[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Reflecting on the original article, end of formal support is (almost) inevitable part of using older software or hardware. Since Redhat was quite small early on it will have a small support revenue from older versions, and little financial incentive to provide ongoing support. In HP speak the products first become "mature", which is a nice way of saying they aren't spending more than absolutely necessary on them. I think that the free software community has proved the long life of major products, and projects. However even within products major revisions can be just as disruptive, think MS Word upgrade.... However where the vendor provides relatively painless migration paths at reasonable cost (or in this case no cost!), which Redhat have done for core OS facilities I think there is little point in complaining. Indeed I have migrated the box I'm typing on very painlessly through several revisions of Redhat, and the upgrade procedure coped better than my expectations (Built on HP-UX, and MS Windows, and SUNOS upgrades). Sure I appreciate more than most the pain of continual migration, but until computing is placed on firmer foundations it is an inevitable part of treading on moving sand. Even Oracle rapidly drop support quick for revisions where they know they goofed, as incentive to migrate off. HP-UX 10.30 anyone? The article refers to Internet security, but it is precisely boxes that are more exposed that should be expected to migrate to new patches within a few weeks, in the end this means bigger maintenance bills for such systems. The SQL Slammer virus demonstrated that this is just not happening, amongst other things. Part of the benefit of layered security is it buys you time to upgrade backend systems in a more planned fashion. I suggest asking those who complain loudest why their pain is so great and learn from the answers what not to do. That a market might arise in security patches for old versions is an interesting development for maintenance programmers, but I doubt many businesses will be keen to leap into such unchartered waters. Those that are may already have gone Debian. Don't like the Linux support terms and conditions your distro vendor offers - shop around - you have a choice! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE+ULitGFXfHI9FVgYRAtA8AJwLOMok7d0584e/v2HjDPKe3N8TzwCgy85I Ac6zsRO4OEoN8x25L2RdNyY= =bHtA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.