On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 06:53 -0500, Sean wrote: > On Wed, December 8, 2004 6:39 am, Mike Hearn said: > > On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 23:43:48 -0800, Kenneth Porter wrote: > > [...] > > Because they have such a huge base of software relative to Linux, and > > because they value backwards compatibility so highly, that means they have > > to move slower and sometimes not make a certain change because it'd break > > stuff. That's a simple equation: the utility of a feature is outweighed > > by the negative utility of the breakage. Once Linux gets as widely > > deployed as Windows is, it'll have to move much slower too. Oh sure the > > patches may be written even faster, but that doesn't mean people will > > actually be *using* them. > > [...] > > This is already in practice today. Look at the distros that have long > slow life cycles for this very reason. Seems likely that there will > always be a certain segment of people who want to be pushing at the front > edge and can deal with the associated blood loss. It seems that the > ideal structure is already in place. Fast moving distros like Fedora > with and slow moving ones like RHEL. What's the problem? The problem is that nothing is solved. I have RHEL 2.1, but it's near bloody impossible to find up-to-date RPMs of various software I need for it. I *could* upgrade to RHEL 3.0, but then that would require massive server downtime across several *very* important servers, and who knows if things will actually work afterwards? Why the hell should I have to upgrade my operating system to get a new version of SSH or Exim installed? Why should I have to compile it and patch it myself, then becoming responsible to manually track all security updates and repatch/rebuild it asap after each is released, when it's *already* being repatched and recompiling by thousands of other people around the world, including people at Red Hat? With the "solution" you seem to think to exists, those are my only two options. Neither is very appealing at all. > > Sean > > -- Sean Middleditch <elanthis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.
