My Final Summary (and I'll Shutup) ...
by Bryan Smith
I've commented enough here on different topics, so it's time for me to
summarize and shut-up. I'm sure many people are probably saying to
themselves, "who the fsck does this guy think he is?" and that's fine.
I'll let my final summary stand (or fall) on its own, as I don't believe
in throwing around credentials or resumes. As I always say, if you
don't agree or believe in something I say, assume I pulled it out of my
rectum. I'm just an "outsider" after all. ;->
With that said, here goes ...
1. Glad Red Hat is maintaining control of Fedora development
I wish they would have just done this from Day 1. Fedora(TM) was needed
because of the trademark, but I can't fault Red Hat for their continued
attempt at goodwill over the past 3 years to "find the right fit." But
the separate trademark and more formalized community committee (over
what didn't really exist in the Red Hat(R) Linux days) is really all
they needed. But I'm glad it's finally set as I wanted it (as most
other, previous Red Hat(R) Linux who stayed with Fedora Core and love it
even more did too).
2. Anaconda/YUM Tools: Keys to preventing future trademark abuse
Fedora is still very popular, and that's going to mean a lot of projects
are still going to be based on it. Yes, some have gone to CentOS (the
RHEL rebuild), but Fedora's Anaconda-YUM and base approach, tools and
packages are still at the heart of many projects.
We need to look past just giving the Anaconda tools we do today to allow
custom distribution roll-outs in the assumption that major changes will
change the logos and branding. We need to not only make some
alternative logo sets and a corresponding file setting/switch, but we
need to enforce it by having Anaconda spit out the requirements.
Heck, it probably wouldn't hurt to have the Anaconda-YUM installer
detect packages not signed with the included keys and put up another set
of logos/disclaimers dynamically. That would be ideal.
3. Fedora Ambassadors is key to proliferation and consumer adoption
If Red Hat and its Fedora Steering Committee should put any focus on any
marketing aspect, it's Fedora Ambassadors. They are your gateway to the
Linux User Groups, which is where most _users_ of Linux -- not just
installers, not just "I'll try it out" -- but _users_ of Linux are born.
You also get free marketing via helpful individuals who know the distro,
and a future track to Red Hat services as a result.
[ SIDE NOTE: I have suggested that the Linux Professional Institute
(LPI) consider a similar model for their Alumni program, which has
little more than a mailing list. In fact, Red Hat could learn to
leverage some of its advocates and certification/training Alumni better
too. E.g., after plunking down $749 for the RH302 exam-only, when I
passed, I didn't even get a printed Certification sent to me -- but only
received a PDF file and had to print it myself! I humored my fellow
Novell colleague Ross Brunson with that one -- even though I regularly
argue FC/RHEL over SuSE/Novell in our other sessions. ]
--
Bryan J. Smith Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------
****** Speed doesn't kill. Difference in speed does! ******
18 years
Re: Fedora derivatives branding discussion -- the root problems (revisited/simplified)
by Bryan Smith
I know it hasn't even been a day, but no one commented on my post. I
tend to be "long winded" so I'll cut my own message down in the hope
people will read it.
I basically wanted to point out that we should be addressing the real
_legal_ issues at the Anaconda tools themselves. If you make it easy
for people to change the logos with standard disclaimers right in the
installer, people _will_ do it.
Just a suggestion ...
"Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith(a)ieee.org> wrote:
> ...
> A. Custom Fedora(TM) ... (FC+FE)
> B. Unofficial Fedora(TM) Third Party ... (FC+FE+100%RedistRPMs)
> C. No-name Redistribution ... (any other RPMS, with FC+FE)
> ...
> iii) "Click-through" Anaconda tools
> I think the way to solve this is in the Anaconda tools themselves.
> When you run any Anaconda tools, you have to create an _explicit_
> configuration file that states whether it's A, B or C. If it
> doesn't exist, Anaconda spits out a complaint to create one, or
> run a script that creates the settings file for them (prompts them
> for a few questions).
> IANAL, but from a legal perspective, if you give someone a tool
> that notifies them with a click through or they have to run an
> explicit command, and they _still_ use the trademark _incorrectly_
> -- I'd say you've got them by the balls. They have no excuse or
> ignorance argument. But IANAL.
--
Bryan J. Smith Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith(a)ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------------
I'm a Democrat. No wait, I'm a Republican. Hmm,
it seems I'm just whatever someone disagrees with.
18 years
Fedora derivatives branding discussion
by Max Spevack
Howdy folks,
The Fedora board needs help with a policy decision.
As Fedora evolves, we'll be seeing more and more custom distributions that
are spun from the Fedora Universe of packages. Kadischi-based Live CDs
are a good example. We'd like to be able to allow these distributions to
use the Fedora name -- and we've got tentative buy-in from legal to do it
-- so long as the distros are built entirely from Fedora (Core+Extras)
packages.
