Re: Debian release cycle for enterprise ?
On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 08:25:14PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > I could take a DNS server in example, when the server is configured and
> > > work, I have no reason to update the server to a new release for at least 4
> > > years if it have the latest security patches. Upgrading to a new stable
> > > version means updating configuration files, doing a complete checkup, a test
> > > phase, ...
>
> > Which is not a particularly hard thing to do every two years. The whole
> > point of running Debian on a server, or at least much of the point, is
> > that the world does not end when you have to upgrade; on the contrary,
> > it's mostly easy, and in places were it's not easy, it's manageable.
>
> "Hard" is relative. If you have hundreds of machines running Debian
(OP mentioned 'a DNS server', so I was primarily referring to a small sample.)
> that aren't simply clones of each other, where each system needs to be
> regression-tested with the new OS before deployment, a two-year cycle
> could be very daunting.
I agree that it's non-trivial, but that kind of a problem is always going to
be complex, because we'll never have all the corner cases covered as the
number of variables becomes practically unlimited. We can try to help people
with those kinds of installations, but if the same people want to throw
around such k-rad k-cool adjectives as "enterprise", then it sounds like
they might want to use their "enterprise" nature to invest more in their
own sysadmin capacity, rather than asking Debian to do yet more work for
them.
> Personally, I would like to see us able to provide security support for
> sarge through the release of lenny, so that users can opt to skip a
> release if they need a longer cycle, passing through etch only long enough
> to adjust their sources.list.
Er, what do you mean etch only to adjust sources.list? Wouldn't that
effectively require supporting sarge->lenny upgrades in all packages?
I thought we dropped that concept as unviable a few releases back.
--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Reply to: