> > > FreeBSD currently does not enable easy maintainance between critical release
> > > points for large server environments. Using cvsup to maintain source builds
> > > for environments like these ( say 400 servers or more ) is not only
> > > unacceptable without an on staff developer and release engineer, it is
> > > infeasible.
> > >
> > > For those of you who would be quick to note that "Corporations with
> > > 400 servers should be able to afford a developer and release engineer"
> > > please note that 400 NT, Solaris, AIX, or HP-UX servers can be
> > > maintained by a small team of administrators, and do not require these
> > > extra resources.
> >
> > So, for 400 NT, Solaris, AIX, or HP-UX servers you allow a small team,
> > and for FreeBSD you don't even allow a single engineer? Seems kind of a
> > double standard.
> >
> > And as a long-time administrator, I disagree that FreeBSD is more
> > difficult to maintain releases across systems. I've done Ultrix, SunOS,
> > Solaris, FreeBSD, and (ack!) Linux, and I find that FreeBSD is second to
> > Solaris, but barely so.
> >
> > However, Solaris doesn't even provide anything remotely close to what
> > Brett is asking, and they're getting paid alot for the OS than FreeBSD
> > is getting paid.
> >
> > Nate
>
> I think you misunderstood. I meant you don't need release engineers for
> any of the above, only FreeBSD. FreeBSD might be great, but it doesn't admin
> itself yet. ;) Consider 4 sysadmins, and 2 release engineers for FreeBSD, as
> opposed to just 4 sysadmins for NT / Solaris / AIX / HP-UX.

Call it what you like, but I consider preparing/testing a release for
our configuration part of the 'sysadmin' job. Certainly the IS staff at
my company does hardware/software verification as part of their job, on
*all* platforms (including Win98/NT/Win2K/WinME/XP, along with all of
the *nix variants).

If it makes you feel better, use the title 'release engineer', but the
staff of 4 people should be more than adequate to do all of the tasks
necessary to support your installations, regardless of whether FreeBSD
is used or not.

Nate

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