Fedora Project: Announcing New Direction

Sean Estabrooks seanlkml at rogers.com
Wed Sep 24 17:21:56 UTC 2003


On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:50:29 -0700
Michael Knepher <limbo at bluethingy.com> wrote:

> > 2-3 months after next release.  So there will be maintenance releases
> > for about half to three quarters of a year.
> > 
> I think the expectation now is that when, for example, a security patch
> for openssh is released upstream as a new version (with perhaps a few
> new features added), the new version will be incorporated into Fedora
> Core, as opposed to the traditional method of backporting the fix. 
> 

Fedora Legacy is not maintained by RedHat.   Anyone can release updates
for as long as they want.  No problems there.   But RHN updates to the
Fedora core are explicitly stated to be available for up to 3 months after
the next release.   But as mentioned in the FAQ there isn't even a SLA for
this period of updates.

> > > Secondly, If RH decides that it will only provide maint. for say, 3
> > > versions back, is there something that the developer community can
> > > do to take some of the work off Red Hat and enable the provision of
> > > maintenance for a longer period?
> 
> I think that's the whole point of the Fedora Project.
> 
> See this page, especially the bit about Fedora Legacy:
> http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html
> 

I'm not sure that's the entire point of the Fedora Project but the
question from Bret was in regard to the objections people are raising in
regard to this recent announcement.    Nothing in the FAQ addresses the
issues of a large segment of the people complaining.   The simple fact is
much of what people are looking for, is only available in Enterprise, not
Fedora.

> > 
> > Sure.   but that's not going to satisfy the segment of people who want
> > to have a guarantee from RedHat that the updates will be provided.  
> > For them  Enterprise is the only choice.
>
> They should find like-minded potential customers and flood Red Hat's
> sales department with requests for some additional pricing/support
> tiers, and legitimate suggestions for what they're actually willing/able
> to pay for such guarantees.
> 

Agreed,  There is room in the RedHat product lineup for additional
offerings.  If RedHat can make a profit while not hurting its enterprise
business in any way, then i'm sure they'd be eager to pursue such options.

Sean.





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