Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 16:12:29 PST From: Michael Ryan <mike@NetworX.ie> To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> Cc: Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>, freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Y2K Message-ID: <ECS9811241629B@NetworX.ie>
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On Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:39:22 +0100 Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > 1. The upgrade itself would be equally costly if he used a paid for > UNIX version, and he would have to pay for the new release on > top of that, so FreeBSD is cheaper, right ? Right, but you miss my point: inquire of any commercial Unix vendor whether a particular release is Y2K compliant or not and you'll get a straight answer. Based on this answer, the customer mightn't need to do the upgrade, as his existing product may be compliant. > 2. Any use of the concept "entitled to" in the context of free > software is sloppy thinking or at least sloppy analysis of the > relationship. I agree with you entirely on one level but disagree on another. The FreeBSD Project encourages people and organisations to use the FreeBSD operating system. Given this encouragement, the user is 'entitled' to expect some things. For example, the software should do its intended function most of the time. Another thing he might reasonably expect (i.e. be entitled to) is a statement of Y2K compliance, given that Y2K is a critical issue when the box has been deployed in a production situation. While there is certainly not the same onus on the FreeBSD Project to support the product as there would be on a commercial supplier, I would have thought that the Y2K issue would have been on the minds of the developers for a release as recent as 2.2.5R and, therefore, they would be aware of its Y2K compliance status. Even if information as basic as "yes", "no" or "don't know" was available for any particular release, this would help enormously. But not providing any information other than the non-release specific info on the web site is, I think, less than the user is reasonably 'entitled to'. In the absence of any useful information, any responsible user must assume the worst and suffer the cost of an upgrade. > 3. Who will pay for the time >we< spend trying to comprehensively > answer the y2k question, when nobody pays for the software in > the first place ? I empathise with you but, as I said above, I would have thought this was a current (going back two years) issue and thus, the information would have been known for releases that have been produced in that time-frame. > 4. An upgrade from 2.2.5 to 2.2.7 (or soon 2.2.8) can be done a > hole lot faster than a week, if the installation is documented > in the first place. I would reasonably expect (be entitled to think) that the upgrade of the OS could be done in a few hours (this entitlement being based on the assumption that the product hasn't changed completely since the installation of 2.2.5R. But that's the easy part. The hard part is verifying that all of the non-bundled systems and applications software that makes this a useful production system still works, and upgrading to and testing any component that is seen not to work. Not to mention the down-time of a production box while this is going on. Bye, Mike mike@NetworX.ie www.NetworX.ie --- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the messagehelp
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