On Mon, Dec 09, 2013 at 07:23:37PM +0100, drago01 wrote:
It seems like you and Matthew don't really disagree much on what
we
should produce just whether we should add the general user to the PRD.
Given that we are going to cover this case anyway (because in the end
everyone is a "general user") ... how does adding it hurts us? It just
a clear statement that non developers are not excluded.
Right. The inevitable consequence of us publishing a PRD that doesn't
explicitly discuss usage by people who aren't highly technical users is
that it'll be interpreted as us no longer being interested in any of the
other people who currently run Fedora, such as home users who just want
an OS that's committed to freedom, content creators who appreciate our
open development process or people who don't care about Linux at all but
just want a free upgrade for XP that'll let them run Firefox.
Giving the impression that we aren't interested in those people
(accurately or otherwise) is inevitably going to impact our contributor
pool, both because some people won't start running Fedora in the first
place and because some people aren't interested in developing an OS
that's not usable by people they know. That impairs our ability to
implement the compelling desktop experience that's a vital part of
implementing a compelling developer environment.
When I say I want us to support a general desktop user, I don't want to
give the impression that I want us to support every single possible user
request. Other desktop operating systems have demonstrated that having a
well-defined concept of what the desktop is and what features it should
offer is compatible with having broad appeal. That's a goal we should
strive for, and explicit goals should be explicitly enumerated in the
PRD.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org