they are not breaking a contract "Palm isn't doing what it can to provide compatibility, in fact, what they are doing is illegal in that they are breaking their contract with the USB-IF. Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal."
if you choose to take 99% of a standard and implement it differently that is ok. They may be violating trademark using the USB logo and name but there is no contract that they must honor.
Palm doesnt want to pay a license to connect a Pre to iTunes. Blackberry pays that license. Why should they pay a license so that customers can access data that they have already paid for? Especially when there is no technical limitation? only an ID that needs changed.
Keep in mind that customers install iTunes to buy media from Apple. iTunes is not a product that enables them to play their music. This is not a MSSQL server license where the product is the data store and you must license for the data store, this is a downloader that is provided for free.
Microsoft is a monopoly. They control an overwhelming majority of operating system installs. That is what a monopoly is. That is not to say that monopoly is always bad, just that microsoft certainly qualifies.
Microsoft controlled the choices of operating system on the entire PC industry for a time and that seals them in as a monopoly. You could not buy a complete computer that was compatible with the industries standard programs because microsoft forbid it. Apple didnt control enough market to get enough programs on the mac to change this. The anti-monopoly lawsuits have opened this up somewhat which loosens the grip of microsoft on the industry allowing choice. one of the outcomes was the default browser setting being loosened up and another is allowing a PC vendor to sell a computer with another OS without penatly.
IANAL *BUT* I do believe that Palm can legally do whatever they like with the USB-compatible ports but what they might be doing wrong is continuing to call the port USB. to be USB to must meet the specs, and palm is breaking those specs so might be in trademark violation of the USB name and logo. They could just name the port something else and maintain compatability but I done think it is legit to call the port a USB port.
Linux may be less prefered for a stand alone desktop mainly because of the windows apps that consumers like to clutter their computers up with. Linux excels in large deployment, standardized desktops.
Simply put, linux workstations are easy to setup against LDAP with NFS home directories. You can tighten the desktops up to limit apps. Use Terminal Server and RDP for necessary windows apps. You can run specific applications on centralized servers and access them via remote X sessions on the local lan or over the internet and tunnel that through compressed ssh tunnels. Got a really heavy app that only a 10 users need? buy one high end workstation instead of 10. LDAP carries usernames and permissions across the network. DNS keeps every server easy to maintain because a DNS change lets you quickly relocate services.
Consider that linux is easily installed via network, can be installed in a reliable software raid environment, and is very very stable when users dont have root access to the box to install software and tweak the system.
You can run your workstations of flash keys. you can net-boot them if you like. LTSP and you can use old hardware and net-boot them.
You can load balance remote apps easily and LDAP handles authentication and NFS handles preferences so your users dont even care about the server they are using. to them, blender.domain.local is all they know, even though that is just the load balancer.
The shortcomings of open source are really that making everything fit a windows environment is difficult because it is a moving target and is actively evading OSS.
I desperately wish I could make fun of you for your paranoia. unfortunately your concerns are terrible necessary considering this(USA) country's shift towards socialism and the opinion of governing bodies that they know what is best for you as well as the tendency to give corporations more rights than citizens.
I can only say for sure what my goals are with virtualization. I have 4 VM Hosts. I run 2 DNS servers that are tiny(128MB and 2GB) on 2 hosts. I have 2 load balancers on different hosts. I have 4 web servers, all serving the same content distributed by the load balancers. some static but most dynamic content. I have 2 mysql servers that replicate but would like to spread the load to 4. I just moved up from 1 mysql server that was on a real machine. I have 2 file servers(CIFS for the LAN) and 2 FTP servers. Each pair of servers serves the same content. I use the load balancers to have every service available on a single IP and hostname and the round robin sessions between available servers(except DNS as bind has its own mechanism).
