Wanna give me a hand debunking this?

[Les Mikesell]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:

>> Then it still misses the need for a way to get current desktop programs
>> without wild and crazy changes in the kernel and device drivers.
> 
> 
> Make up your mind. 

It has been made up for some time now.

> Do you care about uptime reliability for critical
> services or do you care about desktop applications?

Yes! (This is not an either/or question, except in the way RH/fedora 
bundle things).

> Are you seriously
> attempting to suggest that new versions of thunderbird or openoffice
> are critical in any sense of the word?

I'm suggesting that the kernel of RHEL5/Centos5 is perfectly usable on 
the machines where I have it installed and I will see no noticeable 
benefit from the breakage that comes with fedora whereas I would see 
substantial differences in up to date applications.

 > Personally i think you are
> just arguing to argue and are not actually attempting to have
> reasonable discourse. I'll let others make their own judgements
> concerning motivations based on your inability to stick to a line of
> reasoning.

The kernel's job is to provide a stable hardware-independent interface. 
  It doesn't have to keep changing to do that, particularly on hardware 
that doesn't change, although it does need security/bugfix updates. The 
concepts of open()/read()/write()/ioctl() never change. Applications, on 
the other hand, are always being improved.

> You can not have your cake and eat it too.

Not with the artificial split between RHEL and fedora.

> Upstream development in the
> open source world is really fast right now...for the 'popular' stuff
> that end-user see.  There are not the resources to satisfy the people
> who need long term operation for critical things with people who
> desire to track closely with upstream in the application space in the
> same installable 'distribution'.  You have a choice to make.

I've pretty much given up on fedora except for a test box running FC6 
and keeping an eye on what will be in RHEL6 and the corresponding 
Centos.  When the apps in Centos5 start looking too outdated, the choice 
will be to either find a way to update them that doesn't impose too much 
administrative overhead or find a distribution that doesn't make the 
same split between system stability and application age.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com