On Tue Feb 04, 2003 at 09:45:06AM -0700, Daniel Woods wrote:

> In general I agree with Mandrake's intentions, and the need to
> reduce your workload. I do have a few comments to make...
>
> - announcing an immediate halt to desktop updates for 7.2, 8.0
> does seem a bit blunt, a little more notice would be preferred.

I would be extremely surprised if there are a lot of people using 7.2
or 8.0 for the desktop. Remember, 7.2 was released *26* months ago.
It's KDE1. Who is using it for a desktop? A server I can see, but a
desktop? I don't think that's very likely.

> - Having March 31st as a deadline for 8.1 / 8.2 is short-sighted
> on Mandrake's part, given that this is a year end for many
> companies and universities. That's asking too much from
> sys-admins to do upgrades or new installs during a crucial
> period that management wants *nothing* changed.

March 31st was chosen because 9.1 will be out then, giving two more
products to support. Put it this way... dates had to be chosen with
some merit. Is it soon? Yes. Is it too soon? Depends who you ask.
If we set the EOL for 8.1 and 8.2 desktop support for Dec 31st, there
will still be some who say it's too soon.

> - Sept 30/2003 is too soon for an 8.2 server, given the real
> world fact that not many like x.0 versions for production
> servers, and 9.1 is not out yet, nor will it be in time for
> proper testing before upgrading servers into production.

Again, a date has to be chosen. I don't pretend to jump up and down
over this; I know it will be difficult for people and a PITA. I have
webservers running 8.2 as well. I am in the same position.

> - Sept 30/2003 is too soon for the 9.0 desktop users for many
> of the same reasons. This one bothers me since I it gives
> me the bad feeling that Mandrake "expects" all users to
> jump on the newer 9.1 version, and hopefully by buying
> another retail version. This is also short-sighted since
> many non-techies just want something that works well, and
> if they're happy with this version, why upgrade ?

No. Sept 30th is 12mos from when 9.0 was released. It follows the
policy. It has nothing to do with 9.1 and the push for sales. When
9.0 desktop "expires" 9.2 will be available (or thereabouts) following
the 6mos release schedule.

Again, it boils down to the fact we had to pick a timeframe that was
reasonable.

> - removing desktop support for Joe User who probably does
> not follow the everyday events of MandrakeSoft, could open
> up their internet connected PC to any new Linux worms.
> How is Joe User going to feel about Mandrake Linux then ???
> Things like this could open up MandrakeSoft to potential
> lawsuits they can't afford !

Why would we have lawsuits? Do you mean to tell me that someone would
attempt to sue us because they get a virus on their system? Good
grief! If that was the case, MS would have been out of business a
*long* time ago.

At any rate, the policy is published now... everyone who cares to look
will see it. Anyways, in your example, Joe User wouldn't be patching
their system during the time that updates are available anyways, so
it's a moot point.

> Bottom line, I agree that all 7.x versions should be retired,
> and 8.0, 8.1, but Mandrake must keep 8.2 around until there's
> a 9.2 version, and 9.0 should stay around until 10.0 is stable.

This doesn't reduce the workload at all. 7.2 is the only one
supported. Let's drop one distrib and add another 2 to the list...
This leaves us in the exact same position we were previously in... the
list of updated distribs grows with each new release, even with
dropping the oldest of the list.

-- 
MandrakeSoft Security; http://www.mandrakesecure.net/
"lynx -source http://linsec.ca/vdanen.asc | gpg --import"
{FE6F2AFD : 88D8 0D23 8D4B 3407 5BD7  66F9 2043 D0E5 FE6F 2AFD}

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (Darwin)

iD8DBQE+QBbuIEPQ5f5vKv0RAssUAKCoPb4ttSRRVfX1qJ/lwnX5sDe6AQCdFAdH 1CZ8ljQensOtCBw2jg19xKE= =3TzB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]