On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 07:50:06AM +0200, Alan DeKok wrote: > Then the customers can pay for that. Since they're often paying the > distro for LTS, they can go to the distro for help. However, most > distros know nothing about the packages they're supporting, so the users > end up here.
This is a correct observation. But note that the vendors do not really sell detailed support for all apps, but they sell a warranty to maintain the distro for 7 years, especially related to security fixes, while keeping the interfaces unchanhged (with exceptions). For all the 1000+ apps in a distro, there are mailing lists, forums, or additional commercial support. > That's not what I said. When you sell something, your customers > should go to *you* for support. You can afford to support them, because > you're getting paid. My issues with the distros && LTS is that the > *distros* are often getting paid, and *we're* being asked to do support. I understand your point, but this is the way it all works. And, again, the same happens for all other apps. Still, vendors *do* a lot of work to maintain their distro, backport security fixes etc. > The real issue, IMHO with LTS distros is people doing something *new* > with them. LTS is fine for a box that gets built, configured, shipped, > and never touched again. If someone is going to keep poking the box > over time, and trying to get it to work with *new* configurations, than > they have chosen LTS in error. Not necessarily. When they have production servers and at some point people want to include a RADIUS server, or start using webmail, or want to enable some other subsystem, then they are going to start using a new feature on their (old) boxes. -- -- Jos Vos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- X/OS Experts in Open Systems BV | Phone: +31 20 6938364 -- Amsterdam, The Netherlands | Fax: +31 20 6948204 - List info/subscribe/unsubscribe? See http://www.freeradius.org/list/users.html
