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Date:      Mon, 2 Oct 2000 13:48:23 -0700
From:      "John Howie" <JHowie@msn.com>
To:        "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
Cc:        "James Wyatt" <jwyatt@rwsystems.net>, "Brett Glass" <brett@lariat.org>, "Chris D . Faulhaber" <jedgar@fxp.org>, <chat@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: ftpd bug in FreeBSD through at least 3.4 
Message-ID:  <038b01c02cb2$1b5092c0$fd01a8c0@pacbell.net>
References:  <23683.970516562@critter>

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
To: "John Howie" <JHowie@msn.com>
Cc: "James Wyatt" <jwyatt@rwsystems.net>; "Brett Glass" <brett@lariat.org>;
"Chris D . Faulhaber" <jedgar@fxp.org>; <security@FreeBSD.ORG>
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: ftpd bug in FreeBSD through at least 3.4


> In message <036301c02caa$ebc17300$fd01a8c0@pacbell.net>, "John Howie"
writes:
>
> >> >Are you saying that if we found a terrible bug (not this easy one)
> >> >somewhere critical in 3.5.%d, we'd all have to immediatly upgrade? -
Jy@
> >>
> >> Yes, I am saying that.
> >    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> >And this is why Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, et al will NEVER beat a
supported
> >pay-for-use Operating System like Windows in the eyes of real-world
> >business-critical system administrators and CIOs. Of course, all the
egos,
> >moaning, and bitching don't help either.
>

> Until you do you're asking me to waste my spare time because you
> cannot be bothered to upgrade your system to recent releases.

And I guess that we can all be proud of the fantastic upgrade procedure as
detailed in the Release Notes - basically copy /etc, install New OS, copy
/etc back. Get real - it takes a long time to upgrade any OS, FreeBSD more
so than some. It is not easy to install, configure, and administer and the
problem is compounded by having to rebuild half of /usr/local in some
circumstances. It is not a case of 'can't be bothered', it is a case of
don't have time/resources/spare hardware. Maybe if we looked at supporting
past releases we could win some fans in the business community. Until then
we are mostly a bunch of hobbyists. I use FreeBSD, I love FreeBSD, I do
upgrade FreeBSD, but I would NEVER recommend FreeBSD as a business solution.

>
> Feel free to estimate my enthusiasm for your problem.
>

Your lack of enthusiasm IS part of the problem - and I'll take my share of
the blame too because you won't see me volunteering any time soon. Let's
face it, we are probably both extremely busy people and in an ideal world
everyone would upgrade to the latest version of every piece of software as
soon as it came out - but that doesn't happen. Don't be surprised if FreeBSD
doesn't take over the world because we don't support users running past
releases.

john...






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