No sparrow falls, but that ....

Letters, we get letters ...

> I saw a blog posting recently where you
> commented that RHEL 2.1 was based on RHL
> 8.0. My memory /understanding is that
> RHEL 2.1 is based on RHL 7.1... or maybe
> 7.2... but not 8.0.

memory fades ... let me dig a bit

Let's see ... I was on Red Hat's 'tester-list' external beta tester (under NDA) program

The watershed email (which put my memories in the RHL 8 timeframe) was:

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:06:07
From: Michael K. Johnson
To: testers-list@redhat.com
Subject: Heads-up -- change coming [Red Hat Confidential]

This mail contains only Red Hat Confidential material. ...

But there had been rumblings ever since RHAS 2.1 issued, which made me want the 'insurance policy' community RPM based distribution

Which led previously led to me setting off with Greg Kurtzer to get cAos going. Greg and I discussed an enterprise product from the earliest cAos meetings (earliest I have a record of is: 29 Apr 2003). Greg, Rocky Mcgaugh and I pitched this product concept and extension of the 'two Linux' policy to an IBM VP at SuperComputing 03 in November 2003 at Phoenix, AZ. I remember flying down from Las Vegas for the meeting

And it matured quickly. Parallel efforts were underway by others -- Tao Linux, Xos, and more. There was a mailing list: rhel-rebuild list <rhel-rebuild-l@uibk.ac.at> but I've not seen a post on that list for eons

Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 09:30:23 -0600 (CST)
From: Rocky McGaugh
Reply-To: caos@caosity.org
To: caos@caosity.org
Subject: cAos] Announce: centos

The cAos-EL projects have been officially renamed to:
centos (Community ENTerprise Operating System)

Sadly, Rocky has died, too young. Greg (sensibly for his needs) stayed with the cAos part. And I am an old, tired dog, am left on the CentOS part... Does anyone not not die too young while they are still young of heart?

so thus my recollection of late 2003 ...

http://www.owlriver.com/redhat_versions.html
RHL 8 general release Sept 30 2002
RHL 9 general release Mar 31 2003
RHL 7.3 GA May 6, 2002

http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/
RH AS 2.1 General Availability: May 17, 2002

negative rebuild report under 7.2
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2003-April/msg00001.html
April 2003

So .. it seems true that RHAS 2.1 was on a pre RHL 8 base. But RHL 7.3 was so good, and RHAS 2.1 ... wasn't. Perhaps that led me to conflate the fork point

A 'tip of the hat' to the sharp eyed blog reader Scott Dowdle who noticed the matter and called it to my attention