From: Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>
All good points, and yet:
Your case is not normal. That
is the price you pay for upgrading MediaWiki as often as other people
paint their houses.
That's a useful analogy. One doesn't hire a staff painter to be on-hand, touching
up little nicks here and there as they develop over time unless painting is but a small
part of the operation. For most people, one waits until it actually needs painting.
I have farm plants and animals to take care of, and a not-for-profit organization to run,
and I volunteer for numerous other organizations. I don't have time to baby-sit a
computer.
This is not an easy thing to hear nor understand for those who spend all their time
baby-sitting computers for a living. I know -- that was me in another life!
So, one *could* say, "Hey, if we made upgrading as easy as paint drying, more people
would keep up!"
Or one can self-righteously blame the victim for having a life beyond keeping up with
every little upgrade.
(Postscript: I composed that message a week and a day ago. Then I felt guilty, and
proceeded to go on an "upgrade binge," bringing my OS up from 10.6.8 to 10.10.5,
which would have given me -- among other things -- PHP 5.6. End result: my email and
website were down for a week as I struggled to get my server's environment back, and I
never did get a working upgrade installed. This is coming to you from a restored backup. I
feel vindicated.)
Jan Steinman
EcoReality Co-op,
http://www.EcoReality.org
2152 Fulford-Ganges Road
Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 1Z7 CANADA
+1 250.653.2024