[OpenIndiana-discuss] Rolling release considered harmful

[Reginald Beardsley]

 A response to a couple of Judah's posts.

I experiment with many operating systems including Plan 9 for which I got one of the first release floppies at Usenix '95 and chatted about it with Dennis for about 20-30 minutes.

My interest in OI is not curiosity. I want a stable, industrial strength OS and OI/Illumos has to date been my best option. I've used over a dozen non-Unix model OSes and close to 2 dozen Unix model OSes. Possibly more.

I do *not* want to be running alpha software for production use, even in the context of a single user, home environment. I'm quite happy to run alpha software for internet access, but not for my main system. For that I require the near bullet proof quality of traditional SunOS.

Over the years I've watched many names disappear from the OI mailing list. I do not know if they still are using OI or not. Many of those are of my generation and frame of mind. I have gotten personal emails from some supporting my comments, but many appear to be gone forever. They are a significant loss.

In short, if I am forced to run raw alphas I shall go elsewhere if I can find something with better QC and QA. After 30+ years using SunOS I should like to bring OI to the state that it has a stable, tested branch. I have no objection to alphas, but I don't consider alphas as the only option acceptable.

The hallmark of SunOS has always been robustness and reliability. If that is gone, there is nothing left of interest other than the corpse. And I prefer to avoid those.

Reg