On Thu Feb 06, 2003 at 12:30:34AM -0800, James Sparenberg wrote: My responses on this thread will be brief. I invite everyone to read the thread that was on the discuss mailing list; archives are here:
http://archives.mandrakelinux.com/discuss/2003-02/ [...] > > Visit http://www.mandrakesecure.net/advisories/ if you don't want to > > subscribe. The advisories for each platform are there. > > > > Download the src.rpm indicated in the advisory. Either attempt to > > rebuild it for your old distrib, or extract the patches and apply it to > > whatever version you're currently using (backporting is likely > > necessary). > > > > The information is already all there, and I'm willing to bet that > > people who haven't upgraded their 7.1 machines are using this > > information to keep their 7.1 system relatively current. > > This is true and up until 9.0 came out this was possible. (too many > changes.) What I'm think of is a situation where you got 1000 of these > puppies ranging from 7.1 through 9.0 it can be a nightmare. My severs > aren't that many. I do agree that things should have a life. But a > reasonable life. how about support for a series. 7.x support dead in > June. 8.x dead at the end of the year. 9.x .... goes on until Say... > we are into the 10 series? The policy is already in place. We're not modifying it. 7.2 is the only 7.x currently supported. It's been available for 26mos now. It's time for it to die. And, if we follow our current release cycle, 9.1 will reach the end of it's life when 10.0 is out (desktop support). It will reach it's full EOL when 10.1 is out. So 9.x is being supported until 10.x is available. > In 1997 I bought a copy of NT4 for 159 bucks. Support for this ends at > the end of this year so I can spread my costs over 5 years. Here though Again, you're comparing Microsoft with an extremely large cash reserve and *far* more resources to MandrakeSoft, which is currently in chapter 11. Draw your own conclusion as to how much we can afford to support. > I pay 69.95 twice a year(I only download beta's and if I really need the > hardware support). and I don't get support or updates in the sense that > for example. No kernel yet released for 8.2 will work right on my i815 > and i830 boxes (but 9.0 works fine.) so if I'm an 8.2 user... I'm stuck > with a 70 dollar set of frisbee's. No I can't download the kernel and > build it. The extra dependencies on things like DocBook etc etc etc. > creates a nightmare of apps to build. and many of them don't compile on > anything earlier than 9.0. For kernel stuff, you need to talk to the kernel guys. If I attempted to fix this, I'd likely break everything in the process. And compiling a kernel from source isn't that bad. urpmi kernel-source and all the deps come with it. > My point is not that it shouldn't have a life. But rather that the > support life is too short. This has dramatically increased the TCO of > linux in many a CEO/CTO's mind. (More time spent in upgrades, remember > they were complaining about every 2 years with MS!) The disks cost less > yes... but the percieved cost of the personel needed to install of these > boxes + the risk of data loss during upgrades is a very real concern for > them. I agree, to some extent. MandrakeLinux is a desktop OS, not a server OS. If you choose to use it as such, you have to deal with the risk. This is why we announced the policy, so one can plan accordingly. Corporate Server 2.1 was announced today. This will have a longer support life and it may be the solution you are looking for. -- MandrakeSoft Security; http://www.mandrakesecure.net/ "lynx -source http://linsec.ca/vdanen.asc | gpg --import" {FE6F2AFD : 88D8 0D23 8D4B 3407 5BD7 66F9 2043 D0E5 FE6F 2AFD}
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