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Date:      Sat, 05 Jun 1999 07:06:58 -0700
From:      Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group <Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca>
To:        jacobsm@customersvc.com (Mark Jacobs)
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: [Q] How stable is FreeBSD 3.X ? 
Message-ID:  <199906051407.HAA17684@cwsys.cwsent.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 25 May 1999 08:43:07 EDT." <19990525124511140.AAA351@bc006429.tcs.timeinc.com> 

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In message <19990525124511140.AAA351@bc006429.tcs.timeinc.com>, Mark 
Jacobs wri
tes:
> 
> 
> > At 01:53 AM 5/25/99 , David Schwartz wrote:
> > >
> > >	Have you stopped to consider that users may just want to _use_ FreeBSD
> > >without having to follow the development? Have you considered that bad
> > >releases affect them? This is yet another piece of the 'Open Source' versu
> s
> > >'company supported' puzzle.
> > 
> > NT out of the box needs to be patched for performance and security reasons.
> > No matter what OS you deploy, you must follow the development so to
> > speak... Even if only for security reasons.  Yes, it would be nice in a
> > perfect world if this were not the case.
> > 
> > 	---Mike
> > **********************************************************************
> > Mike Tancsa, Network Admin        *  mike@sentex.net
> > Sentex Communications Corp,       *  http://www.sentex.net/mike
> > Cambridge, Ontario                *  01.519.651.3400
> > Canada                            *
> > 
> > 
> > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
> 
> In my "real job" I am a MVS (now OS/390) systems programmer 
> responsible for maintaing an operating system and other related 
> program products.
> 
> The software that ships out of the box (i.e. release) is obsolete 
> upon arrival. That is just a fact of life in a huge operating system.
> Depending on how often I apply service, I could have many hundred 
> to many thousand software changes to apply.
> 
> Users don't care about operating system changes, in fact they fight 
> them (why do we have to test?), but we as system administrators 
> are responsible for maintaining the best operating system we can, 
> and that requires work on our part.

In my former life (over 7 years ago) as an MVS systems programmer, it 
was common to apply PUT tapes (patches) with over 12,000 PTF's 
(patches).  IBM ships 8-9 PUT tapes per year, each with approximately 
4,000 - 5,000 patches each.  Add to that 20-30 USERMODS (my own 
modifications to MVS).  I've worked at one site where we had 126 
USERMODS.

I'm currently running 3.2R with 6 patches (gleaned from the CVS tree) 
and 3 of my own modifications to the kernel.

In my 25 year career, I've yet to see a perfect (unpatched) operating 
system.


Regards,                       Phone:  (250)387-8437
Cy Schubert                      Fax:  (250)387-5766
Open Systems Group          Internet:  Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca
ITSD                                   Cy.Schubert@gems8.gov.bc.ca
Province of BC
                      "e**(i*pi)+1=0"





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