system autodeath

[Horst H. von Brand]

Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> seth vidal wrote:
> > A friend forwarded me this blog:
> > http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/blog/linux/autodeath.1024px
> > and I wondered if it would be something to consider for fedora
> > releases.
> > This would NOT be as a default, but as a package you can install, if
> > you
> > wish, to drop the route on your box after whatever expiration date. We
> > can set the release date in a file in the package and key from there.
> > If the package was included in a fedora repo we could have it have a
> > death date of whenever the release started + 14months (some wiggle room
> > for release slips) for example.
> > Any thoughts?

> I think it is much better to hookup preupgrade with PackageKit so you
> get notification on your desktop when there is a new release and a
> easy path to do so. Notifying and encouraging users to upgrade would
> solve the problem of people sticking to old unmaintained releases in a
> much nicer way.

Also, some people I know stick to old versions for (closed source or
inhouse developed) software that is hard/impossible to port forward, or
just random inconsistencies between versions (automount troubles between
CentOS 5, CentOS 4, Fedora 8 and 9 here were a recent example; we are
working on open source related to the ALMA radioastronomy observatory,
there they are still running ancient Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions due
to software written in "C++" as understood by old GCC, newer GCCs just barf
at the code and rewriting/retesting that huge mess is a titanic job just
now really underway).

On philosophical grounds, I'm against forcing people forward, even for
their own good...  /encouraging/ them forward is a much better idea.

[Most tyrannies tried to force people "for their own good", some did it
 perhaps even in (mistaken?) good faith, a few were even right in this...]
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                    Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria             +56 32 2654239
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