updates

[Jef Spaleta]

Michael Young wrote, somewhere in the digest:

>I'm tired of hearing "it's not supported." I didn't ask for "support," 
>I just asked why the updates for Severn weren't available from RHN, whil
>the updates for Taroon are. And, so far, I received an answer from
>everyone but a Red Hat employee (well, not everyone, but you get the
>point).

Simple answer...there are no updates...wait for them to appear....if
they appear..be happy. The key here is don't expect updates to ever ever
ever appear. And don't work under the assumption that RHEL betas and RHL
betas are anywhere close to the same thing. So what if RHEL beta has
updates in rhn...where is it written rhn is going to carry updates
between beta isos? For all you know RHEL is getting updates through rhn
to test rhn functionality.  RHL has a published(well it did at
rhl.redhat.com when that site was working) schedule pointing out when
the next iso set will appear...I didnt see any mention about published
updates outside of rawhide between those iso sets.


>I am also concerned that I will not be able to use the remainder of my
>subscription on the next release of RHL. That would force me to keep my
>systems at RH9, or quit using my entitlements, which will cost me money.

This is a concern well outside the bounds of this list. I can't speak
for Red Hat's plan for rhn and their next non enterprise product
release. All i can say is that if they were to stop offering updates
through rhn for their non enterprise line of products...I'd have no need
for the rhn service and I would not re-up my subscription in the future.
But your concern about future redhat releases and rhn is very much
outside the scope of this beta list....but personally i think you'd be
better off asking the world governments about their plan in case of a
massive asteroid strike on the earth, i think that's probably a higher
likelihood..so you should spend you effort on that concern before
getting worked about about rhn. 

>I guess I will re-install my "supported" product, quit making an effort
>to contribute to the community, and go on about my business...

Nice parting shot. Yeesh...is this how you handle every time someone
disagrees with you or tells you your concerns are not a big priority to
them...you just take your ball and go home?  If you are really
interesting in running the beta and contributing, you have a few
options. The chances of these options changing, because you threaten to
reinstall rhl9 are pretty low. Your options are:

1)just use the isos sets...report bugs..wait for next iso
  this is by far the safest course of action...

2)keep watching that up2date icon...and if it shows there is an update
present, go to rhn switch yer active entitlements around and get the
beta updates. DO NOT EXPECT updates to appear.

3)watch an ftp mirror or yum/apt/autoupdate/grab repository for updates

4)watch rawhide and eat relevant rawhide packages as they come
out...since it seems now this time around rawhide's been redefined to be
more beta relevant...so rhl.redhat.com would make me believe.


RHN is NOT RHLp. If you NEED RHN to work for you, and you don't have a
spare system...then you are probably better off not using the beta at
all. I can't for the life of me understand why you would pay for an
entitlement for a stable system, then choose to replace that system with
a beta. At no point in the past has anyone said that rhn would
definitely provide updates for betas...certaintly not security
updates(which if you look back is pretty much the main reason rhn is
used for in the redhat releases)...we saw this last time around with the
sendmail security vulnerability that showed up right before the last
release.

I think you have some misconceptions about the service rhn
provides...the point of beta releases in general...and the point about
contributing to a community effort....you brought up a concern. I
thought the reference to a previous mharris post about what 'support'
means in a beta summed up the general point: once you install the
beta...you can't expect to see one single update package ever! If they
show up...they show up. And as for rawhide, the day to day packages that
show up in rawhide should still be taken with as much concern as in the
past i think. Rawhide packages could easily break as much as they
fix...its not clear to me that its in every beta tester's best interest
to eat rawhide on a daily basis. Every beta tester..if yer going to beta
test should run the isos and report bugs, and follow up on their
specific bugreports if a developer pushes updates to rawhide...but i
don't know if every beta tester should be using the daily rawhide
updates for all the packages...and expect to end up with a system that
is better of than before. 


-jef"heading off to write to his congressmen about that asteroid strike
preparedness plan"spaleta
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