how to get started with helping the project [...]

[Michael Mansour]

> >So , IMHO, there's no need to post every 2 sentences a discclaimer saying 
> >"Warning! F.L.P. is not corporate-grade nor ISO9001! "
> >  
> >
> There is still a great mis-understanding among the Linux community 
> at large on this point. To many, FC == "RedHat Linux" and they are 
> in denial that FC is bleeding edge, unsupported and will require 
> frequent upgrades/reboots/bug fixes.
> 
> The full weight of what it means when an FC project is migrated to 
> FL is lost to most.
> 
> I really wish people understood that:
> 
>     Fedora Core is a community based linux distribution that will be
>     supported by the FC community for aproximately 9 - 10 months, at
>     which point limited support for major security updates will be
>     availble for another 9 - 10 months by the FL community. Only use 
> FC    if you plan on upgrading your system every 6 months and only count
>     on FL to provide the absolute essential updates for a limited 
> time    after the FC release has been retired. Total support for a 
> FC    distribution will not exceed 18 months in most cases.
> 
> I really don't think it hurts to make it clear. People always get 
> upset when their expectations have been let-down. Helping people get 
> their expectations in line with reality can avoid a lot of hard 
> feelings, IMHO.
> 
> It is my personal opinion, and I've been flamed for this before, 
> that FL is only a transitional project. I think that when people 
> realize FC is unsupported and that they should upgrade whenever a 
> new version comes out, demand for FL will decrease. If a 
> person/organization needs a supported distro that can be put in 
> place for 1 - 5 years, FC is NOT the right choice. Anything that the 
> FL community can do to make this point clear will be beneficial in 
> the long term. (and will ensure that FL ceases to exist in another 
> year or two)

I would tend to agree with you there Matthew. When I started with installing 
FC1, then FC2, then FC3 releases on servers (upgraded from prior RH releases), 
I didn't fully grasp an understanding of what it meant for production servers, 
and what ended up being an upgrade treadmill. For the servers I was rolling 
out, I found myself having to redo builds, sometimes from scratch, to build, 
test, re-test, re-build, till the server was guaranteed to be rock solid. then 
roll-out, and a short time later, having to do it all again.

I realised what FC was, but didn't really understand the committment that was 
required to upgrades when running it on so many servers. I even considered 
skipping even numbered releases and going with odd (fc2 skip, fc4 skip, etc). 
But in the end I sat down and looked at the bigger picture, and ending up 
settling with alternative RHEL releases, which satisfied my requirements to a 
tee.

Michael.

> FC == `uptime` < 270 days
> FC + FL == `uptime` < 500 days
> RHEL/SLES == `uptime` > 500 days
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Nuzum <matt at followers.net>
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