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I guess I won't be working in your NOC, then. :-)
m0n0wall, as you point out, is a pretty safe beta to run, but I
wouldn't be silly enough to run beta software without fully testing
it. To this end, we set up 1.2b9 on a test net and then banged the
crap out of it for a few days. No problems to report. We then moved
it over to a production link, and it's been working flawlessly.
It has been my experience that many open source projects tend to be
overly conservative about the use of the word 'beta'. In my
development shop, software listed as 'beta' would never be made
available to the general public--only to a select group of testers. I
believe that the word 'beta' is used so conservatively as a CYA
measure. Most open source developers don't have the resources to set
up a "proper" test environment, so they throw "beta" software out for
the public to test. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at
all, but it does cause me to *generally* view beta open source
software as higher quality and more thoroughly tested than beta
proprietary software.
Note that, by the way, I'd do exactly the same level of testing with
a new *production* version of m0n0wall as I'd do with a *beta*
version. Just because it's not beta, doesn't mean it doesn't need to
be tested.
Chris
On Aug 12, 2005, at 11:44 AM, Robert Staph wrote:
> Some people get away with running beta software in a production
> environment. I'd have to say that m0n0wall is one of the safer beta
> software out there in relation to that. I've got a 1.2b9 thats
> been up since the day it was out, no issues, but its not on a
> production level connection.
>
> But still, if you think beta is perfectly fine for a 100% uptime
> production environment, I wouldn't want you working in my NOC.
>
> -Rob
>
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