This works well for a small setup like mine but scaling this up becomes more and more difficult to manage. The idea of a smart vm deployment system that can create a vm from a template and configure it appropriately for the cluster and configure the cluster appropriately is a very attractive idea. Of coarse this cannot be open ended or a DOS attack could overwhelm your infrastructure by spawning to many extra vms so you put some safeguards in. only allow the vm count to go up by 25% per day and notify an admin each time etc etc. This can also largely be accomplished with some shell scripts. check load on a number of vms, if it is higher than a threshold and the vm count is less than X then check the load on the VM hosts. Pick the host with the smallest load and bring up a vm on it.
a DOS attach can really only be defended against by having multiple WAN connections. You can configure you servers to behave rationally against these attacks so your infrastructure doesnt crumble but your WAN links will certainly be saturated. Best to start dropping packets instead of rejecting them or even turn down the WAN link for a short interval as the attack may subside when they think they have won(maybe).
ACPI is a weak point in all hypervisors. The future will surely involve VM hosts that give an ACPI interface to VMs as well as smarter clusters that can measure load and bring VM hosts online and take them offline to conserver power or increase resources as needed. We are essentially in the toddler stages of virtualization right now.
For now, I can live with weak ACPI support for guests. I think that management is what needs the most focus right now. Reduce management needs to free up IT resources. In this reguard, virtualization can save labor hours($$) and real dollars on hardware.
can you explain why you think shared memory blocks is a weakness?
The original story didnt really focus on desktop virtualization so that isnt really the target for my comments. I would agree that desktop virt isnt ready for prime time very specifically because it isnt transparent. For it to be so called 'prime time' then there needs to be a whole lot less interface up front.
I used to be a Xen guy but KVM has progressed much more quickly recently and has very similar performance and is much easier (IMHO) to manage.
Here is an example. You can do a small cluster with KVM with just an ubuntu 9.04 server install in an hour. Install ubuntu 9.04 server on 3 machines and pick the virtualization host during the install. On the fourth, install the same way but also install gnome/kde/xfce plus virt-manager. Alternatively install a ubuntu 9.04 desktop system and add virt-manager. On the machine with X on it install nfs-kernel-server and export a directory for storing virtual machines. add a network bridge for KVM. mount the nfs in the same place on all servers that will host VMs and open up virt-manager and make VMs with their storage on the nfs.
Now you have a complete KVM virtualization cluster capable of live migration and direct PCI mapping.
Buy better hardware and make the head node (the one with the storage) better or add an additional NFS file server and have a nicer cluster.
Improve it even more by using AoE or iSCSI for the virtual machines and make sure each VM hosts keeps an updated list of targets.
Other bright spots for KVM are:
1) comes with the kernel, ready out of the box! 2)has provisional support for KVM inside KVM so you could actually farm out virtual servers so customers can run virtual servers inside of theirs 3)PCI passthrough that works and is easy. why do you need this you ask? how about this: asterisk hybridPBX in a VM. Pass a sangoma A200 card through to the VM for PSTN access. also, pass a video card and USB controller through to multihead a single terminal. (xen can do this too but I think KVM does it slightly more eligantly) 4)and the big one is.........shared memory blocks across VMs like VMWare does. Xen cannot do this. 5)and another big big plus is that Xen can live migrate across drastically different CPUs easily. VMWare cannot do this and Xen does not do it well.
I can tell you that a DNS server in KVM uses about 80MB of ram for a small-medium site and 2 DNS servers in KVM use about 100MB of ram with memory block sharing. nice.
Virtualbox is handy. That is exactly how I would describe it. It is not (to me) a production virtualization product. It is great for test environments. Easy way to run XP on linux for native IE rendering of web pages. Handy way access windows only software items from your linux desktop. etc etc. I would definitely not run an email or LDAP server in virtualbox.
I agree that KVM (and XEN) absolutely smoke virtualbox. I run a XenServer cluster at work and have a couple esxi test boxes and a couple Fedora11 (for testing with KVM+virt-manager+PCI mapping) and can say with some experience that all of those solutions are vastly faster than virtualbox on similar hardware.
I do utilize virtualbox for some testing when I need function and quick deployment over speed. It is a good program, but there are much better options for serious virtualization.
I would argue that microsoft plays with knives and tries to cut down the competition but linux plays with sharp toungs and sharp minds and chips away at FUD. So its no so much like those parking garage danger spikes:)
The problem for me with this is that Windows is a poor server OS. The only compelling reason to run Windows servers is active directory and exchange. IIS is not nearly as good as apache or nginx or comanche or lighttpd (specifically, overhead, flexability, security, and performance!)
