[Asterisk-doc] Re: I'm thinking that FTP makes more sense for Volume One than CVS does

[Greg Varga]

Just a side note on binaries from a net admin with about 20 servers to take care of.

I always try my VERY best not to use compiled source code to install on any of 
my servers.  Once you start compiling code for installation, you have to 
maintain that source code install.  This can take a huge junk of an admin's time 
and will grow with each server that gets added.

Being able to do a yum check-update / update (or ... insert your package 
manager) is essencial for any admin who has to take care of a large install 
base.  Altho Asterisk has not been installed into a site with a large number of 
servers, I'm sure it will get there. Having binary forms of Asterisk would be 
SOOOO nice when that happens. (And I'll be doing it as soon as possible) :)

Thanks,
   --Greg

Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
> jim at digitalchemy.ca writes:
> 
> 
>>FTP is the delivery mechanism that most people will expect to use.
>>Administrators all know FTP; I would suspect that CVS is a far less common
>>skill amongst Linux admins (you might argue that a good Linux admin should 
>>know CVS, but I'm not so concerned about what skills people _should_ have, 
>>what matters is what skills people _do_ have).
> 
> 
> In fact, I'd guess most Linux admins these days prefer prepackaged
> binaries in formats like rpm, and get uncomfortable if you ask them to
> compile something.  What's more, there's nothing wrong with that.  The
> UNIX world is changing, in the direction of systems that can be set
> up, configured, and maintained, without even installing a compiler on
> them.  People who don't want to learn about building and installing
> software from source code shouldn't be forced to.  They can be good
> sysadmins without doing that.  At least I try hard to think so.  ;-)
> 
> In addition to the CVS 1-0 stable branch, tar-ed up source code kits
> should be made available of 1.0.0, 1.0.1, &c, and, as far as possible,
> so should prepackaged binaries for the most common platforms.  Such
> kits, along with documents in pdf that explain how to install and
> configure this baby, will do wonders for the adoption of Asterisk out
> there in the real world, where sysadmins need to be result-oriented.
> 
> Meanwhile, us old farts can happily stick to using software that we
> periodically update from CVS, build, install -- and debug.  :-)
> 
> -tih