Where are we going? (Not a rant)

[Simo Sorce]

On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 18:13 +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> On 12/07/2012 04:59 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> > On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 16:47 +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> >> On 12/07/2012 03:51 PM, David Woodhouse wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 2012-12-07 at 15:40 +0100, Caterpillar wrote:
> >>>> The unique and most impotant negative feedback I had it when I
> >>>> upgraded a system from Fedora 14 to 15, that was the upgrade from
> >>>> Gnome 2 to Gnome 3.
> >>>> …
> >>>> Fedora community should test big transitions like Gnome 2->3 for a
> >>>> longer period of time
> >>> FWIW if it was running Fedora 14 and the user was content with it, I
> >>> probably wouldn't have upgraded to Fedora 15. You could have waited 6
> >>> months and gone straight to Fedora 16. GNOME 3 was a bit better by then.
> >>>
> >>> I upgrade my *own* machines fairly aggressively — this box has been
> >>> running Fedora 18 since August 31st for example. But I don't necessarily
> >>> upgrade everyone's machine to *every* Fedora release.
> >> I know one *nix gray beard that is still running F9 on his workstation
> >> because it's setup just the way he likes it and it works for him.
> >>
> >> He does not have the time to spare both from work/coding and his
> >> personal life to spend hours to setup his system or constantly having to
> >> upgrade/re-install fighting and patching whatever nuance that release
> >> brings, distracting him from doing actual real work and says that's for
> >> GNU/Linux kids, he rather spend that time with his grankids.
> >>
> >> His upgrade cycle is tied to the life cycle of his hw...
> > He should have chosen to install RHEL/CentOS/etc... then.
> 
> That's your opinion

Of course, I do not claim to posses *the truth*

> > Staying on F9 as a developer is a questionable stance.
> 
> Not if you know what your are doing

Self maintenance is *certainly* more time consuming than updating Fedora
releases and relying on the work of others if you are talking about
security.

> Oh I mentioned that to him and suggested the same as you are proposing 
> and his response was those that are concern with security are those that 
> don't know how to prevent it.

Yeah and I am Batman, sorry let's just drop this I shouldn't have
replied at all.

> Given that he made his living punching hole in paper couple of decades 
> ago I know he either back ported relevant patches or fixed it himself if 
> it concerned him cursing modern coders which throw more hw at the 
> problem instead of fixing it while he was at it ( which he did few time 
> when I was working with him ).
> 
> He never changed anything ( afaik still does not ) only for the sake of 
> change so it's not like he's against upgrading the machine and does not 
> see the need for doing so once in a while but there just really has to 
> be a real reason for it to happen.
> 
> If I would have started arguing with him about it, it was going to be a 
> fight I would have definitely lost and I would have simply been laying 
> there, on his office floor knockout by the entire history of unix or 
> that stack of punch cards from back in the day he had on his desk...

I do not care ab out arguing with him, I care to give advice to others
(if they care for my advice, feel free to fully ignore).

Don't follow that model, it's broken security wise, unless you keep your
machine disconnected from the network.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York