CNET News Article

[Jeff Lasman]

On Wednesday 22 October 2003 08:21, Don Maxwell wrote:

> This morning's lead article in CNET News.com entitled "Red Hat
> overhauls flagship Linux" had references to Fedora which I found to
> be be disappointing.  They quoted from users in an email list that I
> believe may have been confused about Fedora.  Perhaps some folks on
> this list can clarify a couple of points.

I have no idea as to which list the CNET article author is referring.  
But I share some of those feelings, so I hope you don't mind me chiming 
in here to explain why I feel the way I do.

> First, there were concerns noted that Fedora will be a fast-changing
> distro, not conducive to a stable working environment.

So far, from reading this list, I believe that's true.  Will it change 
once there's a final release?  I hope so.  But until then, as a small 
business owner, I can't depend on it, as I could RHL7.3 and later RHL9 
out of the box.

> Granted,
> wholesale upgrades from one release to another might break things and
> could consume resources to accomplish the task.

What we do is host webservers and domains.  It's not important that we 
upgrade to new versions.  In fact it's important that we don't.

What we need is continued vulnerability-patching for core releases for a 
long time.  While that might seem to make us primary candidates for the 
RHEL versions, with cabinets with 50 servers apiece and annual 
subscription charges that model will never work for us.

So far I've seen nothing on continued vulnerability-patching for RHL 
7.3, or for RH9.  If there is any, it appears to be well-hidden, and if 
you know of any, please tell me.

> However, I am
> unclear as to whether the commenter's were concerned about ongoing
> upgrades within a release or were concerned about the need to upgrade
> all servers and desktops perhaps three times a year.

What I recall is that we'll need to update servers and desktops once a 
year.  While that might work for us on desktops, we need to be assured 
of continued server support for at least four years.

> What should a user's expectation be with respect to planned upgrades
> and releases?

As I wrote above, we need our servers to work without major operating 
system upgrades for four years.  Your mileage may vary.

> Second, one comment described Fedora as "possibly full of breakage." 
>  I think the poster may be theorizing about potential future
> upgrades.  I certainly hope that the comment was not made on the
> basis of the stability of test releases!

I would make the comment based on what I've read on this list during the 
short time I've been a member.

Don't get me wrong, this list is a great resource and on one level I'm 
enjoying the same "thrill" (if that's the word) I had when I was much 
younger and first starting out with TRS-DOS, with MS-DOS, with 
M$-Windows, with Xenix, Unix, and Linux (which I've used since kernel 
release 0.9).  But on another level, as a business man with servers to 
support I must have a stable release.

Since we use hosting control panels, both for ourselves and to support 
our clients, we must stick with releases the hosting control panel 
developers support.  So for the moment' I'm just an interested 
bystander here.

But we're already running testbeds for FreeBSD (no flames, please) which 
the control panels already support.  We'll run testbeds for Fedora if 
and when the control panel manufacturers offer support for it.  We'll 
also look at other Linux platforms if an when the control panels offer 
support for it.

And we're still looking for sources of continued security updates for 
RHL 6.2, 7.3, and 9, as we know the moves will neither be quick nor 
easy.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net, P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517 US
Professional Internet Services & Support / Consulting / Colocation
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