The costs for many organizations to engineer, deploy, and support windows servers for exchange and sharepoint is equal to or greater that the cost of outsourced/hosted. You can get hosted exchange for under $12/user/month at rackspace which compares well enough to a MCTS for Windows server and exchange as that 55,000 can do well over 350 exchange accounts without a power bill.
A linux server may take some expertise to setup but needs far far less daily upkeep. You can employ many less techs and hire in from the local tech shop for big deployments. I have an email server (ubuntu 6.04) that has been running for over 3 years without any effort on my part. The only downtime it has ever had was when the power failed and it shut down after the UPS was drained. $1200+ about 6 hours config (say $85/h) and no maintenance is something is am sure no windows server can or ever has matched.
back on point here, stop investing time and money is getting windows to run faster virtualized, put those dollars into alternatives to windows software. it has happened before that an OSS alternative (apache) has become so dominant that the big vendors have the alternatives rather than the standard. (bind, apache, sendmail and postfix, courier etc)
This is hideous. Why not work on better compatibility with ms office instead of imitating the look! I am a sysadmin at a company with many thousands of workstations. I cannot switch to open office for anything but basic users because it is not compatible enough with excel. Many things do not come across from excel to oo.
excuse me for not jumping on the newest release for my server deployments.
look at the release cycle. for 8.04 it starts mid '08 and ends mid '13. The problem here is that the next LTS is mid '10. So what if you need a server in February '10? you install 8.04 and get just 2 years of support. Also, it is a common enough practice to not install a new server release until it hits its first update/service pack. On ubuntu that is 6 months and that is were serious sysadmins will start installing it for production.
Also consider that by february '10 the old LTS is getting pretty long in the tooth which means that your brand new server may not even run the *CURRENT* LTS release. There is a gap here. need a backported kernel in there around the odd year october release.
This is not just theory. I have been forced to run 7.04 instead of 6.04LTS because of hardware support. I have a 6.04LTS that was install in early '08 and am now looking at the end of updates on it in a year and a half. They litterally shut down the apt repos and you cant even install old packages.
To clarify my issue here: ubuntu does not include enough DOT releases. They stop doing dot releases when the next LTS comes out when they should do these releases through the next LTS. The example here is to not stop at 6.04.4 just because 8.04.1 came out. Run up to 6.04.06 with the.05 and.06 one per year. If you need a 2 year schedule on the LTS release then you should support for 6 years to fill the potential gap at the end of an LTS cycle.
This way setting up a server near the end of an LTS cycle will still get you 2 years of dot updates.
btw, LTS comes out every 2 years on the dot. get it?, 8.04 is 2008 April.
And 3 years is a very low, very non-typical lifespan of a server and the majority of companies. I routinely see servers running RedHat9 and later which is 6 years and unix systems that were deploy in the last century. I dont expect updates to support new hardware, but keeping the old repos online and providing security patches for more that 3 years is important.
I think that the markets speaks clearly for me on this. Redhat completely dominates the linux server market. Ubuntu may be a heavy hitter on the linux desktop but it does not in the server market despite better genetics(debian) than redhat.
For me, everyone at the local LUG, and many people around the internet, ubuntu's server release cycle is close but not close enough. extend support 1 year and add a couple more dot release, even if you push those to 1 per year instead of 2.
If ubuntu does that, solid gold. seriously, ubuntu is a great server OS for a few years and then it becomes difficult to maintain staying within the package manager and not having to switch to source for updates.
I would also point out that running a non LTS for a server is just about server suicide. Where talking access to repos for 18 months then nothing. apt spits out errors for missing files.
I guess I dont understand why your comment is below my post? I dont deny your statement but I didnt really say the people buy apple because they know steve jobs is there.
I'm saying that people buy apple because of what Steve does, the policies he pushes, the style he demands. People dont care who inovates, and who designs stylish products. Steve makes Apple the go to place for stylish computers.
