Distribution support: how long is long enough? [LWN.net]

Distribution support: how long is long enough?

Posted Jan 2, 2003 18:17 UTC (Thu) by NathanBardsley (subscriber, #6243)
Parent article: Distribution support: how long is long enough?

I think it's important to step back a little further on this issue. First of all, RH installs have traditionally been "easy" to upgrade in place from one release to the next. Not to say it's perfect, but it's not consistently painful. Also, proper partitioning and storing data in a well defined place have been part of running any operating system for a very long time.

Second, while it hasn't really penetrated the public awareness fully, the traditional Red Hat distribution isn't being developed as a server environment any more. Yes, you could and can continue to use it as such, but try getting the same version of Oracle to run on RH 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, etc. It's not the same and sometimes simply doesn't work.

We're starting to see the separation of Linux into the classic server/workstation division and we're even seeing the functional needs stratifying. How many =servers= need modern 3d and audio features?

So RH is now focusing on two different areas: RH Server & RH Desktop. Fine by me, the one I would want years of support has years of support, and the other -- the one that is going to be driven by the latest and greatest features -- has a long standing upgrade path.

Seems pretty reasonable to me, and besides, can anyone really begrudge RH from trying to actually make a little money at this point? It's not like they're being slimey or tricky about any of this. Any one product can't be all things to all people, and RH are making well-balanced decisions.

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