[El] Some thoughts on cooperation [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Fri Nov 19 03:10:47 EST 2010

--------Bruce Bannerman <B.Bannerman at bom.gov.au> wrote--------
Subject: Re: [El] Some thoughts on cooperation [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Date: 19.11.2010 04:11

Hi Bruce,

>My interpretation of where we are with this thread is that:
>
>
> *   ELGIS could be considered the 'stable' version of the repository;
>and
At the beginning of the ELGIS project it was decided that packages are updated with every minor RHEL/CentOS release (5.1, 5.2 ...)
The stable release, which won't change much over the whole major release is in EPEL.
>
>
> *   FedoraGIS could operate as the development/test/unstable branch.
>
>(sorry for using Debian terminology, I'm new to RHEL and related
>distributes and require RHEL for our work environments. I'm more familiar
>with Debian deivatives).
>
>If this is the case, then:
>
>
> *   How often is it proposed to update the RHEL ELGIS packages? Once
>every two years (excluding bug fixes) to keep in line with RHEL releases?
Approx. twice a year, depending on RHEL/CebtOS minor relaeses.
> *   This could cause an issue for organisations getting access to later
>stable versions of software which support say newer versions of OGC
>Services.
> *   Is there a concept with RHEL Packaging similar to Debian's Backports
>where newer versions of software are backported to work with the Stable
>release of Debian?
>
>
>Bruce
>

Peter

R3 GIS Srl - GmbH
http://www.r3-gis.com
>
>
>On 18/11/10 8:37 PM, "Mathieu Baudier" <mbaudier at argeo.org> wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>thanks a lot Peter for launching this discussion!
>I think that this was indeed the last step to go through before we
>communicate more widely about our effort: the cooperation with Fedora
>and EPEL.
>
>Here are my thoughts on it (taking also into account the discussion
>around gadal/imageio-ext with Ralph):
>
>- I fully agree that it is easier and beneficial for everyone if
>Fedora is in general the source for RPM packaging.
>
>This is actually what we are already doing in most cases.
>You may have noticed that I recently published some packages with such
>versions <software version>-<number1>_<number2> (e.g. gdal-1.7.2-5_3).
>The <number1> is the build id in Fedora, the <number2> is an
>additional id following the modifications required to get it to work
>on EL.
>I did not want to increase <number1> in order to avoid going "faster"
>than Fedora packaging.
>This is just a tentative approach, but it illustrates the importance
>of Fedora as a source.
>
>- as you all know, the ELGIS repo requires the EPEL repo.
>So, if recent versions of GIS software can be maintained in parallel
>in Fedora and EPEL, we can simply remove them from ELGIS and
>everything will work seamlessly.
>If at some point, EPEL prefers to be more conservative, ELGIS can take
>over and provides more up to date versions.
>
>Personally, this is the approach I would like us to follow from the
>beginning for RHEL/CentOS 6:
>* by default packages are maintained in Fedora and EPEL, we help as
>much as we can
>* except for the ones requiring to upgrade base (but there will be
>very few (none?) of them at the beginning), which will be in ELGIS
>Plus
>
>- this is all well and good and I think that we are all broadly in
>line, but I should also talk about where it itches a bit in order to
>be perfectly honest:
>
>* in order to maintain packages in Fedora/EPEL you need to follow
>guidelines, procedures, use certain build tools, etc. This is of
>course required by such huge projects, maintaining hundred of
>packages. But in order to maintain around 20 GIS packages, I prefer to
>be flexible and informal, discussing packaging decisions via a
>mailing-list as we currently do (noting longer term issues in our Trac
>instance on OSGeo). I'm personally a Java developer who wants a stable
>underlying GIS platform: the amount of energy I can invest in RPM
>packaging is limited, and this is not my main focus.
>
>* I used Fedora during many years. This is a fantastic project, with
>great benefits for the innovation in the free software field. But for
>the reasons above, I simply don't have time/interest for working with
>it and track all updates and the short support cycle. That's why I
>switched to CentOS. So, in other words, I personally won't bother to
>test software on Fedora (exceptions are possible, and I always have a
>Fedora around in a virtual machine, but you see the idea): I just want
>the software to work on RHEL/CentOS.
>
>Feel free to keep the ball rolling!
>
>Cheers,
>
>Mathieu
>
>On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 09:10, Peter Hopfgartner
><peter.hopfgartner at r3-gis.com> wrote:
>> There seems to be quite some movement in the GIS/RPM world recently.
>>
>> As by now, there are at least 4 sources for RPM packages within
>RHEL/CentOS/Fedora, not to mention Mandrake, which has excellent GIS
>support and SuSE, which I do not know much about.
>>
>> 1 Fedora Linux
>> 2 EPEL
>> 3 Frank Warmerdam's FWTools
>> 4 Enterprise Linux GIS
>>
>> One question that arises is if we could reduce the number of sources
>for GIS rpm packages. I think, that this depends on the goals of each
>project. In my understanding, but I would ask each party to speak up for
>themself, the goals could be
>>
>> Fedora Linux GIS: provide up to date OS GIS packages for current Fedora
>distributions
>> EPEL: provide OS GIS packages for Enterprise Linux, both stable as of
>software capability and as of software version
>> FWTools: I guess that at the time Frank was working on it it was a
>pioneering work of packaging quality OS GIS software into rpm
>> EL-GIS: proide stable software, as of software capability, but upgrade
>with caution the versions, in order to have up to date GIS software
>available for Enterprise Linux.
>>
>> Basically, with thess goals, there is a reason to exists more then 1
>repo.
>>
>> The next question could be: could we benefit from each other? I do
>think so. If the goals are similar to what I speculated, a proposal might
>be:
>>
>> We join forces to provide high quality GIS packages within Fedora GIS.
>EL-GIS packages will be derived with those Fedora packages, maybe with the
>minimum adaption needed to adapt them to the older software on the
>Enterprise platform (as might be Python, QT, Boost etc.). Basically,
>Fedora GIS will become the upstream for the packages.
>>
>> Peter Hopfgartner
>>
>> R3 GIS Srl - GmbH
>> http://www.r3-gis.com
>>
>>
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>>
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