First thing yesterday morning: urgent IM message from Suresh Ramasubramanian (hoster of this mailing list):
Mailman is down, can you help?
OK, so we start investigating his box. He has upgraded Python2.4 to Python2.5, and applied a Mailman security patch package. However, whenever we try to access the page, the server barfs. On to server logs -- syntax error in one of the Mailman support files.
Right, I can understand an upgrade causing logical errors, but a SYNTAX ERROR!??!? Nah, I must be missing something, so I look all over the 2 upgrades. Switch back to Python2.4 from Python2.5, no joy. Recompile all the Mailman files from scratch, no joy. Recompile the Ubuntu Mailman package from source and reinstall it, no joy. Bang head against wall, no joy.
Finally, desperate, I start comparing Mailman files on Suresh' server against Mailman installed on other servers. While they are different versions of Mailman, I do notice one anomaly: where one file has:
mlist.subject_prefix = Utils.canonstr( val, mlist.preferred_language) <- *** Note this line *** elif property == 'info':
Suresh' server has:
mlist.subject_prefix = Utils.canonstr( elif property == 'info':
Saying, `no, no, it can't be!' I insert the missing line into the file on the broken machine, cross fingers, eyes, legs, etc and restart Mailman.
It works!
[Shift to today]
Ubuntu issues a security notice that says, in effect, ``We screwed up with the previous Mailman patch, so here's the latest and greatest version of Mailman, and this one really, Really, REALLY works! Believe us!''.
I don't believe them. In the past 6 months Ubuntu has issues 80 new security advisories. For those 80 advisories, they have issued no less than SEVEN regressions (a regression is a patch to fix a broken patch). A near-10% regression rate sends only one message to me -- we can't be bothered with doing any quality control before we release packages.
Before Ubuntu came onto the scene, I didn't even /know/ what a regression was. Today it's a common word in my lexicon, because of Ubuntu's pathetic testing and quality control process (or lack of process, more likely). An operating system vendor who issues a package with a syntax error (so that the package doesn't even start up, leave alone do something wrong), is a pure crap snake oil vendor in my book.
So, the question: will I trust Ubuntu on an Internet-connected system? Nah.
Will I trust Ubuntu on a server? Er, please excuse me while I finishing laughing hysterically!
Use Debian or CentOS or any of those reasonably tested other distributions for your boxes, and when someone asks you to use Ubuntu, in the immortal words of Fancy Raygun, ``Just Say No!''.
Regards,
-- Raju