Debian is my Linux *Server* distro of choice. Ubuntu is great for 2 years or so, but after a LTS expires you start to loose apt repositories. This seems to imply that server hardware and software deployments should only last 3 years or something. What ubuntu gets wrong in the server department is that they provide 3 years of support for a distro FROM RELEASE DAY instead of 3 years support from retirement day. If you run u6.04LTS, it should be retired when 8.04 comes out and have 3 more years of support. How many people are really installing their server on day one??
Go debian for servers, ubuntu for desktops. I do like CentOS simple because so much linux software is well supported on RHEL and theirfore CentOS and because it really is a nice, solid OS.
I will continue to support CentOS despite this.
Oh, and SLES being owned by Novell is just plain wrong. I would touch SLES with Lance Davis' d1ck.
I wouldnt say that is true. Apple can be a company without Stevo, they just cant be a profitable one. They would certainly exist and the would exist simply for PeeCee users to mock like we did when Jobs was of running Next. I miss the days of mocking apples, go away steve!
except that the distro was not in jeopardy, just the domain. CentOS could have simply morphed into MentOS(My Enterprise OS hahaha) or LentOS(Linux entOS) etc etc.
Also, you can convert CentOS into RHEL so if you really needed to jump ship you could ask google.
The major flaw in this reasoning is that it is absolutely illegal (though IMNAL so I cant quote specific laws) for a company to charge a consumer for purchasing a product from another company or creating a product themselves. The power company is a utility and has no right whatsoever to inspect the property of customers and charge fees accordingly.
This kind of announcement can only hurt a regular company. I wonder why a utility thinks they are above it?
Im 100% sure that the first person that gets charged this fee who has any money or balls will sue the power company for a cool mil.
Rediculous. G.O. would roll in his grave if he found out that 1984 was a mild version of the future.
Inbreeding does cause genetic issues but evolution still applies. Over generations the flawed offspring would tend to die at a faster rate than non-inbred populations.
Slashdot Mirror
they are not breaking a contract
"Palm isn't doing what it can to provide compatibility, in fact, what they are doing is illegal in that they are breaking their contract with the USB-IF. Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal."
if you choose to take 99% of a standard and implement it differently that is ok. They may be violating trademark using the USB logo and name but there is no contract that they must honor.
Palm doesnt want to pay a license to connect a Pre to iTunes. Blackberry pays that license. Why should they pay a license so that customers can access data that they have already paid for? Especially when there is no technical limitation? only an ID that needs changed.
Keep in mind that customers install iTunes to buy media from Apple. iTunes is not a product that enables them to play their music. This is not a MSSQL server license where the product is the data store and you must license for the data store, this is a downloader that is provided for free.
Microsoft is a monopoly. They control an overwhelming majority of operating system installs. That is what a monopoly is. That is not to say that monopoly is always bad, just that microsoft certainly qualifies.
Microsoft controlled the choices of operating system on the entire PC industry for a time and that seals them in as a monopoly. You could not buy a complete computer that was compatible with the industries standard programs because microsoft forbid it. Apple didnt control enough market to get enough programs on the mac to change this. The anti-monopoly lawsuits have opened this up somewhat which loosens the grip of microsoft on the industry allowing choice. one of the outcomes was the default browser setting being loosened up and another is allowing a PC vendor to sell a computer with another OS without penatly.
IANAL *BUT* I do believe that Palm can legally do whatever they like with the USB-compatible ports but what they might be doing wrong is continuing to call the port USB. to be USB to must meet the specs, and palm is breaking those specs so might be in trademark violation of the USB name and logo. They could just name the port something else and maintain compatability but I done think it is legit to call the port a USB port.
I would argue this.
Linux may be less prefered for a stand alone desktop mainly because of the windows apps that consumers like to clutter their computers up with. Linux excels in large deployment, standardized desktops.
Simply put, linux workstations are easy to setup against LDAP with NFS home directories. You can tighten the desktops up to limit apps. Use Terminal Server and RDP for necessary windows apps. You can run specific applications on centralized servers and access them via remote X sessions on the local lan or over the internet and tunnel that through compressed ssh tunnels. Got a really heavy app that only a 10 users need? buy one high end workstation instead of 10. LDAP carries usernames and permissions across the network. DNS keeps every server easy to maintain because a DNS change lets you quickly relocate services.
