Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 8, 2011 13:10 UTC (Tue) by SEJeff (guest, #51588)
In reply to: Enterprise distributions and free software by ejr
Parent article: Enterprise distributions and free software

Wait a minute here. The Debian guy is complaining about RHEL having old software? Pot, meet kettle... you're both black.

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 8, 2011 13:40 UTC (Tue) by ejr (subscriber, #51652) [Link]

Personally, I'm responding from Chrome 11.0.686.3 dev, running libc 2.11.2 (ok, not the latest&greatest), compiling with gcc 4.5.2 with 4.3.5, 4.4.5, and a 4.6 snapshot available for testing... All of these come with bug reporting and fixing so I don't have to go it alone.

With Debian (and Fedora, and...), you can pull newer versions of tools if you need them. You can at least see how the version chance affects the system even if you decide not to use the Debian version. I don't get why people insist that the named "stable" release is the only thing available. I know apt lets you set defaults to pick and choose easily, and I assume the other distributions' tools do.

I suppose it's another thing I don't get about "enterprise" distributions. You tie your timeline tightly to the producer's decisions. I'd rather be able to tie our cluster upgrade and testing timelines to our calendar.

But, again, I'm talking about systems used for development of some flavor. I suppose shipping a word processing box is different, but you definitely don't want the latest & greatest there, either. Retraining is a major cost.

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 8, 2011 19:42 UTC (Tue) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link] (4 responses)

In all fairness, RHEL installs can definitely "out-ancient" Debian installs: RHEL is supported for so bloody long that the versions of software that a release ships with will indeed be quite old (even compared to Debian stable) towards the end of the release's supported life.

It's not uncommon to see a production Debian machine with versions of software that are a couple years old. It's also not uncommon to see a production RHEL install with software versions from the better part of a decade ago. RHEL wins. :D

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 8, 2011 19:49 UTC (Tue) by skvidal (guest, #3094) [Link] (3 responses)

You realize that this is true b/c someone is paying for it, right?

No one does that kind of maintenance for fun.

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 9, 2011 0:45 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (guest, #33263) [Link] (1 responses)

The maintenance explodes when the customer wants a feature in a package that the regular enterprise distro treadmill does not cover in its updates...

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 9, 2011 4:31 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

It isn't all or nothing. Customers can and do build custom applications or updates. Depending on the problem you want to solve, third party repos are often helpful. EPEL and IUS community project for instance.

Enterprise distributions and free software

Posted Mar 9, 2011 2:14 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link]

> You realize that this is true b/c someone is paying for it, right?

Oh, absolutely. I was merely pointing out that a RHEL release can and often does have a much longer shelf life than a Debian release.