There was a time when vendors knew how to color inside the lines. A database vendor sold databases. An operating system vendor peddled operating systems. And application server vendors were in the business of selling application servers.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh and others destroyed the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was, to date, the worst case of terrorism in the United States since the Civil War. On that day a number of things changed, but the biggest lessons were not well learned.

Companies that want to please their customers need a better way to apply software updates. One potential solution for Linux servers is Ksplice, which can seamlessly apply live updates while the system is running.