Open Letter: Why I, Kevin Kofler, am not rerunning for FESCo

[Kevin Kofler]

Jesse Keating wrote:
> Bad data is worse than no data.

I disagree. As "bad" as the data is, it can't be worse than claiming users 
want, or worse, "need", conservative updates without any evidence whatsoever 
as has been done!

In fact I can bring you non-statistical evidence for the opposite: There is 
already a distribution which works the way people suggested (releases every 
6 months, does not upgrade their stable releases to new upstream releases). 
It's called "Ubuntu". People who want such a system are already happily 
using Ubuntu, why would they want to use Fedora (which currently does NOT 
work this way)? People are using Fedora because they are NOT happy with what 
Ubuntu is doing. Therefore, the results of the poll didn't surprise me in 
the least.

> Of course the sample is biased.  It's a sample of people who frequent
> the forums, that's a self selecting group of people, by no means a
> worthwhile representation of the Fedora user base as a whole.

Sure, it's a self-selecting group of people, but there's no evidence that 
the result is not representative. Only better data could prove that claim.

> Proper scientific data collection is hard, really hard.  To do it right
> would take a lot of time and engineering and even argument.  I don't
> want to put in that time,

Of course you don't. It would keep you from arbitrary claiming that "users 
want" or even "need" exactly what YOU personally want. Sure, let's not get 
those nasty FACTS get in the way of our dictatorship, eh?

> nor do I think we could ever be able to truly have a good representation
> as we have no hard data on who all uses Fedora, and in which ways.

Then imperfect data is what you'll have to work with.

        Kevin Kofler