[ale] Redhat security updates available on RHN only ?

[Jordi S. Bunster]

On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 04:14:27PM -0700, Joe Bayes wrote:

> Don't they do so already? The packages are GPL'd, so there's nothing
> legal stopping anybody. The technical tools may not exist, but the
> format is public, so anybody who cared enough could write their own
> without too much trouble.

True, people have written implementations of even non-open things. But
the fact theu don't want RHN mirrors, that people can use with up2date,
should tell you something.

Though, I wonder. Besides what Redhat says, what are the disadvantages
of updating Redhat boxen by other means than their up2date tool? Since it's
a rather long time since I use or see Redhat, I really don't know this.
Are they saying that up2date is better for people to try (and maybe pay)
for it?

> I expect that it hasn't happened yet because there's not enough
> demand. RedHat provides excellent service at rock-bottom prices. (I'm
> one of the freeloaders, and I've never had to wait more than 12 hours
> to download the latest packages). I expect most people would rather
> just wait that 12 hours (usually much less, actually) than hunt around
> for a "volunteer" server which is probably swamped anyway. 

I don't hunt. I use a tool provided by the "vendor" that looks for the
mirror with better download speeds (from my location, that is.), and I
usually encourage Debian users to try it. It helps the project a lot to
manage the donated bandwidth. It is called apt-spy.

 -- Jsb


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