On Wed, 2003-03-05 at 14:26, Vincent Danen wrote: > Corporate Server 2.1 was just announced, and it has a 3 year life policy. > It's also cheaper than RHAS I believe. There is your choice. Supporting > 9.1 for 3 years isn't an option. Mandrake Linux 9.1 is a desktop OS and > while it works quite nicely on servers, that is not it's intended (read: > support from us) function. > > That being said, someone using 9.0 can use the updates from Corporate Server > with a minimum of fuss because Corporate Server is based on 2.1. Yes, not > everything will be updated due to the differences in packages (ie. no > updates for gaim, etc.) but the basic stuff for servers will be. > > In essence, 9.0 has just received an unofficial lifetime of 3 years. Next > year, when the next Corporate Server comes out (IIRC likely based on 10.0), > users using 10.0 will get unofficial updates for 3 years (and by unofficial > I mean these updates will be for Corporate Server, which will likely be > based upon 10.0).
This is tremendous news, and certainly allays any concerns I might have about the matter, as it in essence provides exactly what I had been advocating (security updates to the basic server apps beyond the EOL of the entire desktop release). And let me clarify that nothing I said was meant to minimize or take for granted the hard (and good) work that you and the MandrakeSecure team do day in and day out to make and keep MDK such a superb and solid platform; my desire was only to help build the user and revenue base for the company with as little impact on the already stressed resources as possible - there's nothing I'd like to see more than that you and your team get some (job) security yourselves! Um, just one concern left - after 9.1 EOL's, will one merely be able to re-point one's urpmi sources to a 2.1 mirror and expect things to pick right up where they left off, insofar as the smaller selection of apps (only ones that had been included in CS2.1, naturally) is concerned? That would be sweet, and if the word could be gotten out on all this to the RH admins of whom Jim spoke, you'd think that they would get right on board. As it's not an "official" feature, really, I could see that spreading the word would probably need to be done informally. :( I also completely agree that a "no support" version of 2.1 is a /very/ good idea, and could attract a lot of this "dissatisfied RH users" market as well (and their all-important revenue). I can understand any trepidation that such an offering might cut into the sales of the (presumably more profitable) supported versions, but I would counter that there is probably less overlap between those that are likely to purchase it with support and without than one might expect, as they are really IMHO different kinds of customers. But it could well bring in a few more badly-needed Euros ... ;) -- Bill Mullen [EMAIL PROTECTED] MA, USA RLU #270075 MDK 8.1 & 9.0 "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
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