Draft Product Description for Fedora Workstation

[Josh Boyer]

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 8:26 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 5:02 PM, Nicolas Mailhot
> <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net> wrote:
>>
>> Le Lun 4 novembre 2013 20:15, Josh Boyer a écrit :
>>> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 2:01 PM, Stephen Gallagher <sgallagh at redhat.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> And, by the way, we've been supporting this kind of model with pip
>>>>> and gem already, so I really don't get why all the fuss when
>>>>> suddenly we want to do it with the desktop applications.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Please don't use pip and gem as "positive" examples... they have a
>>>> habit of conflicting with the installed system that is an additional
>>>> problem we may hope to solve with this.
>>>
>>> It's worth pointing out that they're positive examples to the
>>> developers using them.  They want to work on their applications and
>>> not have to fight against the distro's versions.  And those developers
>>> are particularly the ones being targeted with containerized apps.  So
>>> equating the two in a positive light probably isn't a bad idea.  Those
>>> developers care about their apps.  They don't care about the distros.
>>
>> … till they have a customer that forces them to reinvent the deployment
>> processes distros standardised.
>>
>> The problem is not to get code in the hands of developers. You don't need
>> distros for that. The problem is to get the code to end-users and
>> developers spend more time fighting the constrains it involves than trying
>> to understand this problem-space.
>>
>> Of course the aim might not be to reach end users but to push code from
>> developpers to other developpers. Let's stop pretending doing products
>> then. Be honest and admit you want a demo scene.
>
> I want a stable base platform (aka the OS) that allows for people to
> use it for development of interesting things (aka applications).  I
> want that same platform to be usable by people to install interesting
> things and us them.  I don't see a contradiction here that would force
> one or the other, nor do I see how it reduces the product to a demo
> scene.
>
> If you want to reduce everything to absolutes, be my guest.  It will
> get you a rock solid, well crafted distro that reaches a certain set
> of people.  I'm interested in reaching more than just that set of
> people.

Ugh.  Truly poor wording on my part in that last paragraph.

I meant to imply that if you want to ignore containerized apps and
continue to focus on an RPM only distro that is tightly integrated,
that's definitely something that can be done.  One could argue it's
what has been done in Fedora for the last 10 years, and it's worked
well more or less.  I do, however, think times are changing and I
don't think it's necessary to stick ONLY to that.  Figuring out a way
to do containerized application deployment in a controlled fashion is
something that has a lot of benefit if done correctly.  You don't have
to throw out the entire RPM model to add this on top.

josh