how bleeding edge will the next fedora release be?

Preston Crawford me at prestoncrawford.com
Thu Dec 11 17:20:16 UTC 2003


On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 08:43, William Hooper wrote:
> > If there's a bug in Apache will they fix it, though? And once again,
> > what about Samba, NFS, etc. And when I speak of these things I'm not
> > just talking about them being included, but also the accompanying little
> > widgets that help you manage them.
> 
> I'm not sure how to put it any plainer, RTFWP:
> http://www.redhat.com/software/workstation/

Okay, so it has Samba, NFS and Apache out of the gate, but as I've said
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
over again, it's about  more than just "can I get an RPM". Updates are
crucial as well and... well... this is what it says.

"Renewable Subscriptions -- Customers looking for supported environments
or deployments for longer than 1 year should consider Red Hat Enterprise
Linux."

Who deploys an OS for only 1 year? Weird.

"Upgrade paths to Red Hat Enterprise Linux -- Professional Workstation
is not a subscription product. We recommend that customers looking for
the benefits of a annually renewable support and maintenance contract
look to Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

So clearly this is a non-starter for my needs and thus doesn't represent
any kind of middle ground between RHEL and Fedora, even if it does
include server RPMS out of the gate. It's not upgradeable or useable
past a year (when does that year start incidentally?).

> http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/comparison/

Okay, I get it. But once again there's the cost. Not middle of the road.
Secondly, as it says it doesn't include RH Network by default we're back
to where I said we were before, paying $100+ per year for the box. And
that doesn't even answer the question if there are updates for Apache,
etc. It's great that they're included, but can you get updates for them
via RHN if you did pay the $100?

> > I'm not coming up with excuses. I'm explaining to you that I don't find
> > find $100 per year to be a reasonable price to pay. Red Hat, once again,
> > is a company and not a charity. And as I've stated earlier I've
> > supported OSS to the tune of hundreds of dollars spent on my personal
> > box alone over the years. I just don't want to be FORCED to pay a price
> > I don't think is reasonable.
> 
> Who is FORCING you to pay anything?

No one is. You'd like to, apparantly, since you keep badgering me about
how I should either run Fedora betas or buy RHEL or go away.

> > You can't get that in your head, though.
> > You think that if I don't want to buy RHEL, then I must be some kind of
> > leech, who doesn't want to support OSS. I do. I just don't want to be
> > forced to pay that price to do so.
> 
> Who called you a leech?  Use Fedora, contribute to the community.

By definition, saying someone isn't contributing to the community unless
they buy RHEL or run Fedora beta is calling them a leech. So YOU called
me a leech.

> >> It's called a "community based" distro.  If you don't like that, Fedora
> >> isn't for you.
> >
> > ???? What does that have to do with this discussion? I'm not part of the
> > community if I'm not beta testing Mozilla 1.6a? Debian is community
> > based as well and they don't "require" or badger their users into
> > running unstable.
> 
> Who said anything about beta testing a particular package.  Beta test the
> DISTRO.

Who said anything about beta testing a distro? The way this thread
started, if you'll go back a few dozen emails, is someone asking if FC
was going to start running mostly beta software. And some of us said
"please no". That's when you jumped in. So clearly it seemed like you
were supporting the idea that we should be beta testing bleeding edge
packages and not just "testing" the distro itself by running it with
stable packages.

> >> There must be something that made you switch.  No one is holding a gun
> >> to
> >> your head saying you have to use one distro or another.
> >
> > People like you make using Fedora less attractive, that's for sure. If
> > THIS is what this community is going to be like, then Fedora is doomed.
> 
> Oh, goody, I'm the whole community now?  Cool!

No. Thank goodness. 

> > That's not a troll, that's a fact. If I buy Win2k Pro, for example, I
> > can get it for as low as like $200 OEM.
> 
> Your OEM copy of Win2k Pro includes and Office Suite?  Web Server without

You can download OOo same as you can for RH. You can download Apache and
Tomcat and get the same thing as you do with RHEL Workstation (assuming
updates aren't provided). I mean, if the difference between the two is
one doesn't make me download the RPM and the other does, that's not a
screaming difference. The value comes in the fact that I don't have to
go seek out a security patch when ones required. Clearly Windows DOESN'T
provide this for Apache or OOo, but does RHEL Workstation? I don't know.
Either way, not sure if that alone is worth the extra $300.

> Any off-handed comment that just says "well, Microsoft is cheaper" is a
> troll.  If you want Microsoft, go buy Microsoft.

I don't want Microsoft or else I would have bought it. Clearly. My point
was simply that RHEL Workstation isn't a huge value at $100 per year.
Nothing more.

> > No, I don't want a commercially tested and supported distro. That's why
> > I was fine with Fedora. It seemed like a nice balance. I could run some
> > testing packages, some "stable" packages, but either way since the
> > entire distro itself wasn't being tested by Red Hat I knew there might
> > be some glitches and so essentially I'd be helping to test the distro
> > and how it's put together. I think it's fine to participate in that
> > manner without having to run Gnome 2.5a and Mozilla 1.6a.
> 
> Again, who said anything about betas of particular software.  I
> specifically say FC beta, not Mozilla beta or Gnome beta.

Once again, this is how this thread started. 

Preston





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