Les Mikesell wrote: > On 9/17/2010 3:30 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: >> >>> All I'm saying is that it often turns out to be a whole lot more work >>> than the initial 'configure, make, make install', so you either have to >>> train the users to do their own copies in their own space so it will >>> scale, or be very careful about how much of this you take on. And I'm >>> saying this from experience. It's not much different from writing your >>> own code where the initial cut is about 10% of the work of maintaining >>> it - and if the upstream project goes away or takes a direction not >>> compatible with your use, that's where you end up anyway. >> >> Having spent far more of my career as a software person, let me say that >> what I've installed not from rpms or other packages has been nowhere >> near as much work as writing it... esp. when you factor in creature feep, er, >> feature creep, and "oh, I meant this, not *that*...." > > I think it is pretty hard to draw a line between code and custom > configuration and what you have to do to keep them working as other > things change. For example I once ran smail with some custom tweaks to My experience has been different. When I'm working as a developer, it's *all* development. When I've installed some software for someone, it may be a pita to install, but then I only once in a while have to go through that again, and the next time, I know most of the things that need doing. Not something to take up most of my week. <snip> > If you have different users needing these things on the same machine you Um, no. Our users, or teams, each have a number of servers: dev, test and prod. <snip> > You might have run into the CPAN issue if you installed something like > RT in the Centos 4 era. Ugh. When I was with AT&T, 3-4 years ago, we looked at RT, and blew it off for Mantis, which was *much* easier to work with. Hmmm, or was there some other project management software I installed. <shrug> It's been a few years, and I ain't there with notes. mark