The Thursday 2004-04-08 at 10:21 -0700, Phil Mocek wrote:
Carlos E. R. went on to suggest:
The YOU program knows what is installed; therefore, it could download a note of READMEs for installed packages with known issues since distribution date.
How about a Web page detailing a package with a link to bug information for that package? Then anyone could view this information before or after installation of the package, and if Yast Online Update needed to automatically display the information, it could either direct a Web browser there, or retrieve it directly internal display.
Right. Even a simple page listing every package for a certain distribution that has issues, and pointing to the solution (or update) would be sufficient. The point is, that as YOU knows what is installed, it could generate a report automatically.
For a *great* example of how this could work, take a look at <http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/ntp>. That page shows a description of Debian's package `ntp', along with package dependencies and recommendations, links to source code, package contents, changelog, package maintainer, past versions, and more.
It's concise, accurate, and extremely informative.
Most relevant to this discussion, though, (involving SuSE's insistence that unless their customers purchase a SLES support contract, we're on our own when it comes to discovering known issues with their software) is the link from the package page to that package's bug reports. That page is <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=ntp>.
This is all produced automatically, for every one of the 10,000 or so Debian packages, by Free Software. There's nothing preventing SuSE from using it for their own packages.
Interesting...
I've grown accustomed to this level of detail (which is coming from an entirely volunteer-based organization), and am really disappointed to find that SuSE, a commercial distribution, refuses to provide it.
You could write this up and send it to them at the feedback web page. I think that customers buying any version, should be given "tidbits" - if not, why should we pay, and get the ftp version instead for free? It is not asking for the level of individualized support a business contract gives, but a generalized thing, a few "advantages". -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson