Akins, Brian wrote:
As I sit here debugging our home grown proxy code for 2.0, I wonder how long
until 2.2? We wrote our own proxy because the cool 2.1 stuff was not out at
the time. The new proxy stuff would be wonderful for us, but noone wants to
run alpha code in production. (However, we are quick to run homegrown
stuff...)
So, please, I be you -- give us 2.2 ;)
May I suggest you put the following proposal to your management.
cost of devoting a senior engineer for the next month or two to help
'field test' apache 2.2 in a high scale environment, identifying and
submitting patches to 2.2 is Y.
This should be considered a sunk cost. you will have to perform this
test now, or in 2-3 months time when we officially release it as 2.2.
The only advantage of waiting is that you hope someone else will find
the same problems as your team would.
The disadvantages of waiting
- your changes you testing find might not be able to be applied to the
main core, as altering a 'production' system takes more checks and
paperwork than a developmental one. so you will be stuck in the same
situation you are now.. maintaining a patched up apache.
- If you get organized now, you might be able to distribute the testing
phase with other large companies in a similar situation to you. This
might reduce the cost of 'Y', or allow you to concentrate on the
features you care more about, knowing that other people will be doing
other parts of the testing as well. (ie.. sharing the cost of 'Y' over
multiple companies).
so to summarize.. get your testing team into the 2.1 code now, and you
will have a more stable 2.2 when it comes out, and you might even
convince your management that version numbers don't mean squat in a open
source world.
Cheers
Ian
Thanks.
