redhat

Yum is a great update manager for RedHat/CentOS Linux. Unfortunately, default repos are typically way behind the stable releases of the packages contained in them. If you need to install PHP, MySQL, Python or other major package, you will find that the versions in default repos are old to the extent of being useless. This used to force Yum users to resort to third-party repositories and many open-source volunteers have hosted latest versions of packages as yum repositories, helping and assisting the community.

While most efforts were noble and honest contributions, it's always tricky to install packages from unknown sources. The dark fear of "what if" will nag you and your security team (if you have one) will point you to the door. Now there's a good solution, however. One of the most trusted names in the industry, Rackspace hosting now has a Yum repo for popular RedHat packages.

The wiki documentation for how to install and use it can be found at: http://wiki.iuscommunity.org/Doc/ClientUsageGuide

The biggest news of the day, in the tech industry, is that Marc Fleury has quit JBoss/RedHat. Honestly, I do not think there is much to say about this fact. As soon as RedHat acquired JBoss many of us knew it would happen, because of how unfitting Fleury's personality is in a culture like RedHat.

I will just say that I hope Marc will prove himself for the entrepreneurial visionary he has been marketing himself as and will start something new with the money he collected. I would presume "new" would be something in more agile arena: Ruby On Rails, Drupal, Ajax are first things that come to mind.

I really hope he does. It would be interesting.