On 08/27/2010 10:47 PM, Bob Arendt wrote:
Actually I think Fedora *should* articulate who the users are, basically design and express who and what Fedora is designed for. If you poll "users" - people who download Fedora - and cater to their stated desires for the sake of market share, then market forces will start to drive the shape of the distro. Populist market forces would tend to force everything to a gray mushy mass of similar distros. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law). I think it would be much better for Fedora to decide what it *should* be, specifically what the Fedora userspace should be, and excel at that. Don't follow the "market" or worry about being the most popular distro (unless that's really a goal ..?) Decide the niche, and be strong in that niche. I see no difference in the market directly affecting the shape of the distro or a corporate entity which is driven by the market which then shapes the distro to it's need to feed that market. We have a clear cut example what can happen ( The Oracle and OpenSolaris case ) so first and foremost we need to make sure that a single corporate entity does not have control over the project which means that no corporate entity may have majority of it's employ in boards, steering committees, SIG etc. to prevent that corporate entity seizing control over the projects, steering it's directions to it's will and for us as a community not being too depended on that corporate entity should that corporate be bought or otherwise be controlled by individuals that do not share the same vision as the community. It's not far from reality that Red Hat will get bought by a company like Oracle so what's preventing us to get the same treatment as OpenSolaris got? What happens to all the work the community has done, the fruits of our labour? The first and foremost mission that the project should be doing at this point is to make dam sure we are ready for it encase Red Hat will not be there tomorrow or it's there but not in the same form that we all love. To make sure that all the countless hours and for some years of contribution which have grown and make up what Fedora is today will not be for vain encase that happens and the community continues to thrive and stay strong. The first mistake we did was trying to label end user since it's not up to the project in whole to decide which end user type it's target. It's should be up to individual community SIG's to decide what user base they are targeting and the form they will present that to the end user in live cd or a predefined installation option be it with the latest and greatest bits of their product or a not which may or may not be influenced from feed backs from the micro community they have established around the product they ship. The Fedora project in whole should give equal access to those bits and devote equal amount of marketing resources to promote them. Simply allow the casual user that walks in the Fedora garden to pick what ever fruit he chooses that grew from the labour of the community to taste and enjoy. Unfortunately that is not how things are being done in the Fedora garden today instead we force one vision ( Desktop ) and with one DE ( Gnome ) which greatly overshadows all the good work that's being done in other corners in the lcommunity like in server applications and KDE XFCE and LXDE and willingly or unwilling hinder the growth in the micro community around those Desktop Environment, hiding them like some rotten apples from infested tree in a shed in the back yard. It's going to be interesting to see if we ever reach the point when a end users would like to search for a certain application for a certain task he needs to perform and the only application he's offered will be the Gnome ones. How many new developers do you honestly think we attract to the community when the playing field is this and the only game that your allowed to play is Gnome Desktop. JBG |
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