Re: Continuing to use SysV; LTS
On 12/31/2014 1:24 PM, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2014, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>> On 12/30/2014 5:49 PM, Don Armstrong wrote:
>>> If Debian is important to their business, then they should hire
>>> people to work on the bits of Debian that matter to them.
>>
>> That's a great idea. Who's going to pay these people - you?
>
> I donate my own time to work on the parts of Debian that interest and
> concern me. My employers donate some of my paid time as well to work on
> the parts of Debian which are important for the research that I do. HP,
> IBM, Intel, Google, Canonical, Linaro, and many other companies pay
> other Debian Developers to work on the parts of Debian which are
> important for them.
>
> There's no reason why the companies that you work for can't also expend
> some of their budget or employee hours to do the same if Debian (or
> whatever distribution they are switching to) is important for their
> success. [And since you've indicated that Linux is important to their
> success, hopefully they're also contributing to kernel development.]
>
Yes, there is a reason, Don. It's called solvency. For a company to
remain solvent, it must have a positive cash flow. To do so, it must
carefully watch its expenditures.
Now maybe YOUR company can afford to donate some of your paid time to
Debian. My clients' can't. There are too many other, higher priority
items which would come first if the had the time and money.
And maybe YOU donate your time after hours to contribute. That's fine
for you. But don't expect the whole world to jump on it just because
you do. Remember - these guys are systems admins, not programmers.
Although they have some programming experience, it is limited, and it is
definitely not what is necessary to support an operating system.
Additionally, these guys value their family time, and really don't care
to work on computer stuff after hours.
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2014, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>> I said the way they are going is not acceptable, so my clients are
>> changing distributions.
>
> I've no vested interest in what your clients do, but if they fail to
> contribute to whatever distribution they switch to, they will
> undoubtedly end up switching again, and spending non-zero sums of money
> and employee time to do so.
>
> But at the end of the day, it's your client's budget, and this is free
> software.
>
Yes, and it is still cheaper to change distros every 10 years or so.
Besides - even if they contributed to Debian, it would not have made a
difference. The decisions have been made by the TC, and a few more
users aren't going to change that.
Really, your expectations are unrealistic, especially since you don't
know my clients, their business, their employees' qualifications and a
whole lot of other things about them.
I do, and I support their decisions.
Jerry
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