The Tragedy of the Community Enterprise Linux Distribution

Dan Čermák

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CC BY 4.0

who -u

Dan Čermák

Software Developer @SUSE, SLE BCI releng
i3 SIG, Package maintainer
Developer Tools, Testing and Documentation, Home Automation
https://dancermak.name
dcermak
@Defolos@mastodon.social

The Tragedy

Tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and,
mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that
befall a main character.

Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an
accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens
pleasure,” for the audience.

The Tragedies?

Or this one?

The Tragedy of Leap

  • Binary compatible to SLES now
  • very small contributor community

Is it successful?

Stakeholders

What is success?

  • many users?
  • many contributors?
  • long term survival/sustainability?

Who's successful?

Why users matter

Why do people contribute?

Contribution paths

Community first path

SIGs

  • groups empowered to drive (sub-)projects
  • path for "externals" to drive innovation

Steering Committee

  • decide on high level technical changes
  • can support smaller contributors
  • can gatekeep

Rebuilding

Documentation

Foundation / Independence

  • foundation can ensure independence of a project
  • contributions must not be lost on "death" of the sponsor

What's your special sauce?

What about Debian?

TODO Alma

  • independent foundation
  • "playground" on CentOS Stream base
  • own build system + devtools

And Rocky?

  • old CentOS 2.0
  • all backed by CIQ

Catharsis

  • Leap is in principle a good thing (for some)
  • CentOS stream is in principle a good thing too
  • independent entity
  • have a special sauce
  • allow for rebuilds outside of OBS (→ pbuild)
  • stick to a schedule & way
  • clear communication

Links

Questions? / Discussion