RE: [RRG] Are host-stack modifications allowed or disallowed ?

[Randall Atkinson <rja@extremenetworks.com>]

Earlier, Simon Schuetz wrote:
% Actually, changing an end-host is not terribly hard, if not even easier
% than changing a router. End-users get their updates to OSes nearly
% on a daily or weakly basis using update functionalities.

I think that is a really excellent observation.  A decade ago, ordinary
consumers tended to only upgrade/patch their home computers rarely
or when hardware changed.  Now, all the major consumer desktop OS
vendors (including the common consumer-oriented versions of Linux)
seem to push out updates quite regularly -- and most ordinary users
seem to be applying those updates equally regularly.

(Maybe some host OS supplier has approximate numbers on this sort
of thing that could be shared publicly ? :-)

I get several OS patches/upgrades from Apple each month.  My company
gets regular updates/patches from Microsoft for the Windows systems,
and judging from IT announcements those get installed promptly.

So upgrading an interesting percentage of the consumer desktop/laptop
operating systems can be done much much more quickly now than
in the past.

% The thing that is hard is to get *all* hosts changing within a small timeframe.
% But over a cycle of say 5+ years, most hosts will anyway run a new OS.

Right.

Would one needed to have all hosts upgraded or merely some interestingly
large (whatever that means) percentage of them upgraded in a shorter
timeframe ?

Food for thought anyway.  Thanks !

Cheers,

Ran



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