Consider that linux is easily installed via network, can be installed in a reliable software raid environment, and is very very stable when users dont have root access to the box to install software and tweak the system.
You can run your workstations of flash keys. you can net-boot them if you like. LTSP and you can use old hardware and net-boot them.
You can load balance remote apps easily and LDAP handles authentication and NFS handles preferences so your users dont even care about the server they are using. to them, blender.domain.local is all they know, even though that is just the load balancer.
The shortcomings of open source are really that making everything fit a windows environment is difficult because it is a moving target and is actively evading OSS.
I desperately wish I could make fun of you for your paranoia. unfortunately your concerns are terrible necessary considering this(USA) country's shift towards socialism and the opinion of governing bodies that they know what is best for you as well as the tendency to give corporations more rights than citizens.
I can only say for sure what my goals are with virtualization. I have 4 VM Hosts. I run 2 DNS servers that are tiny(128MB and 2GB) on 2 hosts. I have 2 load balancers on different hosts. I have 4 web servers, all serving the same content distributed by the load balancers. some static but most dynamic content. I have 2 mysql servers that replicate but would like to spread the load to 4. I just moved up from 1 mysql server that was on a real machine. I have 2 file servers(CIFS for the LAN) and 2 FTP servers. Each pair of servers serves the same content. I use the load balancers to have every service available on a single IP and hostname and the round robin sessions between available servers(except DNS as bind has its own mechanism).
This works well for a small setup like mine but scaling this up becomes more and more difficult to manage. The idea of a smart vm deployment system that can create a vm from a template and configure it appropriately for the cluster and configure the cluster appropriately is a very attractive idea. Of coarse this cannot be open ended or a DOS attack could overwhelm your infrastructure by spawning to many extra vms so you put some safeguards in. only allow the vm count to go up by 25% per day and notify an admin each time etc etc. This can also largely be accomplished with some shell scripts. check load on a number of vms, if it is higher than a threshold and the vm count is less than X then check the load on the VM hosts. Pick the host with the smallest load and bring up a vm on it.
a DOS attach can really only be defended against by having multiple WAN connections. You can configure you servers to behave rationally against these attacks so your infrastructure doesnt crumble but your WAN links will certainly be saturated. Best to start dropping packets instead of rejecting them or even turn down the WAN link for a short interval as the attack may subside when they think they have won(maybe).
ACPI is a weak point in all hypervisors. The future will surely involve VM hosts that give an ACPI interface to VMs as well as smarter clusters that can measure load and bring VM hosts online and take them offline to conserver power or increase resources as needed. We are essentially in the toddler stages of virtualization right now.
For now, I can live with weak ACPI support for guests. I think that management is what needs the most focus right now. Reduce management needs to free up IT resources. In this reguard, virtualization can save labor hours($$) and real dollars on hardware.
can you explain why you think shared memory blocks is a weakness?
The original story didnt really focus on desktop virtualization so that isnt really the target for my comments. I would agree that desktop virt isnt ready for prime time very specifically because it isnt transparent. For it to be so called 'prime time' then there needs to be a whole lot less interface up front.
I used to be a Xen guy but KVM has progressed much more quickly recently and has very similar performance and is much easier (IMHO) to manage.
Here is an example. You can do a small cluster with KVM with just an ubuntu 9.04 server install in an hour. Install ubuntu 9.04 server on 3 machines and pick the virtualization host during the install. On the fourth, install the same way but also install gnome/kde/xfce plus virt-manager. Alternatively install a ubuntu 9.04 desktop system and add virt-manager. On the machine with X on it install nfs-kernel-server and export a directory for storing virtual machines. add a network bridge for KVM. mount the nfs in the same place on all servers that will host VMs and open up virt-manager and make VMs with their storage on the nfs.
Now you have a complete KVM virtualization cluster capable of live migration and direct PCI mapping.
Buy better hardware and make the head node (the one with the storage) better or add an additional NFS file server and have a nicer cluster.
Improve it even more by using AoE or iSCSI for the virtual machines and make sure each VM hosts keeps an updated list of targets.
