[WBEL-users] Wondering about RedHat

[Daniel J. Summers]

Bastiaan van der Put wrote:

> Please buy a Redhat product and complain at them about "the quality 
> control has badly degraded".
>
> Else don't complain about something you don't have.

I disagree.  Red Hat knows about the existence of WBEL and the other 
RHEL-based free distributions.  If the WBEL folks had been the ones to 
make the mistake, I agree that invective against Red Hat would be 
unwarranted.  But, in this case, it _was_ RH who screwed up.  And, 
probably, sent this same broken RPM to their paying customers.  I'm sure 
Mr. Hinton's remarks are mild compared to someone who actually _did_ buy 
RHEL.

> And nobody forced you to upgrade, if you want to be conservative you 
> can choose yourself,
> wait for others to report problems.

His point was, he didn't use to have to be conservative.  He could 
safely update, with no problem.  The point of WBEL is *not* to beta-test 
RHEL for Red Hat - that's what the thousands of folks running FC2 and 
FC3 are doing.  RHEL (and WBEL, as it follows RHEL) is supposed to be 
the stable, no-messing-around for-real really works the first time version.

> If all people wait before someone else tried it and had the 
> problems.....nothing happend.

Are you familiar with the circumstances surrounding the development of 
WBEL?  For business-class applications, folks don't want beta and gamma 
versions to "try out" - they want something that will keep their 
customers happy.  The advantage to running a clone of RHEL is that Red 
Hat's QA should catch problems before they come out.  And, in Mr. 
Hinton's case, I believe he has a point that a problem in such a 
critical component being released is unacceptable.

He wasn't combative, he wasn't rude - it was a well-thought question 
about the quality of software being released from Red Hat.

>> So, I'm left wondering if their 'new' business model is creating some 
>> 'holes'. Perhaps Fedora Core is not in fact really feeding a good 
>> product over the the EL section? This is just all interesting to 
>> wonder about. What has changed and why are they suddenly now putting 
>> out so many bad packages?
>>
>> I'm really disturbed at this trend. I used to feel pretty darned 
>> secure about running up2date at any time... now???? Here I am on what 
>> is supposed to be the flagship product, and I now feel as though I 
>> need a 'test' server, upon which I can attempt to precisely mirror 
>> the packages installed on my more loaded machines, in order to see 
>> what's broken this time.
>>
>> Sorry to be venting here, but gee, what's going to be broken next 
>> time? The kernel? PAM? Something that will take my server down and 
>> leave me with no method to even get into it? I'm concerned.
>
Good concerns all - have you anything constructive to address these 
concerns?  Are you offering to be a QA buffer between RHEL and WBEL?  
Remember, we're all on the same team here - we all want stable, 
reliable, and usable Linux installations for ourselves and our 
customers.  Telling a regular participant in this list that they don't 
have the right to post their concerns is, quite frankly, not your call 
to make.

-- 
*Daniel J. Summers*
E-mail - 	danieljs@knology.net <mailto:danieljs@knology.net>
*Web Sites:*
Personal - 	http://www.knology.net/~mopsmom/daniel 
<http://www.knology.net/%7Emopsmom/daniel/index.html>
Sunday School - 	http://www.knology.net/~mopsmom/sundayschool 
<http://www.knology.net/%7Emopsmom/daniel/sundayschool/index.xml>
My Linux Adventure - 	http://www.knology.net/~mopsmom/daniel/linux.html 
<http://www.knology.net/%7Emopsmom/daniel/linux.html>


GEEKCODE 3.12 GCS/IT d s-:+ a C++ L++ E--- W++ N++ o? K- w !O M--
V PS+ PE++ Y? !PGP t+ 5? X+ R* tv b+ DI++ D+ G- e h---- r+++ y++++