F40 proposal: Fedora Atomic Desktops (Self-Contained Change proposal)

[Adam Williamson]

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/AtomicDesktops

This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

= Fedora Atomic Desktops =

== Summary ==

We will regroup all desktop, rpm-ostree based variants of Fedora under
the Fedora Atomic Desktops name. Each individual variant (Silverblue,
Kinoite, Sericea, Onyx) may keep their name as is. While this is a
Change Request, it is not addressed at FESCo but at the Fedora Council
as this is not a technical change but a marketing / policy one.

== Owner ==
* Name: Timothée Ravier
* Email: [e-mail]
* Name: Micah Abbott
* Email: [e-mail]
* Name: Fabio Alessandro
* Email: [e-mail]
* Name: Joshua Strobl
* Email: [e-mail]

== Detailed Description ==

The [https://fedoraproject.org/ Fedora website] currently uses the term
"Immutable Desktops" to regroup all desktop, `rpm-ostree` based Fedora
variants. The term "immutable" is confusing to users, has been the
source of many confusion and does not accurately reflect the advantages
of those variants.

Thus we want to regroup those variants under a "new" name. The
advantage of the Atomic name is that it already was a brand in the
past, and it’s both technically accurate, short, but non-descriptive
and non-restrictive so that people would have pre-conceived ideas like
with “immutable”. It is important to state that this change does not
intend to revive [https://www.projectatomic.io Project Atomic] which
acted as an umbrella for Atomic Host, Silverblue, and container
technologies. This change is merely borrowing the "Atomic" name as a
way to better describe the `rpm-ostree` based desktop operating
systems.

We've created the [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/AtomicDesktops
Fedora Atomic Desktops SIG] to co-ordinate across-variants work. One of
the long term goals of this SIG is to work on making those variants the
default option in Fedora, thus removing the need for a distinct name.

We will not require existing variants (Silverblue, Kinoite, Sericea,
Onyx) to be renamed, as those brands already have some traction and
history. It will be up to the decision of the SIGs if they want to
rename the existing variants as a result of this change. We will not
rename the ostree refs or do any technical changes related to this
change to avoid costly and mostly useless or invisible work.

New variants will use the Fedora <Desktop> Atomic name. For example, in
the case of XFCE it would be: Fedora XFCE Atomic.

Note that both Fedora CoreOS and Fedora IoT will remain as is and will
not be regrouped under this brand, which only focuses on desktops. Both
CoreOS & IoT variants have a strong brand on their own and do not
suffer from the immutable naming.

== Feedback ==

A lot of other names have been suggested ("package mode", "image mode",
"reprovisionable", "anti-hysteresis") but so far those are either "too
technical", "too long" or "too ambiguous/imprecise".

Another suggested option was to rename all variants under the
Silverblue name (Silverblue GNOME, Kinoite -> Silverblue KDE, etc.).
This however creates too long names and would likely create confusion
as user would expect all systems to share a Silverblue base, which is
not the case.

References:
* https://blog.verbum.org/2020/08/22/immutable-%e2%86%92-reprovisionable-anti-...
* https://theevilskeleton.gitlab.io/2023/08/29/misconceptions-about-immutable-...
* https://gitlab.com/fedora/websites-apps/fedora-websites/fedora-websites-3.0/...
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Silverblue
* https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/i-am-ok-with-fedora-atomic-brand-now/...
* https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/creating-the-fedora-atomic-desktops-s...
* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/AtomicDesktops

== Benefit to Fedora ==

The main benefits are: less confusion for users / podcasters /
reviewers, better branding / marketing.

== Scope ==

* Proposal owners: Submit / review pull-requests to update the name on
the Fedora Website
* Other developers: N/A
* Release engineering: N/A
* Policies and guidelines: N/A
* Trademark approval: [https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/361 #361]
* Alignment with Community Initiatives: N/A

== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==

No technical changes so not impact on users.

== How To Test ==

Nothing to test beyond the website changes.

== User Experience ==

This should not be noticeable by users from a technical perspective.

== Dependencies ==

N/A

== Contingency Plan ==

* Contingency mechanism: Everything stays as is.
* Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
* Blocks release? No

== Documentation ==

We'll try to update the documentation and figure out a way to share
more of the content between those variants.

== Release Notes ==

To be done.

[Adam Williamson]

The discussion thread to provide feedback for this change proposal can
be found here:
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f40-change-proposal-fedora-atomic-des...