Fedora lifetime and stability

[Bill Davidsen]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> On Nov 11, 2007 7:48 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice if an FC release could be supported for security issues
>> only for some reasonable length of time, maybe two years from iitial
>> release?
> 
> By whom?
> 
By people concerned to have this available. Fedora Legacy worked, but I 
think it went back too far (I got updates for RH8 at one time) which 
makes it too much work. And unlike CentOS it isn't necessary to keep the 
same version of the software and just fix bugs the way CentOS  and RHEL 
do, just release a version which has the bug fixed. And if that means 
that there is no compatible version because something has changed, so be 
it, fix by hand or don't fix, nothing is forever.

But just to recompile a new version of an application like sendmail, or 
a new firefox version, or similar is practical. That is assuming the 
infrastructure is in place, as it was for Fedora Legacy.

It just means keeping an old machine (possibly virtual) around to do the 
build, since the compatibility packages for gcc (3.2 IIRC) are broken 
and use the gcc 4.x includes with the 3.x compiler.

Does that sound reasonable for resources? The FL stuff would have been 
great, I would have suggested this when it became obvious that the 
project was no longer practical, and I could certainly keep a system on 
an old release if that would be useful as a build playform.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot