On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 07:50:06AM +0200, Alan DeKok wrote:
Then the customers can pay for that. Since they're often paying the distro for LTS, they can go to the distro for help. However, most distros know nothing about the packages they're supporting, so the users end up here.
This is a correct observation. But note that the vendors do not really sell detailed support for all apps, but they sell a warranty to maintain the distro for 7 years, especially related to security fixes, while keeping the interfaces unchanhged (with exceptions). For all the 1000+ apps in a distro, there are mailing lists, forums, or additional commercial support.
That's not what I said. When you sell something, your customers should go to *you* for support. You can afford to support them, because you're getting paid. My issues with the distros && LTS is that the *distros* are often getting paid, and *we're* being asked to do support.
I understand your point, but this is the way it all works. And, again, the same happens for all other apps. Still, vendors *do* a lot of work to maintain their distro, backport security fixes etc.
The real issue, IMHO with LTS distros is people doing something *new* with them. LTS is fine for a box that gets built, configured, shipped, and never touched again. If someone is going to keep poking the box over time, and trying to get it to work with *new* configurations, than they have chosen LTS in error.
Not necessarily. When they have production servers and at some point people want to include a RADIUS server, or start using webmail, or want to enable some other subsystem, then they are going to start using a new feature on their (old) boxes. -- -- Jos Vos <jos@xos.nl> -- X/OS Experts in Open Systems BV | Phone: +31 20 6938364 -- Amsterdam, The Netherlands | Fax: +31 20 6948204