On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 22:02, Philip Wyett wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 20:58, Brent Fox wrote:
> > On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 14:41, Jesse Keating wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 12 March 2003 11:25, Brent Fox wrote:
> > > > The Enterprise line and the changes to the support level of the consumer
> > > > line will allow the consumer line to move faster than in the past.  This
> > > > will help us address one of the most common criticisms of Red Hat Linux
> > > > over the years, which is that we aren't as cutting edge as some of the
> > > > other distros.  
> > > 
> > > Unfortionatly, a lot of us loved Red Hat because they weren't so bleeding 
> > > edge, and we didn't have near as many problems w/ Red Hat's GPL releases as 
> > > we did with various other distributor's GPL releases.  I really hope that the 
> > > level of QA that went into GPL releases in the past will not drop.
> > 
> > We won't drop the level of QA.  If we neglect the QA on the consumer
> > line, it will only make the job of stabilizing the next Enterprise
> > release that much harder.  QA works best when it's a part of the process
> > of developing software as opposed to something you do just before you're
> > ready to ship.
> > 
> 
> I can live with the enterprise versions, but there's a really bad
> perception building here through Red Hat PR and comment that users of
> the consumer Red Hat Linux sole purpose is as a proving ground for the
> enterprise range and the corporates. :/

Red Hat Linux has always been a proving ground.  Previously, each
version was a proving ground for the next version.  That's still true,
but now it's also a proving ground for the Enterprise line.  

Think of it like CVS.  Our build system is like CVS head, where all the
new code is checked in and compiled.  Every six months, we basically
take a snapshot of the latest tree and start stabilizing it internally. 
Then we do one or more public betas.  After we feel it's ready for
public consumption, we make a release of Red Hat Linux.  Our releases
have worked this way for years and this has not changed.  I did say that
the consumer line will move faster now, but that doesn't mean that we're
going to ship alpha-quality code.  

What has changed is that now every 12-18 months, we take a snapshot that
will become an Enterprise release.  It will have a longer beta cycle so
that our partners (Oracle, Veritas, etc.) can run their stress tests and
such.  In the past, vendors like Oracle didn't even have time to run
their stress tests and give us feedback because the beta cycle for Red
Hat Linux is usually only about three months long.  This additional
testing will allow us and our partners to support the product for a much
longer period of time than the consumer line.  

So that's a pretty high-level view of our process, but I hope it
explains that we haven't fundamentally changed how we do things.  



Cheers,
   Brent



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