On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 04:13:35PM -0800, Cliff Wells wrote: > On Wed, 2003-04-02 at 15:15, T. Ribbrock wrote: [...] > > As I said, basically all SRPMs from RH I've seen so far contain > > RH-patches. Those patches need to be developped, tested and > > maintained. That's more than just packaging. > > Sure. But have you ever downloaded a vanilla Linux kernel and run RH on > it? Works just fine, sometimes better. If you are concerned about RH's > QA, then just do that.
Kind of defeats the purpose of buying a distro, doesn't it? :-} ["switch threats"] > Having spent enough time on usenet to know, I'll venture there's more > air than substance to those "threats". Fair enough. > What's the point of making these announcements public? That one is simple: Many of those who uttered such statements seemed to talk about something they cared about. I actually belong to that group. When I started with 4.1 and for quite a while after that, I actually admired RH for what they were doing. They seemed to care for their customers, they gave back to the community, they were trying to survive with a product that didn't seem to have a snowball-in-hell's chance at the time to many - things like that. I've been defending them in many discussions myself over time - and there've *been* many discussions... Over the past two years, RH lost quite a lot of that appeal. In my eyes, they cared less and less for the "ordinary" user - the folks they started off with. It's little things, like bad support for the mailing lists, changes in release policies, etc. I myself am in two minds about this: On the one hand, I understand that they're a commercial entitiy, which needs to survive. On the other hand, I'm missing the "idealism" (for lack of better word) from the early times. What I'm driving at: Making such statements publicly is one way of getting a discussion going - and maybe even a way to influence things. Yes, I know about the "vote with your Euros" thing, but that's not the same. [...] > Debian (which is what I'd recommend, if you want stability at the > expense of new features, ...) Well, RH's balance in that regard was perfect for me in the past, that's what I liked about them. And I'm not quite ready for the Debian bigots... <donning asbestos underware> :-) (it's ironic anyway, as I'm running OpenBSD as well...) > It's especially funny when people who were running what they thought was > 8.1 beta found out that it was going to be 9 and then started worrying > about stability. They were just running the *beta* release, fer > christsake! I'm not going to argue there - you do have a point. I myself was waiting for 8.2... ;-) > That brings up another point: x.0 releases are *not* beta (as you refer > to them below). RH always has beta releases (rawhide) available on the > their website. Those are for testing. x.0 is the *stable* release. > Will there be bugfixes? You bet. It's still the stable release. If > you are concerned about stability, ask RH to improve their beta testing > program. That is more logical (and constructive) than thinking that x.2 > is somehow the magical number that marks stability. There's nothing "magic" about it. x.0 *was* a beta release for me (and for others). Those were the releases were the new stuff hit public scrutiny and the biggest bugs and problems were shaken out. It's been that way for at least the time I'm using RH. Yes, there is a beta program. Yes, those bugs *should* be found during that time. In reality, that's not the way it works - the x.0 will always have more people trying it out (and hence more eyes watching it) than any "real" beta release before it and I honestly cannot see a way to improve this - nor is RH the only company suffering from this problem. RH just was honest enough to admit the faults in the first releases and follow it up with improved, compatible releases. > I'll concede that point. But consider how much it must have cost RH to > have to stock the shelves with 4 different versions of 7. I suspect the > lost revenue from customers who switch to some other distro won't come > close to that amount. I never said I can't see the business sense behind all this. In fact, I can. That doesn't make me like it any more, though. :-/ > Off-the-shelf software is rapidly becoming a > thing of the past anyway. Why kill a tree (and a couple of plastic > things) to put *software* in a pretty box in the store when it will need > to be upgraded before the shrink-wrap has hardened? We are moving into > the age of broadband (or are already there, if you ask me) and RH > certainly must recognize this. "the age of broadband" is still a some way off. It's still far too expensive and in fact not reachable for many (think outside USA, or even outside the "Western World" (for lack of a better word). Even in Europe, there are still many, many people dialling in and many are still paying by the minute for it. Never mind lesser developped countries. Nonetheless, you do have a point. It's just too early to give up on the shrinkwrap yet. > Perhaps a middle-of-the-road solution would be for RH to make occasional > updated releases available via their website (mail-you-a-CD type) for > people who don't have the bandwith for a major download. Proposing this > (or some other solution) to RH is far more constructive than stamping > your feet ;) Point taken. Your suggestion above is actually an interesting one! [...] > So you wget the rpms and rpm -hUv them? How is that different than what > the automated updates do? I know a lot of people do just this (in fact, > I used to be one of them), but it doesn't really make a lot of sense, > IMHO. If you are rebuilding src rpms or from a tarball, that's a bit > different, but when you get the binary rpm (and all of its dependencies) > you are, in fact, using an automated update system, only you're doing it > the wrong way <wink> Ok, admittedly, part of it is lazyness. wget to the fileserver, then updating the machines I want to update (four at the moment) works so well, that I had no reason to use any other system. New system, new bugs, simple as that. ;-) [...] > Well, as I said, you're certainly free to switch distros. It's all > Linux and that's all that matters. Just be certain you'll find just as > much to be unhappy about with any distro you choose. They might be > different things, but they'll still be there. If they aren't, wait > until the packager releases the next version and they'll introduce them. :-) Believe me, I'm fully aware of that... For me, RH has changed enough to start *evaluating* other distros (I won't switch before I've tried to see other folks' bugs...) - which is something I never felt a need for in the past. Nonetheless, I'll wrap the discussion up at this point. I've enjoyed the exchange (sometimes I think people who are able to have a good discussion are getting rare these days, but maybe I'm just getting old...), and you've certainly convinced me that not everything is as black as I've made it out. One some other points we'll probably have to agree to disagree - but there's nothing wrong with that, either, IMO. Regards, Thomas -- ==> RH List Archive: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=redhat-list&r=1&w=2 <== ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org "You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!" -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
