Discussion on LTS OSes
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I understand that having a copy of an email chain is really handy because it means that, unless intent to defraud, is involved, it shows exactly what was said and not "how things were remembered." And sure, that has great value. But if the issue is proof or trust, it doesn't help because that's easily recreated.
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@stacksofplates said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@stacksofplates said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
By the "observation isn't proof" issue, we can never prove that support even exists. Because we can only prove that support has ever existed by someone having gotten support, observing that it happened, and reporting it. If we don't believe observation, then the entire concept of support is ephemeral in both directions.
So by that logic, that there is no proof of support or lack of support, LTS is worthless, as is all support, because you can't prove support.
This is a slippery slope that makes no sense.
No you can definitely prove support, I can easily provide communication between myself and a company that has offered or denied support. What you can't do is prove support or lack of support by word of mouth.
How can you prove it? That they did or did not support you is just hearsay to us. Just as that they didn't support me is just heresay to you. How is your getting or not getting support different than me getting or not getting support?
Again I can provide the original communication between myself and the company. You haven't provided that. You've just told us they said something over 10 years ago.
Definitely not that long ago. About 7 years. A while, but that's a lot less than over ten.
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@stacksofplates said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Again I can provide the original communication between myself and the company.
Okay, so you are talking about a recording of the conversation when you request support. Which, I agree, is highly useful. But still requires proving who the parties are, not tampering, etc.
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Locking to fork.
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Should be unlocked now. And... go...
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I am circling back to this, however I am seeing that if LTS is bad and the only bad things are the Software vendors then on that rationale Unifi and Zimbra are bad.
Zimbra just started Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Support (previously only beta)
https://zimbra.org/download/zimbra-collaborationUnifi is semi supported on the new version of 19.04 and 19.10 of Ubuntu and Debian but here they put the requirements very loosely and with the Mongodb and Java8 dependency that is old as well
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012282453#2 -
@dbeato said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
then on that rationale Unifi and Zimbra are bad.
Absolutely. You might not agree, but that is exactly what I am saying. Zimbra, for example, relies on not keeping their components up to date (this is a major problem with them across the board and they abandoned their product update plans entirely two years ago!) and this not only is indicative of their overall problems, but also causes updates to be very painful on their platform and, likely, contributes to their performance overhead.
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@dbeato said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
Unifi is semi supported on the new version of 19.04 and 19.10 of Ubuntu and Debian but here they put the requirements very loosely and with the Mongodb and Java8 dependency that is old as well
Yes, while I love Ubiquiti, these aren't good aspects of their software. Unifi itself is not their core product, so the scale of the impact is relatively minor, but they clearly struggle with system and component updates. Relying on LTS exposes problems that, if you dig, you can find playing out elsewhere.
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@dbeato said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
Zimbra just started Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Support (previously only beta)
And while the LTS dependency is an symptom, not the problem, it's a symptom of a problem that is why we looked to other products and have now been deploying and using MailCow for projects and why NTG moved to Zoho. Zimbra stagnated and while it still gets some limited patches, years of promised updates have been canceled and Zimbra is struggling to keep something going for customers. Using LTS was just one way that they were able to hide the inability to keep innovating or updating the product, but in the end, that turned out to be the problem. One that they claim that they are trying to recover from, but they claimed that two years ago and canceled those plans silently.
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NextCloud does the same. Only LTS builds are listed under System Requirements
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/17/admin_manual/installation/system_requirements.html
Ansible Tower only has LTS Operating systems as well.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/installandreference/requirements_refguide.html
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@IRJ said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
NextCloud does the same. Only LTS builds are listed under System Requirements
They've stated that that list is only tested, not requirements. We've spoken to them before and Fedora 30 is tested. Their doc just isn't updated.
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@IRJ said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
Ansible Tower only has LTS Operating systems as well.
That one is a little unfair, it's made by and sponsored by a vendor that only sells LTS products. Yes, it only supports LTS, but only current LTS from its sponsored vendor and even the old LTS from Ubuntu is slated for removal. Ansible does this for business reasons in that they are directly financially tied to an LTS release.
We'll have to see how Stream plays out, but CentOS 8 isn't necessarily LTS anymore, right? So Ansible might be moving from LTS to non-LTS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
@IRJ said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
Ansible Tower only has LTS Operating systems as well.
