[opensuse] Change in IT (was: Will there be a LTS version of OpenSuse?

Lars Marowsky-Bree wrote:

On 2008-01-27T20:56:27, Alexey Eremenko 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'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.

Thanks for your refreshingly plain and frank thoughts, Lars. There were a few comments from IT managers here advertising "if it ain't broke, don't touch it". It made me wonder. What you say is hidden in plain view since years: Most money in IT is made by delivering broken solutions. Troyan horses, in effect, making clients dependent. Sadly this is true for large parts of today's ruling predatory and devastatingly heartless economy: Medicine profits most by suppressing efficient natural cures and making people sick with their expensive treatments. Drugs are made super-profitable by monopolising their production trade and sale staging apparent "War on drugs". Oil profits are multiplied by oppressing alternatives and destroying supply lines with ghost-chasing-wars. Secret services like the NSA make sure software and OS are full of backdoors and holes they can exploit. Bankers control the game by eating away the value of our money while pretending to keep it safe. Psychiatry schools police courts lawyers and prisons generate more income the less they help. People are better slaves the less they know while getting more propaganda (TV, media) and more desperate consumers if they have to compensate for real love they are trained to withhold from each other. Is Novell sponsoring OpenSuse mainly to attract people to their corporate products and test new applications ? Progress for the home user is mostly an occasional by-product of the hundreds of millions driving Linux development. Canonical for example spent more money advertising their Ubuntu brand and dividing the biggest Linux development community (Debian) then making common tasks more accessible. The hardware/Microsoft cartels keep scores of top Linux developers busy just trying to keep up with the daily created hurdles of proprietary schemes. Mandriva has been eaten alive by insiders and user-focused Linux distribution suffer from lack of funding and carefully introduced infighting. Most home users i know hop from one distro to the next, at differing paces. Of course there are many loyalists, who constitute the bulk of those active on mailinglists such as this one :-) Kind regards Philippe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org