+1 On 2/22/20 5:41 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote: > I'm an independent electronics inventor, heavily dependent > on both competent software and competent laboratory science, > both for the knowledge I depend on and the tools I use to > transform that knowledge into products and services for > my customers. > > SL has been a very good tool for that. Thanks to all who > have contributed. > > I depend on "benign neglect" for a stable computing > platform - just enough funding and staffing to fix urgent > problems, but not continuously mutate the platform to > conform to ephemeral fashion or management whim. > > I moved /from/ Windows to gain that stability, even if > that limits the choice of new widgets I can attach to my > (older) computers. I have plenty of replacement-spare > old widgets, and I don't need the distraction of a > rapidly mutating platform optimized for market churn > and planned-obsolescence sales. > > I'm actually glad that Microsoft, Apple, and IBM are > busily churning those markets, because it keeps their > customers distracted and not bothering me with those > distractions while I think and work. The hardware cast > off by the fashion-chasers is still abundant on eBay, > and I have enough of it to last me for life (except > for the batteries and backlights for my old Thinkpads). > > I presume there are enough like me, some of whom are on > this list, that we can continue to carve out a community > space on top of CentOS, focused on inquiry and reliability. > > If CentOS 9 or 10 or 11 goes off the rails, there are > enough of us here to tweak CentOS 7 or 8 into something > we can continue to use, just like Linux was "in the good > old days". > > While "security by obscurity" is not optimum, I presume a > smaller community of impoverished science geeks is a less > tempting target for professional software criminals than > million-dollar IT departments for billion-dollar > corporations and governments, or billions of hapless > consumers. We are part of the global target, but we are > unlikely to attract specific attention from the bad guys. > > And while we still benefit from the use of servers at > Fermilabs for our "static" distro and our active mailing > list, perhaps we should have a backup plan for migration > in case some bureaucrat decides to pull the plug on us. > That has /always/ been a risk for what we do here; we are > one presidential tweet away from Saint Louis USDA exile. > > As a community of scientific, like-minded Linux users, > let's begin to prepare a rudimentary plan B, and hope > that we never need to implement it. > > Keith >