openSLE discussions

[microchip8]

The reduction of the support duration for openSUSE from 24 to 18 months has sparked a discussion among the openSUSE community about a free SUSE Linux version with long-term support. Several community members are of the opinion that reducing the openSUSE support has created a gap between the free openSUSE and the commercially supported SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).

Long-term support for free SUSE Linux discussed - News - The H Open Source: News and Features

[Caleb_IX]

Why is the support in openSUSE not any more 24 Months?? Is this not a disadvantage in comparison with other distros??

[microchip8]

I vaguely remember that one of the reasons was that there's a lot of maintenance going on (security, patches, bugfixes) which puts a lot of burden on those doing it so by shortening the support time, it releases some of it. Currently, SUSE supports three versions at the same time and has for each one of them push patches and fixes if needed. That's a lot of auditing so by shortening the time, older versions will be phased out sooner, thus relieving those who are responsible for fixes and securities. The downside is that one has to upgrade sooner than previously to a newer version when support for his current version ends.

[ReferenceSeete]

Well officially the support term hasn't been reduced to 18 months, rather it's "2 versions + 2 months". It's just that the support term is 18 months given an 8 month release cycle.

So...if the community wants a longer support term, it should push for a longer release cycle. If openSUSE was released every 12 months then each release would receive 26 months of support according to this announcement.

[Caleb_IX]

Originally Posted by microchip8

I vaguely remember that one of the reasons was that there's a lot of maintenance going on (security, patches, bugfixes) which puts a lot of burden on those doing it so by shortening the support time, it releases some of it. Currently, SUSE supports three versions at the same time and has for each one of them push patches and fixes if needed. That's a lot of auditing so by shortening the time....

And now there is a discussion to compensate this with a "new version" of openSUSE??!! Sorry but this dosnt make sance for me!

The only result of this last minut maneuver is...

1. to get a lot of stick in all it-forums i saw...

2. make a disorder with varios suse products and noboy can keep track of this...

[john_hudson]

I wonder how many people do not upgrade within 18 months already. I have certainly never waited that long even though I have skipped a version.

By that time, there are in any case so many good reasons for upgrading.

It seems to me that anyone who needs a distro for longer than this should either be using an enterprise version or moving to Gentoo.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

I wonder how many people do not upgrade within 18 months already. I have certainly never waited that long even though I have skipped a version.

By that time, there are in any case so many good reasons for upgrading.

There can be various reasons for not updating. There was a time when I had SuSE-9.3 running on a PC at the same time as openSUSE-10.3 was released and running on other PCs at our home. I had a program where development had been stalled, and it would only build/run on SuSE-9.3 but not any of the 10.x series. That program was important to me. (That problem has now been addressed as development resumed on that app, and that app runs on openSUSE-11.x series).

Also, I remotely maintain my mother's PC, she lives a continent away, and I try to visit her once/year, but its not always possible. Hence it may be 24 months, or even 36 months between my updating her openSUSE to a newer version. I am not going to do a major version update on-line, as if I mess up, her PC won't boot and I'm too far away to remotely fix a major mess up.

There can also be various other reasons why one wants to sit for many years with a stable version of openSUSE.

Originally Posted by john_hudson

It seems to me that anyone who needs a distro for longer than this should either be using an enterprise version or moving to Gentoo.

Without reading the mailing list comments, my "off the cuff" preference would be a CentOS-style model which involves creating a free "openSLE" version from the available SLES source code packages.

While I note the statement that the various discussions bring out pros and cons of each approach, I'm not particularly keen on joining the mailing lists to find out the pros and cons. ... The SuSE/openSUSE diversity in communications with forum users like me refusing to participate in mailing lists, and mailing list users refusing to participate in the openSUSE forum, is a big problem. Perhaps "demarcation" (between lists/forums) is a better word, and it is an ongoing SuSE/openSUSE problem, that also needs to be addressed, but this thread is not the place for this discussion (although I know this lack of lateral communication is a problem with SuSE/openSUSE).

If SLED had the 3rd party support that openSUSE has, I would consider SLED, but SLED does not have such support, and hence I won't use SLED. And hence I will have to live with the 2 release + 2 months life cycle.

[Chrysantine]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

It seems to me that anyone who needs a distro for longer than this should either be using an enterprise version or moving to Gentoo.

Because we're not interested in paying Novell a dime for the time and effort we're putting into the distribution already.

Gentoo is a piece of floating turd - one of the worst Linux distributions I have, unfortunately, ever tried. We're talking about people who want to have an OS installed for a long time, with patches and binary packages right out of the box.

[consused]

Originally Posted by john_hudson

I wonder how many people do not upgrade within 18 months already. I have certainly never waited that long even though I have skipped a version.

Good point. I never waited that long, even though skipping a version.

It's important to maintain a significant release overlap time since openSUSE can take 6 months from relaese to correct even important bugs, and layoffs won't have helped.

Originally Posted by oldcpu

The SuSE/openSUSE diversity in communications with forum users like me refusing to participate in mailing lists, and mailing list users refusing to participate in the openSUSE forum, is a big problem. Perhaps "demarcation" (between lists/forums) is a better word, and it is an ongoing SuSE/openSUSE problem, that also needs to be addressed, but this thread is not the place for this discussion (although I know this lack of lateral communication is a problem with SuSE/openSUSE).

Well said, oldcpu. I agree exactly with your point, and without further discussion here.