From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 29 18:06:47 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C91529B7 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:06:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wayne@manor.msen.com) Received: from manor.msen.com (manor.msen.com [148.59.4.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CC171F3 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:06:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from manor.msen.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manor.msen.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id r2TI6kwq063377 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:46 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from wayne@manor.msen.com) Received: (from wayne@localhost) by manor.msen.com (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id r2TI6k8P063376 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:46 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from wayne) Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:46 -0500 From: Michael Wayne To: FreeBSD Hackers Subject: Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD Message-ID: <20130329180646.GL42080@manor.msen.com> Mail-Followup-To: FreeBSD Hackers References: <20130328212955.GJ42080@manor.msen.com> <20130328231043.GA3666@ethic.thought.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:06:47 -0000 On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 07:31:50PM -0700, Freddie Cash wrote: > > Every other minor release of FreeBSD is supported for 2 full years, with no > new features added, just security fixes (aka Extended Releases). > > And every major release of FreeBSD is supported for at least 4, somtimes 5, > years. That's exactly the issue. After 4-5 years, there's nothing. > RedHat isn't much better. Sure, they'll support the core OS for 5 years, > but you can't install new, up-to-date software on it unless you upgrade the > entire OS (been down that road too many times to ever want to try again). > We gave up on RedHat after fighting with 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. Thanks. I appreciate the feedback. > FreeBSD isn't perfect (what OS is?), but it's amazing that you can install > the newest versions of MySQL, Firefox, KDE, Postfix, etc on 7.4 (until the > end of Feb, anyway), or 8.3, or 9.0, or 9.1. And can continue to get > security fixes for all those releases (except 7.x now). That's no help at all to a bunch of machines that started life on 4.1 back in 2000 and will continue to run another 10-15 years, is it? What's your suggestion for dealing with that? It's not like anything currently supported is gonna fit on those machines without a rediculous amount of effort. > What's missing from FreeBSD support? Having one release supported for an extended time. It would be insane to consider maintaining every release for an extended period but ONE release, supported for an extended period (decades) would really help. We're far enough down the security path that there are not that many security vulnerabilities in base. Ports generally build just fine on older versions.