How to compete against Ubuntu
by Markus McLaughlin
How to take on Ubuntu - Idea #1
If each of us chip in on a small AD in the New York Times, The Boston Globe,
and The Washington Post, with the Line : "What can Fedora do for you?
http://fedoraproject.org" in blue bryant2 font lettering, more and more
regular folks and frustrated Windoze Users will go there and find out how to
download it. Also, where to purchase a Live CD or Installation DVD is also
posted. It is very important to get MORE exposure so Ubuntu will want to
compete on that level too. Save Our Fedora From Ubuntu!!!
Mark McLaughlin - linuxglobe.wordpress.com
16 years, 10 months
Re: Fedora's mid-life crisis -- YUM v. APT v. SmartPM
by Bryan Smith
Paolo Mureddu, Gian wrote:
> Thinking of Fedora and Debian as black and white (not necessarily
> respectively), anything in between would be the "gray area".
This is going to be my last comment on this subject.
To start ...
I tend to not try to use abstract terms and stick with tangeable ones.
E.g., as an electrical engineer, I know anyone who uses the term
"renewable energies" doesn't have the faintest ideal about them.
Same deal here, I don't like to use shades of the spectrum.
I think Debian and Fedora come down to their simple realities.
They are established, proven, well-regarded (among long-time
Linux consultants, sysadmins, etc...) with a steady stream of contributors,
solutions providers, etc... and a lot of the reason is the release model.
Red Hat Linux 4.0 through Fedora 7 is 20 releases, all done very similarly.
Rawhide through Beta/Test on to the 6 month typical cycle (sometimes
5, a few 7 and even 8 months) for a full decade now.
And that includes the 3rd or so release after 18 months being the
"trailing edge" and well trusted and standardized on.
And when companies showed they were willing to pay for 5+ years
of support by buying SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as a
"separate product," Red Hat dropped its SLA model after Red Hat Linux
6.2 "E" and we got a separate product.
But the community, development, package test (Rawhide/Devel),
integration/regression test (Beta/Test) is unchanged.
It has been, and only continues to be increasingly, community-based and
driven, with strategic direction and objectives focused on the
18 month, stable release.
It's easy for one to say "community focused" and its highly subjective.
Something has to drive that and, as we saw with one too many Red Hat
and Debian off-shoots, defining that long-term is a real issue.
A lot of these off-shoots leverage the testing of Debian/Red Hat to start.
But by the 4th or so release, they've forked so much they lose
that leverage and find themselves in the realm of their own integration
and regression testing. That's not "fun" stuff in the traditional
engineering lifecycle. And it only gets worse.
Software built (ABI) or even written (API) for older releases no longer
run on newer releases, there are compatibility and upgrade issues too.
Repositories quickly become "dumping grounds" and that's when it hits.
The distro, correctly, tries to enforce some basic release controls.
And guess what? That's when the "newness" wears off and they
aren't "fun" anymore. And those contributors go "they are as 'bad'
as Debian/Fedora now."
Debian and Fedora aren't "new" and a lot of new maintainers balk at
things, necessary evils of the traditional engineering lifecycle.
One of the reasons I haven't attempted to submit my own packages or
become a maintainer is because I know what repsonsibility comes with that.
And if that is what others have a "problem" with Debian and Fedora
(and trust me, I'm a "lurker" on many lists and I see it a lot),
then we either need to "key them in" on those realities, or let them be.
If they are the latter, they will get tired of Ubuntu soon, especially
as more and more of the Conical criticisms take hold like those
not so different from what we see of and towards Red Hat.
Especially when Conical starts to "clamp down" on the "run-away" development.
I've seen a lot of complainers of 7.04 from 6.06, and that's just the start.
I like Xubuntu and have no problem with Ubuntu, but I think too many
people are spewing the same things I've seen out of many other Debian
and Red Hat / Fedora forks over the years, and those same people
come back to criticize the same "new" distros they loved.
The contributors and maintainers that are long-term stays are those
that appreciate the processes and relase model, with all their overhead,
that go into Debian and Fedora. Or they seek not to fork, but to stay aligned
as closely as possible because they are fully aware of the testing load when
you do not. Heck, a quick trip to the CentOS list will let you see a lot
of people screaming for forks and packages, or "new features."
I stupidly tried to explain things a few times on there, and only
"the old dogs" seemed to know what I was talking about.
