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💡 Newskategorie: Linux Tipps
🔗 Quelle: reddit.com
In contrast to the Linux ecosystem, Microsoft Windows contains of the software and the software distribution. A typical invention of Microsoft is the patch Tuesday, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Tuesday which is a fixed day every month in which updates are provided to the end-user. Such an update announcement was available for older Windows versions in the 1990s and it is available for Windows 10 as well. According to the Wikipedia article, Windows 10 is updated with so called Thresholds with a long time interval.
For reason of simpler description let us focus on the original patch Tuesday. The basic idea was, that the system gets once a month an update. From the end-user's perspective this makes sense. On that day, the admin installs the update, reboots the machine and everything runs smooth. The open question is how are these updates are produced by Microsoft?
The answer is, that between creating an update, and applying an update there is a time lag. Microsoft programmers are writing code every day 24/7. But this code isn't shipped on the same day to the end-user but it's collected in a version control system. Only the accumulated improvements are shipped to the end-user on the patch Tuesday. In the language of Linux distribution this is equal to a stable release distribution. It is realized with a stable branch which contains of frozen code from the development branch.
Microsoft has used this workflow since the beginning. At the same time, the Linux community was wondering if stable release or rolling release is the better choice. Today's situation is, that many (more than 50% of the Linux users) are arguing, that rolling release distributions like Fedora, Arch Linux and Debian testing can be installed on a production PC. It's interesting that Microsoft never has recommended it's customer in doing so. Microsoft has delivered from the beginning only the stable release version and 100% of the admins have installed only this version on a production machine.
Lots of effort was wasted in the Linux community by arguing for the advantages and disadvantages of stable release systems. For example, Arch Linux users are convinced, that their system is superior to Debian and to Windows 10 both. From Arch Linux perspective, the Debian guys are wrong if they advice that users to install only the stable version, and Microsoft is wrong too, because they recommend also to install only the stable version.
The future question for the Linux community is, how to make stable release distribution the default and threat rolling release systems are beta versions not intended for daily use case. The answer has to do with describe the software development workflow from an academic point of view. As far as i can see, there is not a single paper available at Google Scholar which explains what the idea of Arch Linux is, and why the concept is different from Windows 10 release versions. Without an academic description the average user won't understand the software cycle at all and this will slowdown the success of Open Source.
Patch day
Let us go back to the Microsoft Windows patch day. On the first look, it seems to be less important fact, that the updates are not provided day by day, but on a single day in the month. It is some sort of technical decision in doing so and in theory it is possible to update the system in smaller steps as well? No, the decision of combining updates into larger one is needed for improving the software quality. It is equal to a release branch, a peer review of the code and the ability to monitor security problems.
If Microsoft would decide to switch from stable releases to rolling releases and implement the Arch Linux working model, this is equal to the end of the software company. The software quality will become worse, the customer are not satisfied by the software and it's not possible to fix the issues, because every version is introducing new problems.
Deliver software updates with longer time span and avoid a rolling release system is a critical decision in every software project. No matter if the software is created as Open Source or copyright protected classical software, in both cases the stable release with a low update frequency is the only allowed management principle for ensuring the maximum quality. On the other hand, software which is produced with a rolling release cycle like the Android nightly builds or the Google Chrome project are some kind of non working code. It isn't recommended to install such software on a PC. If Google claims, that the Chrome browser doesn't need a long term version, Google is wrong. They haven't understood how software development works and they should be educated.
In contrast, Microsoft, Debian and Red Hat are experts in software development. All of them are preferring stable release systems with a low update frequency. That sounds a bit surprising because the software license is very different. Microsoft is selling closed source software, Debian is delivering open source software, and Red hat offers a product for a monthly fee which is based on Linux. All these software is recommended for practical usage. The end user won't have any problems and he can run a server or a workstation easily.
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