Steve Holdoway wrote:
On Wed, 2010-04-21 at 22:08 -0700, Dennis Peterson wrote:
On 4/21/10 10:06 PM, Eric Rostetter wrote:
Quoting Jim Preston <jimli...@commspeed.net>:
Read what I said. *functional* not security. Like, for example, php is
at 5.2.6 on lenny, unless you configure is differently. That's the whole
point of releases.
There are distros that release functional (feature) upgrades as well
as security/bug upgrades... Just as there are ones that don't.
Most distros will provide:
Show me the contract.
dp
This is just going round in circles. The vast majority ( I'm sure! ) of
non-hobbyist linux users will install debian lenny or ubuntu LTS or
CentOS 5 on their VPS using a single click ( for example ) for whatever
reason. It'll be a default install, probably with apt / yum running
automagically to install security upgrades... minimal maintenance
effort.
Who's the sysadmin? The one who drew the short straw, usually by asking
'who does the backups?' or something similar, and also usually have
about -10 hours a week available to perform this function. These are the
people who need looking after, not a career sysadmin like me ( and you
IIRC Dennis? ) who do keep up to date. We've heard of debian volatile,
and building from scratch isn't scary at all, but that sort of thing is
way beyond this majority.
This is what I'm saying. It's a practical appraisal - how it's been
working for the last 5-10 years - not a legal or academic one. I reckon
that - another example - a patch to freshclam to convert new to old
database format would have kept everyone happy ( no functional change
there: it's just acquiring new sigs ), keeps the effort on the client
servers, and lenny, etc would have kept on running until end of life.
There will always be edge conditions if you want the exception to prove
the rule. Personally I'd like to see the masses catered for.
And sure, maybe I'm being clever after the fact, and should have joined
in. However, after 4 years fighting spam I am just so over it. Sorry ):
Steve
Well Steve, I have to disagree with you. In the case of the VPS users
(and in reality and remote system where the only human interaction is
the the service provider) I feel it is the responsibility of the
provider to help their customers. They are providing a service and if
they do not provide good service users should switch. I ended up do that
with a very notorious provider of PS and VPS (was with the company
before VPS was invented). I will not post the company name as that would
be Way, way, way OT.
Jim
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