On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Jiri Eischmann <eischmann@redhat.com> wrote:

Release parties and codenames were just examples. It's about the buzz
around releases. You can check Google Trends where you find peaks in
number of searches for Fedora after every release. Or fp.org monthly
stats. You would lose reviews, that are usually published after
releases, because I don't see any reviews of rolling release
distributions by main magazines. Etc.

Here is one:  http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/under-the-hood-with-arch-and-gentoo

From a few weeks ago!


BTW this is not just about current Fedora users. Marketing is mainly
about potential users.

Sure - 

Well, as someone has already said here: stability and reliability are
relative terms. I used Arch Linux for a while and I didn't find it
stable and reliable on the level where I'd like to see Fedora. If you
have to read release notes before every update to make sure you know
what might break and how to fix it, then you're not using a system that
would be appealing to a large number of user. And Fedora has always been
aiming much broader audience than Gentoo or Arch.

Generally speaking for arch linux you don't get "release notes" for packages as such - and for the most part a regular update merely requires the following command:

#pacman -Syu

then accept or reject running the set of updates that is offered. Not a big deal - now and again there is an announcement on arch-announce (also on their main web page) which says run the following command (or two!) before the next update or similar - hardly a major hassle every few months.
 
It's true that for my Fedora boxes I just have to run:

#yum -y update

or 

#yum update and then accept or reject the set of updates offered - much the same really.

however for F16 which is current I don't have the latest KDE, or the latest systemd, or the latest libreoffice etc - which I do on my arch boxes. For any user that does not mind having KDE work OK but not with the latest round of bug fixes and new features it is fine. Similar with the other packages. Chrome is not offered as mainline by either distro but on Fedora google has a yum repo - so I run the latest chrome just fine on F16 - and in arch there is the latest via the AUR system so I run the latest chrome there too. But I won't have to run any re-install on the arch boxes whereas in order to keep my F16 boxes supported I will have to re-install around the end of the year. I know there are constant reminders from people who say they have never re-installed and just preupgrade but my own experience with that around the F9 timeframe was really poor - and I ended up doing a sequence of manual steps along with various yum upgrades/updates and kept a box going through two releases before deciding that a clean install was about the only sensible way forward at that time - maybe it is really quite trouble free updating from one release to another these days - so maybe my F16 boxes could be upgraded nice and easy to F17 and F18 with only a few commands and a bit of a wait - but I am not convinced it is worth the risk as one of them is a server!
 
So it is "horses for courses" - I have two courses and a number of horses and so far none of the horses have died!

--
mike c