the fate of firewire

Daniel Roesen dr at cluenet.de
Mon Sep 13 13:21:15 UTC 2004


On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 08:44:17AM -0400, Tom Diehl wrote:
> > Wether Fedora Legacy is a viable alternative for prolonged critical
> > upgrade service will have to be seen. I'll watch closely how timely
> > security updates will be released.
> 
> It is not intended to be. fedora-legacy is a volunteer effort.

Eh? It's there to provide exactly this: prolonged support cycle
for Fedora. Wether it is a volunteer or paid effort doesn't matter.

> If people volunteer to do the work it will get done, if not...

Yup. But still it's becoming worthless for me, if security updates
don't arrive in time. When vulns are published, there is no time for
"waiting weeks for an upgrade". When FL doesn't publish a security
errata quickly, I have to resort to compile-and-install-myself, and
then I obviously don't need FL anymore.

> > Really, this is not picking on anyone, as after all it's all free
> > as in beer. I just need a modern Linux distro with a (basic) support
> > cycle of about 3 years. I don't want to reinstall all my servers
> > every couple of months. And no, distro-upgrades are no option. Too
> > dangerous to end up with a messed-up system. So I usually install
> > a replacement server with a new distro version, and subsequently move
> > services over, then retire the old box. Worked nicely for 6.2 => 7.1
> > => 9 => FC1 up to now.
> 
> Based on your above comments, I would submit that you are using the wrong
> distro.

Indeed. This is my current dilemma, as I don't see a good alternative
for me in the Linux market anymore. And the BSD area doesn't look too
appaeling to... have now installed FBSD 5.3 on one of my Netras to
look around there. Now that they have a non-stoneage init system.

> If you need stability and timely updates then you need something
> like RHEL.

No, RHEL has a too long innovation cycle. What I need is something
like the Fedora release (innovation) cycle, together with a RHEL-like
support cycle. But this is a case of TANSTAAFL, at least in the the
Red Hat land.

> There are plenty of alternatives without whining about the support
> of cycle of fedora.

It's a typical problem of OS fanatics to discredit any
discussion/criticism as "whining". I'm certainly not "whining".

> In addition I would suggest you read the fedora web page so that
> you will understand what fedora is and is not.

It's totally clear what it is about. It is about Red Hat getting rid
of the support burden for their non-enterprise customers as far as possible
without upsetting people too much and as a consequence being able to
be a bit more experimental, and using the Fedora user base as
betatesters for their RHEL product line. This is nothing wrong per se,
though I'm a little bit disgruntled about reading "community" everwhere,
but seeing that this is just totally lip service up until now.

Anyway... in summary Fedora is OK for me as long as Fedora Legacy
"works" in regard of providing timely(!) security updates for about
three years after release of a specific Fedora version. And from talking
to many other admins (collegues, friends) they are all in the same
dilemma.


Regards,
Daniel





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