Zscoundrel wrote:
> I saw something a while back about this in one of the RH errata lists. 
>  I believe the idea was to stop reinventing the wheel as mySQL was doing 
> a good job of keeping on top of the updates.  

...as do most major open-source projects.  My problem is a big part of 
what I pay RedHat for is making keeping updated with security fixes easy 
and painless.  I've only had one issue where running up2date on a system 
hosed a working configuration (a php/mysql site (not installed via RPM) 
stopped working because the pear php database libraries moved...a simple 
fix).

If I was willing to download packages from around the 'net and make sure 
they work happily in my environment, I wouldn't be paying RedHat (or 
anyone else) money to make this easier for me.

> I would like to see them allow other vendors to roll out updates through 
> the up2date platform.  There would have to be standards requirements, 
> but this way we can specify what we want and it would notify me when new 
> updates are available.  Open Office, mySQL, bluefish and any other major 
> software provider that supports the RH platform could use the channel as 
> long as they have proper testing and verification procedures.

If that happens, the RedHat guys would have to be really good salesmen.

AFAIK, the main reason for RedHat or any of the other disto's to exist 
is because it's a PITA to grab everything you need for a functional 
linux system off the web and compile/maintain it yourself.  If they stop 
doing system-level testing of applications and back-porting security 
bugs, exactly what would they get paid for?  Running some web servers 
and charging folks for bandwidth?  Is RHEL going to become LFS?

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles@steinkuehler.net