Re: Online Update vs System Update?

Chris Cox wrote:
Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
Pat wrote:
houghi wrote:
Pat wrote:
Well, I'm primarily thinking of updates, since these normally contain
bug fixes and security improvements that make an application more
stable.
You are confusing two things. New features and security fixes.
Well, I just came from the Windows worlds where MS updates often
included both! ;^)

So I take it security fixes and bug fixes are treated separately?
It's just that openSUSE treats them that way. When a new version of a
program comes out, openSUSE won't include it if it has a different minor
version. It only includes new patch versions.

Yes, that's not good. But it means less work for the openSUSE
maintainers. Yes, I think they're lazy.

Not lazy... but smart.

Do you really want a new version of a product with new configuration
syntax, etc. to decimate your environment (potentially)?

Feature adds create instability. Obviously nothing prevents someone
from downloading source, etc. and moving off of the normal support
path. But by NOT doing new features as a regular part of supported
updates, this keeps the platform "supportable".

Call it lazy or whatever, nobody can support 1,000,000+ different
configurations (which is what you'd have if everyone was running
at various different levels of individual products).

This practice is not being done out of laziness, but rather what
is feasible.
Whatever the security fixes are on older versions are (I assume) already
included in the newer versions so you really don't need the security
updates if you keep current with program versions.
If they have security updates for the new versions fine, otherwise I
don't need the old patches for the new versions. A lot of KDE stuff is
version updated weekly.
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Online Update vs System Update?
    ... New features and security fixes. ... So I take it security fixes and bug fixes are treated separately? ... When a new version of a program comes out, openSUSE won't include it if it has a different minor version. ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)