That one is a little unfair, it's made by and sponsored by a vendor that only sells LTS products. Yes, it only supports LTS, but only current LTS from its sponsored vendor and even the old LTS from Ubuntu is slated for removal. Ansible does this for business reasons in that they are directly financially tied to an LTS release.
We'll have to see how Stream plays out, but CentOS 8 isn't necessarily LTS anymore, right? So Ansible might be moving from LTS to non-LTS.
You mean CentOS Stream isn’t necessarily LTS anymore?
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@black3dynamite said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
@scottalanmiller said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
@IRJ said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
Ansible Tower only has LTS Operating systems as well.
That one is a little unfair, it's made by and sponsored by a vendor that only sells LTS products. Yes, it only supports LTS, but only current LTS from its sponsored vendor and even the old LTS from Ubuntu is slated for removal. Ansible does this for business reasons in that they are directly financially tied to an LTS release.
We'll have to see how Stream plays out, but CentOS 8 isn't necessarily LTS anymore, right? So Ansible might be moving from LTS to non-LTS.
You mean CentOS Stream isn’t necessarily LTS anymore?
That's what I'm thinking. I've not seen enough about it to determine that, but the description sure makes it sound like it is not. Basically, CentOS 8 Stream sounds like they learned from the LTS problems of the past and are removing the LTS nature, as much as possible, to allow the name to be retained so that vendors and gov't agencies see it as what they want while providing package updates anyway.
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@scottalanmiller So what was the normal stable release cycle back in the days, LTS or release when its ready?
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@black3dynamite said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
@scottalanmiller So what was the normal stable release cycle back in the days, LTS or release when its ready?
LTS is different than release cycle. You can release an LTS every day or one a century. Generally you tie release cycles and support length together in some way, but it's always a loose association.
Back in the day everything was LTR and LTS because there was no mechanisms to make things faster. Software engineering was waterfall, releases were physical media, documentation was in print form, etc. Had to be.
The Internet, modern development practices, decentralized software engineering, and abstraction platforms have fundamentally changed everything about how software can be approached. So the ability for rapid release, including rolling, is relatively new in any real way.
LTS support used to be a necessity because if you tie STS (short term support) with LTR (long term release) you get gaps where you have no supported product. Clearly that doesn't work. Support time has to be longer than release time or you get problems. Example Ubuntu Current (called Normal) has a 6mo release cycle, and a 9mo support cycle. So you get halfway through the next release before they require that you update to maintain support. If their support was only 3mo, at best if you updated on release day you'd still be without support 50% of the time
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@scottalanmiller said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
The Internet, modern development practices, decentralized software engineering, and abstraction platforms have fundamentally changed everything about how software can be approached. So the ability for rapid release, including rolling, is relatively new in any real way.
Can you explain more about modern development practices and decentralized software engineering? Are you including the good and the bad for the reason behind LTS and rapid release operating systems and applications?
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@black3dynamite said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
@scottalanmiller said in Discussion on LTS OSes:
The Internet, modern development practices, decentralized software engineering, and abstraction platforms have fundamentally changed everything about how software can be approached. So the ability for rapid release, including rolling, is relatively new in any real way.
Can you explain more about modern development practices and decentralized software engineering? Are you including the good and the bad for the reason behind LTS and rapid release operating systems and applications?
Modern in the sense that so many things have changed. Today we have code control, continuous integration, automated deployments, agile methodologies, vastly larger collaborative library structures, more modern IDEs, and patterns. Decentralized meaning teams don't need to sit in a room anymore. They can work from home, from around the world, using different tools, etc. Open source has added the ability for people from around the world to work full or part time, voluntarily, etc.
Abstraction libraries from Java and .NET to PHP or Meteor or Laravel... we not get way more of our software from underlying libraries than we used to. A major software product might only be 5% original code and 95% library code. Updates and maintenance of the entire stack is important in ways that it never was before.
LTS is great in that it provides support for people who need it. It's bad in that it tempts companies on both the software side and IT side to not keep things updated and allowing risk to mount.
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/wtb tags
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Another reason to hate at least one LTS...
CentOS 8 will not provide an upgrade path from CentOS 7.
https://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=16116
There are no plans for the CentOS core team to support or package leapp but if there is sufficient support from the community to provide copies amended for CentOS then they could be released as part of a SIG. However, given the current lack of support for the preupgrade tool to migrate from CentOS 6 to 7 and the total lack of response to all calls for volunteers to package that, I would not be optimistic about it happening.
