FC2 release dates

David Kewley kewley at cns.caltech.edu
Fri Nov 7 01:55:25 UTC 2003


Vincent wrote on Thursday 06 November 2003 17:20:
> I think April is perfect. the EOL of RedHat 9 will be there and if these
> ppl switch Fedora is where we'd want them to go right? kernel 2.6, Gnome
> 2.6, etc plus a long 6 month release gives kernel2.6 time to iron out some
> things, this should _not_ be a quick release. It is probably going to be a
> defining release for Fedora most ppl are waiting for a second release to
> see where its really going to stand in the market.

However, people in larger or more conservative environments will need to do 
some heavy testing of FC2 before they roll it out, and that will take longer 
than two weeks (e.g. the two weeks between Tax Day and the RHL9 EOL).

So those folks, who are already in a bind with "what version do I standardize 
on" will be basically *forced* to go with FC1 as an intermediary (since its 
EOL will be later than RHL9's), or else use a different distro altogether, 
which means that FC loses a "customer".

I'm in a not-too-conservative environment.  But my colleagues and I will 
already need to update to RHL9 or FC1 before the end of December, then to FC1 
before the end of April.  Or else depend on community-supplied security 
updates, which still looks like a very shaky proposition (I hope it will 
stabilize, but it's too soon to tell).

Many folks are going to have to change their local release policies and 
methodology.  Our choices seem to be:

* roll out new releases *far* more often than we're used to, based on FC
* fork over some significant cash e.g. for RHEL licenses (which many can't 
afford)
* try to make our own distro based on the RHEL srpm's (which feels like 
cheating RH, but if it works, it could be a practical solution for us)
* rely on community security updates (so far, too little concreteness to make 
an organization's plans around this!)
* leave RH and Fedora

This is a *big* decision for a *lot* of folks.

So far my colleagues and I are still planning to stick with RHL (until EOL) 
and FC, but as I say, I anticipate we'll need to majorly rework our upgrade 
methods since we're going to have to do them more often, and we cannot spend 
a majority of our time adapting to the latest-greatest.

Sorry this morphed from a discussion of FC2 release dates to a discussion of 
how to manage a Linux shop in this new age of flux.  But they *are* tied 
together.  If the FC2 release can be planned to allow shops a somewhat 
reasonable roll-out plan (say, April 1), that'd be good.

I do not at all intend this to be a complaint or whatever, just pointing out 
of the reality that lots of folks are facing now.  Anything we can do to 
encourage folks to stay with RH and FC is a good thing.

So long as RH doesn't have to spend cash on it. ;)

David





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