Ask Slashdot: Should Hosting Companies Have Change Freezes?

AngryDad writes "Today I received a baffling email from my hosting provider that said, 'We have a company-wide patching freeze and we will not be releasing patches to our customers who utilize the patching portal for the months of November and December.' This means that myself and all other customers of theirs who run Windows servers will have to live with several critical holes for at least two months. Is this common practice with mid-tier hosting providers? If so, may I ask Eastern-EU folks to please refrain from hacking my servers during the holiday season?"

Comments

Re:windows? what were you thinking?

[Kjella]

Linux isn't going to save you from a stupid hosting company who stops updating their servers for two months so they don't have to deal with regressions. At which point you're probably going to tell me Linux doesn't have idiot admins, doesn't have regressions or doesn't have exploits. It's no miracle cure and the whole "switch to Linux and all your problems will disappear" is getting seriously old. Lots and lots of people have tried Linux over the last decade if not longer, why is Windows still doing fine in the server room? [Insert wild conspiracy theory here, including a rant of anti-competitive behavior and pretty much everything including the kitchen sink except making a decent product.] I went back to Windows after fighting Linux a few years and I wonder if the people here have actually tried it recently or just foam around the mouth by default when someone mentions Microsoft.