starting Fedora Server SIG

[Seth Vidal]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008, Jeremy Katz wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 01:24 -0500, Seth Vidal wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Nov 2008, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>> How is NM-dispatcher a developer service? Similarly, nm-tool is
>>> at least quicker than 'ip addr ls ; ip route ls ; cat /etc/resolv.conf'.
>>
>> and ifconfig -a works on multiple platforms, so it's the one that will
>> win.
>
> ifconfig -a doesn't show all the information if you're doing multiple
> addresses on an adapter.

it doesn't show binding but it will show virtual interfaces, eth0:1, etc.

but that's a side issue...


> Let me change the wording of your argument a little...
>
> "Look, for the desktop in particular Linux makes a lot of sense, I am
> not arguing otherwise.
>
> For the server it is a solution looking for a problem.  Solaris works
> just fine thank you very much."
>
> It's *exactly* the arguments I heard with switching out Solaris stuff
> when I was at NCSU.

Interesting, when I was in the same situation at duke the arguments I 
heard was that linux wasn't tested enough and open source software wasn't 
supported. It had nothing to do with it being too featureful. The 
featureset b/t solaris servers and linux servers in 1999 were almost 
identical. Most of the tools were actually the SAME CODE.


>
> One of the things about progress and getting to a more mature *platform*
> that is suitable across a wide range of uses is change.  I'm not saying
> that NetworkManager is perfect yet for the server needs.  But having
> people that want to run a server say "pound sand, go the hell away, we
> don't want to run your new-fangled stuff" doesn't help us get to where
> it is.  Maintaining two systems in parallel is very much a long-run
> losing position.

I think you're confused as to what I'm saying. You're hoisting up this 
straw man that's neo-luddite and that's not me.

I think I'm tired of both of these perspectives:
  'ALL NEW IS GOOD'
  'ALL NEW IS BAD'

I'd like a bit more of:
  "not all this new shit works and some of it should not have been started"
  "sometimes you do have to throw one away"

And finally a bit more patience that changing systems which have been in 
place for over a decade is going to cause some angst. That angst can be 
minimized if the response to it is not so vehement and impatient. We have 
a lot of vocal people who seem to think any resistance to change means you 
want nothing to change. And we have a lot of vocal people who seem to 
think that rethinking how we're doing thing is akin to heresy.

It's just not that simple.

-sv