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Interesting. Maybe that's part of the answer, but you can run a custom kernel in probably any distro - no need to provide an entire distro from scratch for tha

by javert 15y ago

Interesting. Maybe that's part of the answer, but you can run a custom kernel in probably any distro - no need to provide an entire distro from scratch for that. So there must be more to it.

dkarl 15y ago
Probably for the sake of cooperation, so it's easier for people at the various labs to develop, package, and support scientific applications that are used across the community.
fl3tch 15y ago
Well, they're not really creating a distro from scratch in the way that Debian maintainers pull source code from various upstream projects and spend weeks to months doing bug testing. The RHEL sources that the SL folks pull have already been bug tested and verified to work very well. The SL folks are compiling those sources (with their own modifications). Of course, you could do this with the Debian or Ubuntu source code, but I guess they figure if you're going to get source code from somewhere, it might as well be a well-known enterprise distro.
- javert 15y ago
  Why not just contribute the changes they need upstream where possible, and maintain a repo for additional "scientific" packages (or just fork and start new projects) when that strategy doesn't work?
  - hobin 15y ago
    Because then they would no longer have complete control over what gets in their packages. In a place like CERN, total control is something people like to have.
    - javert 15y ago
      Thanks, but and maintain a repo for additional "scientific" packages (or just fork and start new projects) when that strategy doesn't work