

Cheers,

Mathieu

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 17:25, Mathieu Baudier <mbaudier at argeo.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> we discussed recently on this list how people involved in packaging
> activities around FLOSS GIS software for the Enterprise Linux platform
> should collaborate.
> This was a very appropriate timing, with the life cycle of Enterprise
> Linux 6 starting just now.
>
> The goal of this mail is not to reopen the discussion but to summarize
> the consensus that was reached, so that it can serve as a reference,
> allowing people to make an informed choice about the repositories they
> choose to use.
> In case there was a misunderstanding, don't hesitate to signal it.
>
> - in general, Fedora packages are the upstream source for Enterprise
> Linux packages (be they in the EPEL or ELGIS repos) as is already the
> case.
>
> - the ELGIS repos depends on the EPEL repo, they complement it and
> sometimes override it
>
> - for EL 5, the GIS packages in EPEL will most probably not be
> updated, so the mission of the ELGIS repos is to provide up to date
> packages until there is no more interest for them (as will be
> discussed on a case by case basis on the ELGIS list)
>
> - for EL 6, the GIS packages will mostly be provided by EPEL. Later on
> in the life cycle of the platform, if EPEL doesn't want to keep the
> packages up to date, the ELGIS repos may take over as it did for EL 5
>
> - packages that cannot be in EPEL (typically because they require to
> update the base platform) can be maintained in the ELGIS Plus repo (it
> is expected that there will be very few of them at the beginning of
> the EL6 life cycle)
>
> - as was always foreseen, the goal of the ELGIS project is not
> primarily to provide packages but also to serve as a knowledge base
> for FLOSS GIS software usage on Enterprise Linux. Therefore EL
> specific questions related to GIS packages from EPEL are welcome on
> this list and information about them will be documented in the other
> resources provided by the OSGeo foundation (wiki, trac, etc.) [1].
>
> More generally, as EL users, we always have to struggle with the fact
> that our platform is getting "old" with the time (we say "stable"...),
> especially in the GIS field where there is so much innovation.
> If we can make this platform a reliable and popular platform for GIS,
> the upstream projects will pay much more attention to keep their
> dependencies stable, and when they have to update them, to make our
> life easier with the required upgrades.
>
> There are fields where supporting the current RHEL/CentOS release is a
> must. This is up to us that it becomes the case for FLOSS GIS.
>
> We have gone a long way over the last few months.
> Thanks a lot to all of you who contributed your expertise and your time!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mathieu
>
> [1] Packaging specific issues for EPEL packages should of course be
> directed to the EPEL list, and general issues about the packaged
> software to their related support mechanism.
>