On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 01:55:34PM +0100, Bernhard Reiter wrote: > Am Freitag, 16. Dezember 2005 13:06 schrieb Bernhard Reiter: [snip] > [ Email originally send (but might be stuck in moderation) > From: Bernhard Reiter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: openpkg-users@openpkg.org > Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:29:07 +0200 > Subject: Support for Enterprise GNU/Linux distributions? > ] [snip] > Only RHEL3 is getting close to be supported. > It is listed as "obsolete" in OpenPKG 2.4. > > So does anyone run OpenPKG 2.4 on RHEL4? > How far is fedora4 away from being supported? > [snip] > If RHEL3 is considered obsolete from the OpenPKG point of view, > how does that relate to the long support periods of enterprise distributions. > E.g. RHEL3 is supported fully to April 2006 and with security updates to 2010. > http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/
Hi, I agree that the discontinuation of RHEL3 support is problematic, to say the least. We happen to use RHEL3 in-house, and might want to stick OpenPKG on it. It is, however, my understanding that the reason RHEL3 stopped being supported is because of two things (from my conversation with Ralf): 1. Lack of available hardware (hardware = $$) 2. Lack of available OS RTU/software updates ($$) Theoretically, #2 could be solved with CentOS (or whatever that mainstream RHEL3 rebuild is, maybe lineox even), but ideally RHEL3 is needed. To this end, I told Ralf that we (aka my employer) could provide a RHEL3ES cert for x86 (3yr). But we can't provide hardware. [fwiw: rhel3 update licenses work for rhel4, so one could upgrade, since openpkg is available on rhel4...but then you have to get on the "upgrade treadmill" long before anyone really wants to in the enterprise world.] I also understand why Ralf & co. needed to start the registry: if they found that 60% of their installs were running RHEL3, then they would go "gack! we should support it still," and so without the registry they just don't have this knowledge. Usage simply becomes a black box. Perhaps someone should *provide* the hardware for RHEL3, as OpenPKG already has an offer for a update license. "Free" things like OpenPKG require the community to provide $$/hw/sw so that things can keep going. Ralf & co would obviously have to say, "Ok, we can manage yet another piece of hardware/software for builds." Ideally, somebody would also provide a VMWare license, so the hardware could do more than just run rhel3...though that doesn't really help with 64bit. I do think that aiming for continued support as long as the product is supported by the vendor is a laudable goal, but without a source of funding (or committment to hw/sw), it just can't happen. -- adam ______________________________________________________________________ The OpenPKG Project www.openpkg.org User Communication List openpkg-users@openpkg.org
