system autodeath

[Conrad Meyer]

Quoth James Hubbard:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 2:57 PM, seth vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org> 
wrote:
> > A friend forwarded me this blog:
> > http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/blog/linux/autodeath.1024px
> >
> > and I wondered if it would be something to consider for fedora releases.
> >
> > This would NOT be as a default, but as a package you can install, if you
> > wish, to drop the route on your box after whatever expiration date. We
> > can set the release date in a file in the package and key from there.
> >
> >
> > If the package was included in a fedora repo we could have it have a
> > death date of whenever the release started + 14months (some wiggle room
> > for release slips) for example.
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> 
> Sounds a lot like Windows Genuine Advantage where you can't use your
> machine anymore if you can't validate your installation.  Someone
> (probably many someones) will install this by mistake and there will
> be a lot of screaming that not even Microsoft will disable your OS if
> it is running past the EOL/support period.
> 
> It would probably be better that during the last batch of updates a
> small program gets installed that will notify users when they login
> that the system is no longer supported.  This could be in a terminal,
> a "balloon" in X, or a message on the X login screen.
> 
> Whatever is implemented, should be given a lot of thought and it
> should disable the system in any manner.  It could alienate a lot of
> users. I haven't upgraded my work machine from F7 to F9 yet because
> I've not yet had time to test gcc 4.3 with some commercial libraries
> that have only been compiled against gcc 4.1.x.  I know lots of other
> desktop/server users that are running system from FC2 - FC6. (Yes I
> know about RHEL.)
> 
> (As a side note: My wife hates the security balloons that pop up when
> there's a security related update.  She's always comparing it to
> windows. )
> 
> My $0.02.
> 
> --
> James Hubbard

With a name like 'autodeath' do you really think many people will go out of 
their way to install it accidentally?

Regards,
-- 
Conrad Meyer <konrad at tylerc.org>
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