On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:25:45 -0400 Chris Hagglund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Frank, > > Thanks for your response, I've just realized I was short on the > version number. Its actually 1.99_16 that its running, under RHEL4. > I've spoken to Rackspace (the hosting provider) about upgrade to a > newer version and they're telling me that will break the support > agreement and cost extra money and then other stuff will become > unsupported. :( .... Rackspace also told me "The backpatched mod_perl > 1.99 is stable, which is why RedHat packages it." -- something > doesn't seem right about this though. Is this BS they're feeding me? > If whatever is in there is not good for a production environment then > I definitely want to take steps to deal with it the right way. So I > guess I'm asking if 1.99_16 makes a difference compared to 1.99 (that > I erroneously quoted before) and if you have any idea what Rackspace > might mean about Redhat "backpatching" mod_perl. Thanks again. > -Chris Yeah that's a pretty typical support response. It's not completely BS, but it's not completely true either. What they mean by "back patching" is that Redhat routinely will patch an older version of a piece of software with security fixes from a newer version. This is so, on their Enterprise systems, they can have a stable version/feature set, but still stay secure and mostly bug free. The problem is that mod_perl 2 had a huge and wide sweeping API change ( not to mention tons of bug fixes since then ) between the 1.99_xx version and 2.0. In my opinion RH just picked a really bad time and version to incorporate into their release. But that isn't entirely their fault either, no matter when they choose to freeze a release they are going to probably end up leaving a few packages in a weird or odd state. It's just the nature of the beast. I don't believe anyone in the mod_perl PMC would consider 1.99_16 a stable release, as it was always announced as a pre-release candidate. And they are the people who judge mod_perl stability, not Redhat. While I haven't done it on a rackspace box since I left them a few years ago for cheaper pastures, I've never had trouble with just rolling my own on a leased box. Yeah they won't help you support mod_perl, but they probably wouldn't have been much help there anyway other than helping you install the RPM. --------------------------------- Frank Wiles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.wiles.org ---------------------------------
