Friday Flames - What to do with RHL7.3/9 and FC1/2

[Tom Yates]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Jesse Keating wrote:

> As we approach FC6 Test2, we should make a decision wrt RHL7.3/9 and
> FC1/2.  We've been supporting these releases for a while now, and
> they've grown pretty long in the tooth, even by Legacy standards.  Our
> lifetime policy would dictate that FC1 should be gone already, and FC2
> would go when we pick up FC4, so that we're only supporting FC3 and FC4.
> The RHL releases are a different matter.
> 
> RHL we agreed to support for a long period of time, however that time
> may be up.  Personally I would really like to see these go, as they take
> up a lot of our time when trying to push updates, we get very little
> help, and updates are increasingly more difficult to do.  I would like
> to hear discussion on if we should continue supporting it, how we can
> make it easier to support, and a reasonable endpoint to the support, an
> exit strategy.

as has been noted, the FC versions have always had a clearly-defined 
"end-of-legacy-life" timetable, and i have no issue dropping them.  we may 
not have kept to our timetable, but noone can claim (s)he didn't know 
about it.

RH has not had such a timetable.  nothing lasts for ever, so if it's felt 
we should drop them, i can happily get behind that decision - but i would 
ask that we give three months' warning.

declaration of interest: i myself have a RH9 prod system, which i would 
prefer not to migrate, but can do within three months if need be.  i also 
have responsibility for a huge stack of RH73 prod systems, which i suspect 
the owners simply won't migrate.  if i give them three months' notice, and 
they do nothing, that's their problem; if i only give them four weeks, 
that's sort of my problem as well.

> Whatever we decide wrt RHL7.3/9 and FC1/2, if we decide to continue the
> support, that continuation would have to be on our existing
> infrastructure.

which i guess is why i'm happy to sanction the end of RH support; i just 
ask that it be on a slightly more production timetable than "here's FC6, 
what a good time to drop RH".


-- 

   Tom Yates
   Cambridge, UK.