Open Stack

On 1/12/21 11:28, Ghanshyam Mann wrote:
>   ---- On Wed, 01 Dec 2021 09:13:02 -0600 Zane Bitter <zbitter at redhat.com> wrote ----
>   > On 26/11/21 10:29, Ghanshyam Mann wrote:
>   > >   ---- On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:20:39 -0600 Dmitry Tantsur <dtantsur at redhat.com> wrote ----
>   > >   >
>   > >   >
>   > >   > On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 3:35 PM Jeremy Stanley <fungi at yuggoth.org> wrote:
>   > >   > On 2021-11-26 14:29:53 +0100 (+0100), Dmitry Tantsur wrote:
>   > >   > [...]
>   > >   > > CentOS/RHEL ships 3.6 and a limited version of 3.8 and 3.9.
>   > >   > [...]
>   > >   >
>   > >   > Is this still true for CentOS Stream 9? The TC decision was to
>   > >   > support that instead of CentOS Stream 8 in Yoga.
>   > >   >
>   > >   > No. But Stream 9 is pretty much beta, so it's not a replacement for us (and we don't have nodes in nodepool with it even yet?).
>   > >
>   > > I think here is the confusion. In TC, after checking with centos team impression was CentOS stream 9 is released and that is
>   > > what we should update In OpenStack testing. And then only we updated the centos stream 8 -> 9 and dropped py3.6 testing
>   > >
>   > > - https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/governance/+/815851/3..6/reference/runtimes/yoga.rst
>   >
>   > The guidelines the TC have set are not that something exists, but that
>   > it is a stable LTS release. Debian sid, Ubuntu 20.10, Fedora rawhide,
>   > and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed all exist, but nobody mistakes them for stable
>   > LTS releases. It's not clear to me why CentOS Stream is the only distro
>   > being treated differently.
>   >
>   > The only difference is there is no plan for a CentOS-branded release to
>   > define a point in time where Stream 9 becomes an LTS release. However,
>   > other parties do have such plans, but pointedly have not done so: RHEL9
>   > is in beta; Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, and Oracle Linux are all yet to
>   > release a version based on Stream 9.
>   >
>   > Presumably RDO folks were consulted about this decision and were OK with
>   > the time frame. However, there are other users out there, and from a
>   > Metal³ perspective this is a giant PITA, requiring us to move from a LTS
>   > distro to a beta one, that was dropped on us in the middle of a release
>   > cycle in flagrant violation of the TC's own guidelines that the stable
>   > distibutions must be chosen from among those available at the
>   > *beginning* of the release cycle (which CentOS Stream 9 was not).
> 
> Those are good points. We were discussing with the RDO team on the start
> of Yoga cycle itself whether to move to CentOS Stream9  or not.

As of today CentOS haven't announced the launch yet[1]. AIUI, it wasn't 
even possible for folks to start building packages against it before 
October 20.[2] The Yoga cycle had already started by at least October 
11. So unless we're actively looking for ways to bend the rules to make 
users' lives harder, I think this is an easy call for Y.

It's great if the RDO team are happy, but what I'm pointing out is that 
RDO is not the only consumer of OpenStack components in the EL ecosystem.

> Yes, there is a clear confusion on what is stable or not in CentOS Stream distro.

CentOS stream is the upstream for RHEL. That means that once RHEL is 
released, any patches to it must follow Red Hat's backward compatibility 
policies for RHEL.

What policies apply to CentOS Stream commits when RHEL is still in beta? 
TBH I don't know. But I'd expect them to be... you know... beta policies.

A beta is the opposite of stable long-term support.

> Like other distro has, is there any document we as TC can refer to in the future on
> checking if the CentOS Stream *X* version is stable/LTS or not? I cannot find it
> for CentOS Stream 8 also, is that stable or LTS?

When RHEL 9 is released you will definitely hear about it.

If you don't want to tie it to a commercial distro, wait for Rocky Linux 
9 (which is essentially equivalent to the old CentOS) to be released. I 
expect that will be later, not sooner, than RHEL though.

> If we have such official documentation or announcement  in RDO community
> then we can avoid such situations in future where we get to know the distro
> version stability well before trying it in OpenStack testing?

I would have thought that waiting for a blog post from CentOS would be 
the absolute minimum, even if you don't agree that we should wait for 
*somebody* to build a long-term supported release from it before calling 
it an LTS release.

cheers,
Zane.

[1] 
https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-promo/2021-December/003599.html
[2] https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2021-October/077383.html