Vote to extend F14 security updates

[Mike Wohlgemuth]

On 09/02/2011 02:51 AM, Paul Allen Newell wrote:
> Hum ... I find it a difficult proposition to ask users "to step up and
> do it" when the march of progress indicates that it wasn't the users
> that asked for this change. Change may be good, but I think alot of the
> feedback on this forum has shown that the cliche of "not ready for prime
> time" is valid for a significant number of folks hitting Gnome3 in F15.
>
> Full disclosure comment: I have not moved to F15 because of what I have
> read on this forum. I am hoping F16 gets a better response.
>
> Paul

Fedora is a volunteer organization.  What everyone volunteered for is 
clearly spelled out.  It is hard sometimes keeping up with all the 
changes that happen, and sometimes those changes get into Fedora before 
they are "not ready for prime time".  That is not a bug with Fedora, 
that is a feature.  It attempts to be the distribution to go to when you 
absolutely want the latest with all its warts, and when long term 
support is not an issue for you.

It is very easy to like having all the latest stuff until something 
breaks or some new, radically different version of something (big or 
small) comes out and disrupts the way you like to work.  Every so often 
something big changes, like Gnome or KDE, and people start asking the 
devs to extend support for their favorite version.  Attempts have been 
made in the past to provide this sort of support, and they have failed 
due to lack of interest in doing the actual work.  I am not now, and 
have never been, a Fedora dev, but my guess is that any of the ones who 
might be inclined to provide longer term support would know the history 
and be very wary of even considering it.

That is why you will often see people on this list recommend that 
someone actually choose a disto other than Fedora for their suggested 
use case.  It is not because the people making the recommendation don't 
like Fedora, but that they realize that there are often cases where 
concerns about having quick access to the latest software are trumped by 
needs for a stable, long term platform.  When you make the choice to 
install Fedora in an environment that needs long term stability, you are 
implicitly assuming extra responsibility and extra effort on your part.

Woogie