[Kolab-devel] Moving the reference platform one step forward

[Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems)]

On 2015-03-18 17:50, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Mar 2015 17:35:47 +0100
> "Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems)" <vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I would appreciate your comments and ideas before the official hammer 
>> comes down ;-)
>> 
> I can only speak for my own company but here RHEL 7.x will not be an
> issue before ultimo 2016, maybe even 2017.
> 
> When have approx. 350 RHEL servers running 1% RHEL 4, 45% RHEL 5, and
> 64% RHEL 6 and to my understanding this is the general landskab in RHEL
> land.
> 
> The reason for holding back on RHEL 7 is that RHEL 7 is fundamentally
> different from RHEL < 7 which means a wast majority of administrative
> scripts and automation infrastructure will need a substantial rewrite.
> You should also bare in mind that RHEL 6 will be supported until
> November 30, 2020.
> 

Yes, I acknowledge the facts of life and I'm not saying support for 
Enterprise Linux 6 will be dropped completely from the Kolab community. 
Our reference platform is not, has not been and will not be the sole 
platform (version) supported.

However, the Kolab community moves forward not unlike Fedora moves 
forward -- not free of bugs, but more importantly, preferably not 
burdened with legacy.

It is largely up to people-on-payroll to run in the necessary tedious 
circles to ensure legacy remains entertained, as one cannot require a 
volunteer to entertain enterprisey needs in his/her spare time.

For as far as corporations and other organizations with professional IT 
departments seek to continue to run primarily Enterprise Linux 6 and/or 
generally avoid Enterprise Linux 7; those have two options:

   #.  Participate in the Kolab community ensuring the community releases 
continue to run correctly on Enterprise Linux 6, either doing the work 
themselves or getting someone to do it for them, which may or may not 
include Kolab Systems employees, any of its partners, and/or 
funding/sponsoring community members in monetary form or otherwise 
(event trip's expenses, beer @ FOSDEM, you name it),

   #.  Install a long-term supported Kolab Enterprise release under 
professional support.

For the record, we (Kolab Systems) are also running in to the platform 
upgrade conundrum ourselves (from RHEL 6 to RHEL 7).

Kind regards,

Jeroen van Meeuwen

-- 
Systems Architect, Kolab Systems AG

e: vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com
m: +41 79 951 9003
w: https://kolabsystems.com

pgp: 9342 BF08