Anyhoo, with that all said, people who want Apt or Smart or
Foo Package Ultra-Better 3000 to be the default need to get involved.
That means taking on the Anaconda integration, RHN integration,
various, existing Python libraries and facilities to "drop them in," etc...
People complain about the types of responses in feature requests.
If you don't like the responses, contribute and prove them wrong! :)
Last post on this, promise. :)
--
Bryan J Smith - mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
16 years, 10 months
Fedora 7 Chosen as LiveContent CD Platform
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0%2c1895%2c2167675%2c00.asp
"The Fedora 7 Linux distribution has been chosen as the platform for the
Creative Commons LiveContent CD, an initiative to showcase free,
open-source software and Creative Commons-licensed multimedia content"
"Fedora 7, which is the result of community-based open-source
collaboration, has a new build capacity that allows for the creation of
custom distributions and individual appliances."
Rahul
16 years, 10 months
Fedora's mid-life crisis
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
This might lead to interesting changes in the project. Watch out!
http://lwn.net/Articles/242965
"The Fedora project has a solid base to build on and an increasingly
open community process to help it get to where it wants to be. With the
right focus on an interesting set of goals, Fedora could surprise the
world. This distribution should have no trouble proving that it's not
over the hill yet."
Rahul
16 years, 10 months
Fedora and Creative Commons Team Up To Deliver LiveContent Distribution
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
We are continuing to see increasing uptake of many people who are using
the new open build tools in Fedora 7 to create custom spins. Creative
Commons initiative (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Livecontent) will
give a more tangible benefit of Fedora's backing of open content.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070806/20070806005060.html?.v=1
"Fedora 7 features a completely open source build process that greatly
simplifies the creation of appliances," said Jack Aboutboul, community
engineer for Fedora at Red Hat. "We encourage Fedora 7 users to create
custom distributions that fit their individual needs and are excited
that Creative Commons is making use of this capability within Fedora 7
to enable the liberation of content and provide free licensed software
to all
Rahul
16 years, 10 months
Re: Fedora-marketing-list Digest, Vol 38, Issue 7
by Markus McLaughlin
I am only trying to help Fedora become the OS that Ubuntu hasn't been able
to live up to.
Ubuntu has so much going for it, Fedora is only now catching up but it needs
to be more
known. What I hope to do with linuxglobe, is to promote Fedora and the
other Linux OSes
out there that aren't related to Ubuntu. If anyone would like to write a
column about Fedora,
please contact me at hudsonman35@gmail.com... Thanks and I'm looking
forward to try
out Fedora 8 Test 2 Live CD....
Mark McLaughlin - linuxglobe.wordpress.com
16 years, 10 months
Legal Codecs Needed
by Markus McLaughlin
What makes Windows/MAC more successful is they encourage third party
developers to sell legal plug-ins/codecs allowing MP3, DVD, HD-DVD to be
played. Fedora, Ubuntu, and the other major
Linux Distributions lack this so illegal means are common. It is time for
third party developers to
sell codecs for the major Linux distributions thus ending the illegal route.
Also, the ogg theora codec isn't ready for prime time yet, I hope it will be
fully able for Fedora 8
and beyond. There also should be a GNOME app that encodes DV to OGG. I
wish there was
an OGG codec equivalent of Flash for web sites, that would be very ideal...
Mark McLaughlin - linuxglobe.wordpress.com
16 years, 10 months
Bradley Kuhn and Max Spevack to keynote at Ohio LinuxFest
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
Get going Max. Spread the good word of Fedora. Will there be any recordings?
http://lwn.net/Articles/244255/
"Columbus, Ohio -- 2007 has been an exemplary year for software freedom,
which makes the keynote speakers selected for Ohio LinuxFest 2007
particularly fitting. The Ohio LinuxFest organizers are proud to
announce that Max Spevack and Bradley Kuhn will be keynoting this year.
Spevack is the Fedora Project Leader, responsible for chairing the
Fedora Project Board, managing Fedora's relationship with Red Hat and
day to day operations of the Fedora project, as well as development and
execution of Fedora's overall roadmap. During his tenure, the Fedora
Project has released Fedora Core 5 and 6, and Fedora 7 -- which merged
Fedora Core and Fedora Extras."
Rahul
16 years, 10 months
