On Fri, Dec 16, 2005, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
...
>Note that there is some competition between OpenPKG and the operating system 
>vendors. This is a problem for customers.
>They want to have a tested Linux (the kernel) and core technologies (like 
>libc, filesystem) with certification for a hardware.
>Now RedHat, Mandriva or Novell are charging for this _and_ the applications,
>like Postfix. 
>
>So if I buy Redhat and then use OpenPKG, I am paying for something that I do 
>not use, and would like to pay OpenPKG for. Just additionally paying for 
>OpenPKG makes this far more expensive of course.
>
>It is not easy to solve this.

I have a differing view on this.  We're building a product based
on SuSE Linux Enterprise 9 (SLES9), mostly because Novell
contracts to provide support for the system for an extended
period of time.  The support we want is primary kernel level and
drivers so we're not fighting the contiual battle of changing
Linux distributions.

Relying on the vendor's versions of critical components like
postfix makes one more reliant on the vendor, something we want
to avoid given the stability of commercial vendors in the *nix
world.  If it's critical to our systems, we want to have control
of the packages.

We went to OpenPKG several years ago when Caldera Linux tanked,
and we wanted to find a way to make our installations simpler,
and independent of the underlying OS.  In particular, we have
been building *nix systems for over 20 years, with extensive
replacement of the vendor's e-mail and other components so that
we have a uniform interface on all our customer's systems.  Prior
to the move to OpenPKG, our modifications made it very difficult
to implement vendor updates of their components (one of the more
serious issues were perl and its modules).

In summary, we go with a commercially supported release of Linux
for longer term support of the basic OS and drivers, and pay
somewhat of a premium for that support.  We don't care what they
do for e-mail, secure shell, etc. because we want to have control
of these critical server components.

Bill
--
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eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
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                -- Johnny Hart
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