On Saturday 23 August 2003 19:54, Stroller wrote: > I don't think anyone (or at least many folks) here would argue with the > statement that Gentoo is a wonderful distro, and it's certainly getting > better all the time. But I don't believe that GLEP #14 addresses the > moving-target nature of Gentoo - if you `emerge sync` and find that you > need a single security update, I believe it's possible that you will > need to update more than one package; this surely implies the potential > for a lengthy & involved etc-update process. Whilst this isn't a > problem for me, I think it makes Gentoo unsuitable for the enterprise.
I guess you're right, here. In the enterprise, it's "if it is broke, fix as little as possible", isn't it? What do the commercials do? Backport the security fixes to previous versions to ensure minimal change? I guess that's a good thing. > Also important to enterprise is support for commercial software, which > is usually supplied as pre-compiled binaries. These binaries are, as I > understand it, compiled against particular versions of libraries, and > may be incompatible with distros using other versions of said > libraries. Whilst manufacturers are prepared to say "we support > Mathematica on Linux for RedHat versions 7.1 & 8" (and perhaps also for > SuSE), they cannot do so for Gentoo, as they do not know which > libraries (or optimisations?) you have compiled on your systems. This > may or may not be covered by another GLEP, as I am aware of that Gentoo > "release trees" are often discussed as desirable, but certainly Gentoo > would have to do a lot of catching-up with RedHat in the enterprise to > have enough market-share to justify many commercial software houses > supporting it. I guess 3 days isn't really enough to get a good picture of developer movements, eh? Although I have gotten a sense that some of the discussions I've read have been previously discussed. > Perhaps the most significant factor is that Gentoo as a commercial > entity isn't big enough for enterprise, and even claims to be going > non-profit. I can see a good argument for choosing RedHat because > they're big enough & wealthy enough to sue: although one might be > unlikely to sue them, their size & commercial status mean they have a > financial interest in ensuring reliability & software-integrity, and > they have a corporate structure in place to manage their liability. If > Daniel Robbins or a community of Linux hackers b0rk up your > enterprise-scale systems, there's not much point in suing them, so they > have no accountability to you. Yeah, that I never considered. I guess Gentoo is destined to be a hacker's distro. Not saying that it'll never live in the enterprise, but probably never large scale. Unless a for-profit fork is created... > At the end of the day, however, I feel that little of this is > important. It would be nice for me if Gentoo was found suitable for use > by smaller businesses, consultants and system admins responsible for a > few (or a few tens of) boxes. But the enterprise market is something > else entirely, and undoubtedly shares few of my needs - I suspect that > were Gentoo to go chasing this market it would risk becoming unsuitable > for my purposes. Right now, it is perfect. Damn, here you're right again! ;-) That's another thing I failed to notice on the -dev list. At one end you've got people talking about Gentoo for the enterprise and at the other you've got people talking about Gentoo for the average "Why do I have to shut down the computer?" type person. How does that saying go? "If you try and please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody"? Still, I think Gentoo's momentum will start to build exponentially once the new (the first?) management structure is completely put into place and everybody gets settled. Several years off though... Regards, Jason -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
