Feature proposal: Extended Life Cycle Support

[Casey Dahlin]

On 07/05/2009 11:46 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 6:12 AM, Jos Vos<jos at xos.nl> wrote:
> 
>> I don't completely agree that "desktops tend to need to run the latest and
>> greatest" (when we're talking about business desktops), but desktops
> 
> I don't agree with that position either - note my work laptop, which
> unfortunately runs Windows.  However, just to make a point, it runs
> Windows XP Pro, and Office 2003 - hardly the latest and greatest that
> Microsoft has to offer. A RHEL 5 desktop would provide me similarly
> aged (or newer) software.
> 
> RHEL/CentOS also gets hardware enablement throughout it's lifecycle,
> so the "newer laptops need newer software" only holds true through the
> beginning of the Production 2 support phase at minimum, by which time
> the next release of RHEL should be available (for RHEL 5, this date is
> 3/31/2011)
> 

I think the notion that desktops need newer software is all a side effect of where Linux was when RHEL came out (and may continue to be a side effect of where it is now).

Desktop linux is largely new, groundbreaking stuff. It can't be too old before it starts to have limbs missing. "Older" Linux desktop software isn't bad because its old, its bad because its unfinished.

--CJD