(This is a repost of the article I wrote in 2017. I think it is as relevant now as it was then)
For any code you write, you need several steps to transform it from a set of text files to a certain release artifact or a running service. You go through these steps manually at first, but sooner or later you decide to automate them. And this is how the CI/CD pipeline of a project is born.
But there are different ways how you can organize the automation.
In this article we address another topic which appeared in multiple discussions recently. We take a look at the difference between the SRPM and the so called dist-git repository of a package. And why do we indeed prefer the dist-git.
I know people who imagine distribution development as the process of piling up the code in the git repository for 6 months and then building it all in one go at the end of those 6 months, so that it can finally be shipped. This is very far from reality. And it is impossible to explain things like CentOS Stream without addressing this confusion.
Linux distributions are not just developed continuously, they are built continuously.
The Ultimate Source of Truth, Wikipedia, defines continuous integration as the practice of merging all developer working copies to a shared mainline several times a day.
My version goes a bit deeper.
Disclaimer: I am a Senior Principal Engineer in Red Hat. I was a member of the RHEL 9/CentOS Stream 9 Bootstrap team. Opinions are my own.
The chase for "bug-to-bug compatibility" hurts community, hurts RHEL customers and hurts the industry as a whole. The real innovation behind the CentOS Stream is the attempt to change it.