"Several months ago, the Fedora Board (in consultation with Red Hat Engineering) decided to increase the length of time that Fedora releases are supported, in terms of updates. This decision was retroactively applied to Fedora Core 5, allowing it to remain a fully maintained release for several months longer than it would have under the old policy. Fedora Core 5 will reach its end of life for updates on Friday June 29th, 2007."
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Member since:2005-07-06
On the one hand, I agree. I'm writing this on a Fedora Core 5.
On the other hand, I'll bet the vast majority of people using Fedora Core 5, like myself, didn't pay one red cent for it. In that case, if we want a maintained version, we ought to contribute something, like perhaps maintaining it ourselves.
If no one's willing to work on it, then it won't get maintained.
Member since:2006-07-24
Which is how marketplace dynamics work in the real world and why Fedora Legacy is no longer around. There were not enough people willing to volunteer their time and energy to providing longer term support to FC releases.
Frankly, I thought that FL was a bad idea from the start and took both human and financial resources away from FC itself.
It drives me crazy when people use Fedora, knowing the rapid pace of development philosophy behind it and then complain about the fact that it is not supported for years.
There are literally hundreds of Linux distros out there and as we all note, choice is a good thing. Make an informed decision.
If you want a (b)leading edge distro, then understand the pros and cons of that choice. If you are willing to accept them, then Fedora is a great distro and for you. I am on FC6 (soon F7), having used RH distros since RH 8.0.
If you want a distro that will be 'stable' and supported for years, then Fedora isn't for you or your company. Use RH or CentOS.
Edited 2007-05-03 19:15
Member since:2005-07-13
In fairness, it's a case of using the right tool for the right job. Fedora never claimed to be a platform optimized for long term, stable deployments; I remember back when I jumped back into linux with FC3, it wasn't even recommended for any sort of production use, it's bleeding edge nature was what attracted me to it as a re-entry point.
If all you need is xterm/emacs/vim/whatever and value stability, then really, Fedora isn't the ideal distro. Debian stable is ideally suited to that sort of situation, or even CentOS if you want to stay in the RH fold.
It's also a question of perceived need; the Fedora legacy project (I believe that was the name) was intended to provide longer term support for older releases, but simply failed to generate enough interest. I just don't think that's Fedora's target market.
Member since:
2005-07-08
Hmm, Fedora 5 was released on March 20, 2006. It will be EOF'ed after 14 months of existence. That's NOT ok.
Personnaly, I don't care: I always install the newest release when it comes out. However, I know alot of people who HATE reinstalling/upgrading because they have no time to do it and they simply cannot take the chance to break their system.
I know someone who still use a pre-Sarge version of Debian because moving to a newer version of Linux/GCC/etc would break half of his setup. Hopefully, he's using Debian.
I clearly understand that maintening old versions is hard and boring but in the 'nix world, there's no hurry to upgrade. After all, most software we use were written 20 years ago so why do we need to upgrade? New version of Gnome/KDE? Not really useful when all you need is xterm/emacs/vim/whatever ;-)