Developers responsibillity to Fedora Users

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 09/27/2011 11:59 AM, Andrew Haley wrote:
> On 09/26/2011 11:59 PM, Roger wrote:
>> On 26/09/11 19:38, Andrew Haley wrote:
>>> On 09/22/2011 02:15 PM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>>>> Alan Cox is exactly right that the users of Fedora products get them
>>>> free and one can make a strong case that therefore Fedora developers
>>>> have no responsibility to listen to user's complaints.
>>>>
>>>> However, the Fedora users provide a service to the ReHat company of
>>>> identifying bugs that otherwise would show up to annoy the paying users
>>>> of RedHat Enterprise .
>>>>
>>>> This is probably a weak argument to support the developers of Fedora
>>>> software listening to its users but what is clear is the current
>>>> situation leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the current Fedora
>>>> user-base. Clearly developers can ignore our complaints, but I have no
>>>> evidence that the paying Enterprise customers will be more tolerant of
>>>> the strange direction that RedHat is taking.
>>> This is all too vague for me to understand.  What are you talking about?
>>>
>> Some say that the new Fedora GUI is unhelpful and possibly difficult to
>> use, preferring a simpler desktop.
>
> Ahh, this is all about GNOME 3.  It's very unfair to describe the
> actions/attitude of GNOME developers at that of all Fedora developers.

As long as Fedora ship a "first release", as you prefer to call it, as 
"default DE", people will identify and set equal "Fedora" with "Gnome3".

I find this very relatable and therefore find "throwing Fedora and 
Gnome3 into one big bowl" to be not without justification.

>> This resulted in a discussion touching on the developers responsibility
>> to users, if any.
>> Ubuntu and Fedora 14 offers the choice of new or classic.
>
> Not to mention KDE and XFCE.
>
> GNOME 3 is, to say the least, controversial. Ubuntu Unity hasn't had a
> uniformly great reception either.
Agreed. As I see it, both Ubuntu and Fedora's managements seem to be 
addicted to the same "GUI/DE cult".

  They both seem to be missing that both "Gnome 3" and "Unity" are 
aiming at a user-base, which is entirely different from the 
corresponding distributions' user-bases.

  This new new-user-base likely is (mostly) satisfied, but many of these 
distros' "old long term supporters and users" simply feel their so far 
choosen distro's DE doesn't suite their needs anymore.

Ralf