Canonical Rolls Out Its Own Kernel Livepatching Service For Ubuntu

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Canonical Rolls Out Its Own Kernel Livepatching Service For Ubuntu

Canonically has formally moved forward with its enterprise kernel livepatching service, which it's making free to the Ubuntu community -- assuming you have three Ubuntu installations or less. Like the other approaches, this is about applying in real-time critical security fixes to the kernel without rebooting...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Livepatch-Service

[ElectricPrism]

Ubuntu Kernel™

[waxhead]

Ironically Ubuntu is supposed to mean humanity towards others... yeah right! Why are people using this stuff anyway? Debian is right there and it works great!

[Cape]

Fenully Canonical being able to monetize on something without screwing user freedom!

Maybe its not going to be a super remunerating biz, but will serve the purpose of reminding people that free software should remain free, not gratis.

[doublez13]

Upstart... Mir... Unity... Only natural this was next after Red Hat started kpatch.

[starshipeleven]

Ironically Ubuntu is supposed to mean humanity towards others... yeah right!

Well, it's not like most users really have a server farm at home and can never reboot their systems. 3 supported installations per user is OK for a company-oriented feature like rebootless kernel patching.

[starshipeleven]

Fenully Canonical being able to monetize on something without screwing user freedom!

Yeah, it seems lately they did realize that the most $$$ for linux is in server stuff, and seem to be following the usual suspects (RedHat and SUSE).

If they keep it up they might stop losing money within this decade.

[waxhead]

Well, it's not like most users really have a server farm at home and can never reboot their systems. 3 supported installations per user is OK for a company-oriented feature like rebootless kernel patching.

Of course, but this is against the way Linux and GNU progress through collaboration , not lock in/out.

[starshipeleven]

Of course, but this is against the way Linux and GNU progress through collaboration , not lock in/out.

RedHat isn't providing patches for kpatch (on their kernels) if you don't have a RHEL with the right support contract, dunno about SUSE but I think it's the same.

The mechanism to patch the kernel is open and available for all (the usual CLA applies), it's the live kernel patches that are linked to a subscription/contract/whatever.

I'd say it is OK, as that's a service, you can't expect them to provide services for free in the name of opensource.

[Stellarwind]

If you compare Ubuntu 12$ price with RH and Suse with thousands in support contracts per node, then Ubuntu is clearly a winner.