Re: it's safe to run a web hosting server with the unstable distributions ?

[Phil Pennock <phil@globnix.org>]

Typing away merrily, cfm@maine.com produced the immortal words:
> You **need** clients to complain loudly when something breaks; otherwise
> how will you know?  As for the lawyers, you'll hear from them 
> if you upgrade or if you fail to upgrade.  ;^)  We've just found
> it easier to maintain consistent upgrades as a matter of **policy**.

We found with experience that this doesn't scale all that well.  Mind,
I work for a reasonably large ISP.

When you have large corporate customers who make money from their sites,
they can be _very_ reluctant to make changes.  Policy be damned if it's
not utterly and clearly specified in the contract and your customers
lose a few cents.  :^(

Result: despite trying to ensure /bin/perl5.003_03 etc, the fact that
we'd previously had /bin/perl as perl4 means that we had to give in and
put it back as just that.  Unfortunately, this means that customers who
don't read the docs and just type /bin/perl get perl4.  :^(  Legacy
support is a problem, and a large one, which applies to more than just
web-sites.  This is part of what support-departments are for, though -
pointing out to customers the stuff which is already documented clearly.
*coughs*

I tried suggesting a phase-out policy for the contracts.  I don't think
our contracts have that, unfortunately.  Certainly not the oldest ones,
who are the ones most likely to be using perl4, etc.

Hrm .. time to talk to the boss about having another go at phasing out
perl4 on the servers ...
-- 
HTML email - just say no --> Phil Pennock
"We've got a patent on the conquering of a country through the use of force.
 We believe in world peace through extortionate license fees."  -Bluemeat