Consolidation of Fedora sites (A Resource Center/Portal)

[Tom Adelstein]

Sam Hiser and I did this sort of thing for a large UNIX company
marketing a Linux desktop. Users need a portal to navigate all the web
sites and resources out on the Web; also, a searchable knowledge base
would help, howtos and pointers to moderated forums such as
LinuxQuestions. We can also consolidate rpm packagers or put up a place
for people to find backports. That really brings the noise level down
and allows for some customer satisfaction. I'm on the Legacy project and
they could use some help.

Mr. Shuttleworth has provided centralized space with his desktop
distribution and has the most active Linux community on the planet. I
heard about the excitement and participation but didn't really "get it"
until I saw it for myself. I delete hundreds of emails a day from just
one of their mailing lists. I can find pretty much anything I want or
need to on google and it usually starts with "Ubuntu Forums". Now, they
released their first package in November and shipped their millionth CD
in May.

Sam and I laid out a plan for such a community for the UNIX/Storage
company mentioned above before Mr. Shuttleworth launched his. He's doing
everything we suggested in our plan - (I will provide anyone
documentation on this  off-line.)

Colin - what about an update of your desktop user's guide? O'Reilly and
Associates might release it under their Community Press. People would
like to participate in updating it and perhaps adding more material.

Industry focus

I strongly recommend getting behind education on a global scale and that
means talking to people like School Forge. Also some alliances with
projects like FreeNX, Arabeyes.com, etc.

I'm also wondering about reaching the channel. Many small resellers
install Fedora and can provide level 1 and 2 support. That should not
conflict with Red Hat's main  business and could lead people to consider
the mothership's products and services.

That's all for right now.

Tom

Tom

[Colin Charles]

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 18:55 -0500, Tom Adelstein wrote:
> Sam Hiser and I did this sort of thing for a large UNIX company
> marketing a Linux desktop. Users need a portal to navigate all the web

Yes, Sun and JDS. Let's leave it at that...
> sites and resources out on the Web; also, a searchable knowledge base
> would help, howtos and pointers to moderated forums such as
> LinuxQuestions. We can also consolidate rpm packagers or put up a place
> for people to find backports. That really brings the noise level down
> and allows for some customer satisfaction. I'm on the Legacy project and
> they could use some help.

Okay, we have *legal* limitations. We're working out how liable we'll be
by providing links... Even including the FedoraTracker into the Firefox
search toolbar hasn't happened yet...

I do agree, we have far too many spread sites out there. I'd be
interested in seeing what kind of traffic they're receiving... Also, we
can use Google juice to bring fedora information back to sites that we
control

The other issue with 3rd party sites is that most are half-baked. And by
linking to repositories that aren't legal, its err, bad
> Mr. Shuttleworth has provided centralized space with his desktop
> distribution and has the most active Linux community on the planet. I
> heard about the excitement and participation but didn't really "get it"
> until I saw it for myself. I delete hundreds of emails a day from just
> one of their mailing lists. I can find pretty much anything I want or
> need to on google and it usually starts with "Ubuntu Forums". Now, they
> released their first package in November and shipped their millionth CD
> in May.

I'm aware of Canonical and Ubuntu (as most of us are, I'm sure). Their
legal limitations aren't as worrying (holding company isn't US based,
but sitting on an island ;-) )
> Sam and I laid out a plan for such a community for the UNIX/Storage
> company mentioned above before Mr. Shuttleworth launched his. He's doing
> everything we suggested in our plan - (I will provide anyone
> documentation on this  off-line.)

Mail it, if you don't mind. And also, allow me to redistribute it to The
Cabal(TM) [1]
> Colin - what about an update of your desktop user's guide? O'Reilly and
> Associates might release it under their Community Press. People would
> like to participate in updating it and perhaps adding more material.

Sure
> I strongly recommend getting behind education on a global scale and that
> means talking to people like School Forge. Also some alliances with
> projects like FreeNX, Arabeyes.com, etc.

Alliances. Hmm. Again, we have to be careful where we tread. Of course,
Fedora Foundation and all now, we may get away from legalese...
> I'm also wondering about reaching the channel. Many small resellers
> install Fedora and can provide level 1 and 2 support. That should not
> conflict with Red Hat's main  business and could lead people to consider
> the mothership's products and services.

We are listing this - its in my braindump

[1] - There is no cabal.