Re: EMC lists

[John Haxby <jch scalix com>]

Ken Schroeder (kschroed) wrote:

> I cannot begin to explain the amount of time we have spent re-rpm'ing
> EMC's powerpath software. First it was 3.0.5 with 3.0.6 hotfix and now
> it is 4.3.0 with 4.3.1 hot fix.  Both hotfix's dependent on the first
> RPM. To make matters worse if you upgrade the kernel you have to
> re-install the software because the kernel modules.  I don't know how
> many of these vendors are getting away with this type of software
> deployment.  I guess they've been doing it all along for Solaris and HP
> and now providing linux solutions continue their bad habits because it
> makes life easier for them instead of doing what is right for the
> customer.  --ken
>
>  
One of the best things I ever did for OpenMail (now Scalix) was beat up 
the installation phase to use proper RPMs.  We still had an HP/UX SD 
image and tar balls for other platforms, but the Linux image was 
converted to "real" RPM.    This wouldn't've happened except that 
marketing were keen to get us on the Red Hat LACD and Red Hat wanted us 
to have a good RPM before we did that.   I owe Red Hat a good deal of 
gratitude for that: the benefits of doing a proper RPM rather than a 
tarball that was unwrapped by the %post script weren't immediately 
obvious, but over the years I've come to appreciate the work that I did 
then.

I expect that people like EMC don't have a good incentive to do a proper 
job.   If enough people complain then perhaps they'll do something about it.

jch