Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3026 mails)

[Aaron Kulkis <akulkis00@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Lars Marowsky-Bree wrote:
> On 2008-01-27T20:56:27, Alexey Eremenko <al4321@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > So let's sum it up: It is _very_ unlikely, that Novell will help with
> > producing/maintaining openSUSE LTS, so the main question is: are we
> > strong enough community to handle that task?
> >
> > I'm non-developer, but I'm willing to assist with BETA-testing (which
> > is even more important for LTS releases, than non-LTS ones).
> >
> > Are there any _developers or maintainers_, that want to handle this
> > difficult, time consuming task?
>
> I've read through this all, and I think you're heading down the wrong
> path, even though it's well-worn.
>
> LTS, or what is commercially called "Enterprise" distros, are a PITA.
> They avoid change. That makes them brittle, unflexible and costly. Have
> you ever heard a management trainer advocate "Manage to avoid change"?
> No? Ask yourself why.
>
> What you want, what you _really_ want even if you don't know it, is
> fluid, painless change.
>
> You don't want frozen distros. You want everything to continue working
> with the newest code. What people _really_ want are perfectly smooth
> upgrades.
>
> This whole Enterprise stuff forces Linux into the mould left by
> dinosaurs, such as AIX and VMS. They confuse "stability" with
> "unchanging".
>
> You will also find that the same people who want "unchanging"
> distributions want them to run on the newest hardware at top speed,
> while providing all the latest features. How people fail to not see the
> paradox here has always amazed me.
>
> Don't fall into that trap. We do it because it brings in cash, not
> because it makes anyone particularly happy. 
>
> As long as you think change == bad, you'll fail and suffer.

I agree 100%.

My main disappointment with the change from SuSE Pro to
openSUSE is that because openSuSE is a loss-leader, the
money isn't there to keep enough people on payroll to
make sure that each release is as stable as it should be.

SusE Pro 9.3 and each of the previous releases (6.x
and up) were very stable products.

10.0 introduced "upgrades" what weren't ready for prime
time.

In November, 2006, I installed 10.1, hoping it would
be an improvement. Instead, YOU (Yast Online Updater)
didn't work.  I re-installed 2 weeks later.  Since I
was in Baghdad in the middle of a war zone, writing
up a bug report was just about last on my list of then
current priorities in life.

Reading the list, I see all kinds of nonsense concerned
with fiddling with the look and feel of YaST... but if
the doggone thing isn't working properly, this is no
more beneficial than re-arranging the deck chairs on
the RMS Titanic, when the hull has been breached, and
bulkheads don't reach the ceilings.

I'm still reading on this list complaints of basic
functionality which used to work, and are now broken,
and they're not getting fixed.

I'd be more than happy to pay a reasonable price
(along the lines of SuSE Pro) for the hiring of
the staff to allow problems like this to get fixed.

Another problem ... without your retail version,
the local computer (a nation-wide chain named
Micro-Center store no longer has ANY sign Linux
on the shelves).

Congratulations -- by ending SuSE Pro and SuSE
Desktop, Novell and SuSE have dropped from a
position offering minimal existance in the awareness
of the uninitiated to one of complete non-existance.

This is NOT the path to increasing the size
of the user base.





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