Good point. I am not recommending that law firms upgrade every six months, just pointing out that open source systems have regular updates and development that you can count on, sometimes even more so than commercial ones. Personally, I agree with you on upgrade frequency. Ubuntu LTS releases (like Hardy Heron) are good for 3 years on the desktop, not 18 months, so I think using those releases as update points would be more realistic.

Steve

While I laud the vendor for meeting their release date targets, this policy also forces obsolescence at an incredibly rapid pace; version 6.10 of the Ubuntu platform was EoL’d in April after being released in 2006.

I’m very happy that I only have to upgrade a workstation or server with a significant install every 3-5 years. Managing Service Pack installs that come out about every 18 months is enough work already; tripling the frequency of those events is a negative in my mind, not a positive.

I get paid to perform the upgrades, so I don’t mind making more money, but I would think that a solo or small office practitioner would want to focus more on the practice of law and less on upgrading their systems every 6 months to a new OS build.