So. How should the Fedora brand be used in such cases?
Let's say, for example, that Rex Dieter builds a minimal Fedora distro
that has KDE and no GNOME -- and he wants to call it "KDExcellent". He
also wants people to know that it's derived from official Fedora packages.
Should we let him call it:
+ Fedora KDExcellent?
+ KDExcellent, based on Fedora?
+ KDExcellent, a Fedora distribution?
Whatever policy we come up with now, we'll be stuck with for quite a
while -- so we could use some help.
Thanks in advance for your ideas.
--Max
18 years
IRC French Presentation
by Chitlesh GOORAH
Hello there,
As many of you, somehow heard before on IRC, we are planning to make a
presentation on IRC about
Fedora and how the french community can help.
So up till now, we are:
AurelienBompard,
DamienDurand
ThomasCanniot
FrederikHornain
WilliamHoffman
and me.
Yesterday night, we (AurelienBompard, DamienDurand, ThomasCanniot and
I) had an unexpected meeting on #fedora-fr-meeting for nearly 2hours.
The meeting minutes can be found on
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ChitleshGoorah/fr-meeting in French.
The official wiki page is
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/IRCpresentation
When, Where, everything is written over there. I welcome everyone to
read it over there, to prevent abuse of copy/paste.
This event is intended for the promotion of The Fedora Project and how
a non-english native can contribute to the success of such big project
as The Fedora Project.
There will be a Secret guest who will be participating with us too.
He/She will be introduced at the beginning of the Presentation.
Concerning announcements, after translating
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/IRCpresentation, we will
start making announcements everywhere, lugs, news sites .....
A list can be found here
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ChitleshGoorah/fr-meeting.
For some who remember the Umeet conference, it will be similar.
Cheers,
Chitlesh GOORAH
PS: Rahul proposed "vFUDCon" as a more specific title for our event.
(v for Virtual)
PS: The http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ChitleshGoorah/fr-meeting might
look like a personal wiki page, nevertheless it is also about
checklist for preparation, hence participants have all the rights to
edit it.
PS: It was a great meeting yesterday :)
--
http://clunixchit.blogspot.com
18 years
FISL Update
by Rodrigo Menezes
Hi guys,
We are in the second day of FISL event, below you can find some photos. We'll update the website as soon as the event is running.
http://projetofedora.org/node/28
We found some guys from Red Hat, Christofer came with OLPC, some Juan Ruiz and other guys. They seen to be happy with ou presence here. We wanna says thanks to you all.
Our webdesigner (Jayme Ayres) says: "I'm sorry", because the templates in the website is not good. We'll fix this as soon as we find some time.
Thanks guys!
Rodrigo Menezes
---------------------------------
Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail - 1GB de espaço, alertas de e-mail no celular e anti-spam realmente eficaz.
18 years
Fwd: Open Source Lab Details for NECC 2006
by Thomas Chung
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Hargadon <steve(a)hargadon.com>
Date: Apr 19, 2006 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: Open Source Lab Details for NECC 2006
To: Fedora Education Initiative <fedora-education-list(a)redhat.com>
On 4/19/06, Thomas Chung <tchung(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> This is my first time hearing "National Educational Computing Conference 2006".
> Two questions.
> 1. Have you contacted anyone in Fedora Marketing or Fedora Ambassadors
> for any help?
No. I have been talking with Sarah Jones from Red Hat who does
events, and I thought we were going to get some support but I haven't
heard from her in some time.
I'd be very interested in making contact on either front. Can you help?
> 2. Do you have a webiste where we can learn more about this event?
The NECC website is at http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2006/. This
is the second year I've been asked to lead the Open Source effort
there, and the first year that our presenters are actually listed in
the program as full speakers. It's significant progress, and came out
of providing a similar lineup at the cue.org show in Palm Springs some
weeks ago.
--
Steve Hargadon
Thank you Steve,
As a start, I'm forwarding your email to Fedora Ambassadors and Fedora
Marketing mailing lists to get an attention. Once we have enough
interests and resources, we should be able to find someone to help
your event and promote Fedora Project at the same time.
--
Thomas Chung
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung
18 years
Red Hat Magazine's Fedora Issue
by Max Spevack
Folks might enjoy some light reading, in the latest issue of Red Hat
Magazine focusing almost entirely on Fedora:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/
There's some real gems in here -- all of the articles about Fedora are
worth a look, in particular:
- Greg's FUDCon diary
- Rahul's look at FC5
- Igor and Tom's Eclipse articles
- my podcast/interview about Fedora
Read it, blog about it, spread the word about the stuff you like.
--
Max Spevack
+ gpg key -- http://people.redhat.com/~mspevack/mspevack.asc
+ fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21
18 years
