Being one of those who develops solutions which include Linux, one of
the reasons we do like "Enterprise Linux" is that it's pretty much been
forged into steel by the time it's declared "Enterprise", and it's
likely to stay stable for a year or more. Getting new updates and
upgrades on the fly is great for desktop users who know what they want,
but servers and basic "data Entry" users (call centers, sales clerks,
secrataries, and other non-technical types) aren't as fond of change as
developers, engineers, and managers.
When you are rolling out 100,000 workstations to people's desktops, you
really don't want to get to the 99,999th one and then find out that you
need to "upgrade" immediately because a serious problem was found.
It's one of the reasons most business wait about 1 year before actually
deploying a new version of Windows.
Servers are even more change-sensitive. Very often, a project will
start as a pilot using the very latest software available, and by the
time the final version is ready to be switched on to the public, often
12-18 months later, that "newest version" is nearly "obsolete".
Unfortunately, managers are very reluctant to take a fully functional
working server and upgrade major components - just because the
distributor tells them to do so.
Even when fixes are deployed, it's often after 3-6 months of regression
testing and stress testing on a system nearly identical to the
production engine.
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