Other bright spots for KVM are:
1) comes with the kernel, ready out of the box!
2)has provisional support for KVM inside KVM so you could actually farm out virtual servers so customers can run virtual servers inside of theirs
3)PCI passthrough that works and is easy. why do you need this you ask? how about this: asterisk hybridPBX in a VM. Pass a sangoma A200 card through to the VM for PSTN access. also, pass a video card and USB controller through to multihead a single terminal. (xen can do this too but I think KVM does it slightly more eligantly)
4)and the big one is.........shared memory blocks across VMs like VMWare does. Xen cannot do this.
5)and another big big plus is that Xen can live migrate across drastically different CPUs easily. VMWare cannot do this and Xen does not do it well.
I can tell you that a DNS server in KVM uses about 80MB of ram for a small-medium site and 2 DNS servers in KVM use about 100MB of ram with memory block sharing. nice.
Virtualbox is handy. That is exactly how I would describe it. It is not (to me) a production virtualization product. It is great for test environments. Easy way to run XP on linux for native IE rendering of web pages. Handy way access windows only software items from your linux desktop. etc etc. I would definitely not run an email or LDAP server in virtualbox.
I agree that KVM (and XEN) absolutely smoke virtualbox. I run a XenServer cluster at work and have a couple esxi test boxes and a couple Fedora11 (for testing with KVM+virt-manager+PCI mapping) and can say with some experience that all of those solutions are vastly faster than virtualbox on similar hardware.
I do utilize virtualbox for some testing when I need function and quick deployment over speed. It is a good program, but there are much better options for serious virtualization.
I would argue that microsoft plays with knives and tries to cut down the competition but linux plays with sharp toungs and sharp minds and chips away at FUD. So its no so much like those parking garage danger spikes :)
The problem for me with this is that Windows is a poor server OS. The only compelling reason to run Windows servers is active directory and exchange. IIS is not nearly as good as apache or nginx or comanche or lighttpd (specifically, overhead, flexability, security, and performance!)
The costs for many organizations to engineer, deploy, and support windows servers for exchange and sharepoint is equal to or greater that the cost of outsourced/hosted. You can get hosted exchange for under $12/user/month at rackspace which compares well enough to a MCTS for Windows server and exchange as that 55,000 can do well over 350 exchange accounts without a power bill.
A linux server may take some expertise to setup but needs far far less daily upkeep. You can employ many less techs and hire in from the local tech shop for big deployments. I have an email server (ubuntu 6.04) that has been running for over 3 years without any effort on my part. The only downtime it has ever had was when the power failed and it shut down after the UPS was drained. $1200+ about 6 hours config (say $85/h) and no maintenance is something is am sure no windows server can or ever has matched.
back on point here, stop investing time and money is getting windows to run faster virtualized, put those dollars into alternatives to windows software. it has happened before that an OSS alternative (apache) has become so dominant that the big vendors have the alternatives rather than the standard. (bind, apache, sendmail and postfix, courier etc)
This is hideous. Why not work on better compatibility with ms office instead of imitating the look! I am a sysadmin at a company with many thousands of workstations. I cannot switch to open office for anything but basic users because it is not compatible enough with excel. Many things do not come across from excel to oo.
This ribbon knock off is terrible
more like take a hiatus for 40 days. interesting enough, it seems like maybe Lance is well ahead of us on LentOS with his recent hiatus.
I think that is some sort of sideways analogy to overclocking your server. Im not sure how the physics work but it probably involves 17 dimensions.
excuse me for not jumping on the newest release for my server deployments.
look at the release cycle. for 8.04 it starts mid '08 and ends mid '13. The problem here is that the next LTS is mid '10. So what if you need a server in February '10? you install 8.04 and get just 2 years of support. Also, it is a common enough practice to not install a new server release until it hits its first update/service pack. On ubuntu that is 6 months and that is were serious sysadmins will start installing it for production.
Also consider that by february '10 the old LTS is getting pretty long in the tooth which means that your brand new server may not even run the *CURRENT* LTS release. There is a gap here. need a backported kernel in there around the odd year october release.
