This is Computer Software philosophical musing, not specifically related to just PHP, but applicable to PHP and, well, all other OpenSource software... As I sit here surrounded by machines (physically and virtually) and realizing that while I've got most of them on "auto-update" as much as I can, or I've foisted off the updating on somebody else (for $$$) because I just don't *WANT* to be a SysAdmin... I'm still left with a lot of hours I'd have to invest to really be as "current" as I'd like to be. Let's take RedHat and other OSes, for example, only because I don't want this to devolve into the "what version of PHP should I use" thread that would be a hot button here. [Not that RedHat and or its versions aren't almost as hot, but...] I've got RedHat 8, RedHat 9, FC2, and FC3 on different machines here and at client's sites. Oh, and Win XP Home, just for fun, for testing stupid IE bugs. I'd love to just move them all to FC3 (4 now?) but it would really be painful, and a lot more hours than I have available. Now, the thing is, it's finally gotten to the point where I'm willing to let the OS authors/maintainers (RedHat) update my box for me, because, with the current arms race in viruses and whatnot, that's got to be better than my inability to stay on top of things, even if occasionally it breaks something that actually worked before. My philosophical question is: Why can't the damn things just have an easy one-click button to go from major version to major version, or if I'm willing to turn over control of the OS versioning to RedHat (or whomever) just do it automatically? Okay, I can accept that for Microsoft and other proprietary software, that's a non-option, because they WANT to force you to BUY the new version, though with their new subscription model... Well, let's not get into THAT argument either. Forget the Windows box. In the past, I've been told that the various pieces of software version control and tracking means that you need the "clean break" of a major release to keep sanity in versions. I think that was true then, but is it really true now? I mean, with all these fancy RPM/apt-get/cvs/svn thingies floating around, and all the version control already inherent to those processes, and the sheer amount of data being tracked by that... Would it really break the bank to just have the OS go from major release to major release without my spending days of my time shlepping data around and dinking around with re-boots and CDRs and hard drives and whatnot? I know a lot of you guys actually ENJOY that kind of stuff, and playing with the new distro is your idea of a Good Time. But is that what Joe Sixpack and Betsy Buick really want? Are we really presenting the average user with the BEST software when they can only use it a year or two before they have to spend a day fraught with stress and wondering if their hardware and data will survive, just so they can be something like remotely "current"? How does that bode for our long-term prospects in today's arms race with viruses and trojans and other Bad Guys? We *KNOW* too many average users simply aren't going to upgrade, because of that pain. We *KNOW* that telling them they need to be current doesn't cut it. Hell, even *WE* can't stay current on every box. I know I'm not alone here. Why don't we actually solve this one, for those who are willing to let the OS upgrade itself, with the technological "leap" of just keeping it CURRENT even if it's from 4.4.13 to 5.0? Am I just being crotchety here, or what? :-) -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
