Eric Rostetter wrote:
Let's look at this from the OS "community" point of view...
...
I thought, yeah, I
can live with that. That won't impact me in any real way. I don't have
a problem with that. I didn't think about others. I didn't try to come
up with other solutions. I didn't try to foresee problems and try to
correct them. I didn't think to check that the documentation was in place.
I didn't think to notify distributions, or packagers, or any one else. I
didn't seek to publicize this in either a positive or negative light. In
short, I failed as a community member. And a lot of others did too.
So let's learn from this. Let's make this a better community around
clamav. The best way to stop this kind of stuff is to take an active
role in the community, not to bitch about it to the project leaders after
we fail to show any interest in it.
Yes, we all know that something had to be done, but just two days
ago, the argument most definitely was that there was **NO** other
option - absolutely no other option and this was the **ONLY** way
to do it.
For six months, there was NO argument at all. That is where the system
failed... What happened in the last week is not the problem. It is the
fall out of the problem. The problem is apathy. The solution is an active
community.
Thanks. That is probably the most constructive thing said in the last few days.
Not in this particular saga as I wasn't involved, but in other areas
I would have to say I could hold my hand up and say guilty of all
those at some time or other - it can be hard to see things from a
perspective outside of your own little box. And it's even easier to
look back after the fact and say "that's not how I'd do it" - I've
even done that about some of my own decisions from time to time.
It was a real eye opener for me when I changed jobs a few years ago -
going from being personally responsible for all the technical stuff
(and then some more) in the company and having an intimate knowledge
of the networks, servers etc; and suddenly there I was on the other
side of the fence having to deal with a multitude of different setups
that I wasn't familiar with. I suddenly realised just what a hard
time I'd given some of those (well paid) consultants over the
previous years.
What we may, in hindsight, think of as being a ridiculous decision,
probably seemed like a good idea at the time to those who had to make
it - given their perspective of the world.
The positive thing everyone can take away from this is a better
realisation of the diversity of ways people manage systems, and the
diversity of views on how it should be done.
Paul Reading wrote:
Sorry to but-in.. I have just wasted a day trying to get my
companies mail working again. We have an Apple xServe and knew
nothing about clamav until we stopped receiving our email this
morning. I don't know how you could have communicated with us on
this one but perhaps it would have been better if you had somehow
got Apple to update their customers by software update so that the
un-initiated would not have needed to worry about this.
Here we have a prime example of the sort of user that's been really
let down over this. I would have to hold my hand up and admit that it
is to a certain extent my own fault for running older software, and
that I have a route to fix it myself, but this chap is running what
to him is "an appliance". There are a great many such appliances
about, and many of them will be running older software for various
reasons - in the case of OSX, there's a not inconsiderable cost in
upgrading the server version between major releases, and (probably
not relevant to an Xserve) an artificial restriction on age of
hardware the newer versiosn will install on. For this class of user,
a vendor (in this case Apple) has done all the porting and
integration so that the user just has to administer it via a front
end GUI - it's not reasonable to expect the user to learn about
coding, building software etc.
It would be a good idea though for the vendor to be proactive in
making sure the user they took money from isn't left in such a
situation. Reading a few of the comments suggests Apple don't really
have an official EoL policy/statement for OS X, and that they do
sometimes do updates for older versions.
At least in Apple's case, they will have a partial list of users
since the default is for a new install of the OS to bring up a
registration program so you can register with Apple. it would have
been nice if they'd used some of that information to notify those
they could.
What version Apple provide I don't know - whilst I've run Xserves, I
wasn't using the mail on them and it was some time ago. AFAIK, Apple
do push updates to such third party packages with Software Update -
as far as the user is concerned, this is an Apple supplied package
and Apple provide the updates even if it is an open source program.
--
Simon Hobson
Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.
_______________________________________________
Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net
http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