This is not just theory. I have been forced to run 7.04 instead of 6.04LTS because of hardware support. I have a 6.04LTS that was install in early '08 and am now looking at the end of updates on it in a year and a half. They litterally shut down the apt repos and you cant even install old packages.
To clarify my issue here: .05 and .06 one per year. If you need a 2 year schedule on the LTS release then you should support for 6 years to fill the potential gap at the end of an LTS cycle.
ubuntu does not include enough DOT releases. They stop doing dot releases when the next LTS comes out when they should do these releases through the next LTS. The example here is to not stop at 6.04.4 just because 8.04.1 came out. Run up to 6.04.06 with the
This way setting up a server near the end of an LTS cycle will still get you 2 years of dot updates.
btw, LTS comes out every 2 years on the dot. get it?, 8.04 is 2008 April.
And 3 years is a very low, very non-typical lifespan of a server and the majority of companies. I routinely see servers running RedHat9 and later which is 6 years and unix systems that were deploy in the last century. I dont expect updates to support new hardware, but keeping the old repos online and providing security patches for more that 3 years is important.
I think that the markets speaks clearly for me on this. Redhat completely dominates the linux server market. Ubuntu may be a heavy hitter on the linux desktop but it does not in the server market despite better genetics(debian) than redhat.
For me, everyone at the local LUG, and many people around the internet, ubuntu's server release cycle is close but not close enough. extend support 1 year and add a couple more dot release, even if you push those to 1 per year instead of 2.
If ubuntu does that, solid gold. seriously, ubuntu is a great server OS for a few years and then it becomes difficult to maintain staying within the package manager and not having to switch to source for updates.
I would also point out that running a non LTS for a server is just about server suicide. Where talking access to repos for 18 months then nothing. apt spits out errors for missing files.
I guess I dont understand why your comment is below my post? I dont deny your statement but I didnt really say the people buy apple because they know steve jobs is there.
I'm saying that people buy apple because of what Steve does, the policies he pushes, the style he demands. People dont care who inovates, and who designs stylish products. Steve makes Apple the go to place for stylish computers.
Debian is my Linux *Server* distro of choice. Ubuntu is great for 2 years or so, but after a LTS expires you start to loose apt repositories. This seems to imply that server hardware and software deployments should only last 3 years or something. What ubuntu gets wrong in the server department is that they provide 3 years of support for a distro FROM RELEASE DAY instead of 3 years support from retirement day. If you run u6.04LTS, it should be retired when 8.04 comes out and have 3 more years of support. How many people are really installing their server on day one??
Go debian for servers, ubuntu for desktops. I do like CentOS simple because so much linux software is well supported on RHEL and theirfore CentOS and because it really is a nice, solid OS.
I will continue to support CentOS despite this.
Oh, and SLES being owned by Novell is just plain wrong. I would touch SLES with Lance Davis' d1ck.
Apple - Jobs = (company in the RED)
Seriously, Jobs is apple. His name might as well be Steve Apple or the company Jobs Computer.
I wouldnt say that is true. Apple can be a company without Stevo, they just cant be a profitable one. They would certainly exist and the would exist simply for PeeCee users to mock like we did when Jobs was of running Next. I miss the days of mocking apples, go away steve!
except that the distro was not in jeopardy, just the domain. CentOS could have simply morphed into MentOS(My Enterprise OS hahaha) or LentOS(Linux entOS) etc etc.
Also, you can convert CentOS into RHEL so if you really needed to jump ship you could ask google.
The major flaw in this reasoning is that it is absolutely illegal (though IMNAL so I cant quote specific laws) for a company to charge a consumer for purchasing a product from another company or creating a product themselves. The power company is a utility and has no right whatsoever to inspect the property of customers and charge fees accordingly.
This kind of announcement can only hurt a regular company. I wonder why a utility thinks they are above it?
Im 100% sure that the first person that gets charged this fee who has any money or balls will sue the power company for a cool mil.
Rediculous. G.O. would roll in his grave if he found out that 1984 was a mild version of the future.
How do you measure the punishment for something you can't measure the crime in?
no, that would be ferric.
Inbreeding does cause genetic issues but evolution still applies. Over generations the flawed offspring would tend to die at a faster rate than non-inbred populations.