Developers responsibillity to Fedora Users

[Andrew Haley]

On 09/27/2011 12:01 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 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".

They're wrong.  A DE is just a thin skin over an OS, as we all know.
I'm a developer of Fedora software, and the DE has nothing to do with
me.  No matter how much I listen to people's complaints about GNOME,
nothing is going to happen.  All I can do is point out to people that
XFCE might be more to their taste.

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

It is entirely without justification.

>   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.

This distro has more than one DE.

Andrew.