long term support release

[Horst H. von Brand]

Patrice Dumas <pertusus at free.fr> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 01:38:37PM -0300, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> > Patrice Dumas <pertusus at free.fr> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 10:31:44AM -0500, Jesse Keating wrote:
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > > > you know, there is a Fedora based release that promises long term
> > > > stability and quality...
> > 
> > > I know, but in that case there are customers, it is very different,
> > > there are contracts.
> > 
> > People associate a name (Fedora, or RHEL, or IBM) with a certain
> > expectation. 

> The RHEL and IBM names are very different from the Fedora one.

No. All come with (hard-earned) reputations. Different ones, sure. But
nevertheless valuable.

> > If I came along and offered you a support contract for RHEL at
> > half the price, and promising the same level of support, would you take it?

> Here you are meaning that Fedora can offer support for free.

It does! You trust them to fix bugs, and keep your system reasonably
secure, don't you?

>                                                              It isn't
> the same issue. Of course reputation is important. And Fedora reputation
> may be good. And price doesn't make the reputation, but it creates
> obligations a reputation doesn't create.

Keeping the reputation creates the obligation, price is besides the point.

[...]

> > What you would be squandering here is Fedora's good name. All for "OK,
> > let's LTS this one. But someone critical might get bored in a month or two
> > and drop it with little warning, so take care"?

> Don't call it fedora then. Once again the name is not the issue.

Great.

All is missing now is the hordes of people interested in extending the life
of e.g. Fedora 7 for 4 years more. Please, stand orderly in line, everybody
will have their turn at helping out.

> > Again, the offer was made repeatedly to (help) set up a SIG, contact
> > interested parties in founding an LTS, ... and /nobody/ has stepped
> > forward. Telling, ist't it?

> It doesn't tell anything since it was also said repeatedly that people
> wanting to do it will have to do it against the will of the fedora
> rulers (the boards, infrastructure team...).

What I've seen here is exactly the opposite...
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
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