Fedora more successful, developer-wise, than Ubuntu

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

Interesting post about whether Fedora is more popular for dev's than
Ubuntu.

http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2007/12/18/fedora-more-successful-de...

I personally don't think it's a fair comparison because Ubuntu is
derived from Debian and there is cross over.  What I would like to see
is a comparison with Debian and Fedora to see what the actual numbers
are.

Cheers,

Marc

[Zhukov Pavel]

On Dec 20, 2007 3:20 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt; wrote:
>  Interesting post about whether Fedora is more popular for dev's
> than
>  Ubuntu.
>
>
> http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2007/12/18/fedora-more-successful-de...
>
>  I personally don't think it's a fair comparison because Ubuntu is
>  derived from Debian and there is cross over.  What I would like to see
>  is a comparison with Debian and Fedora to see what the actual numbers
>  are.
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  Marc
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  
Fedora project managed by RH. It means strict roadmap, defined
chekpoints, clear release cycle.
Debian on the other hand, fully community driven. no checkpoints, no
erelease cycle, no "head": Debian Project Leader have very limited
premissions.

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:06 +0300, Zhukov Pavel wrote:
>  On Dec 20, 2007 3:20 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra
> <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt; wrote:
>  > Interesting post about whether Fedora is more popular for dev's than
>  > Ubuntu.
>  >
>  >
> http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2007/12/18/fedora-more-successful-de...
>  >
>  > I personally don't think it's a fair comparison because Ubuntu is
>  > derived from Debian and there is cross over.  What I would like to see
>  > is a comparison with Debian and Fedora to see what the actual numbers
>  > are.
>  >
>  > Cheers,
>  >
>  > Marc
>  >
>  > --
>  > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  > Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  >
>  Fedora project managed by RH. It means strict roadmap, defined
>  chekpoints, clear release cycle.
>  Debian on the other hand, fully community driven. no checkpoints, no
>  erelease cycle, no "head": Debian Project Leader have very limited
>  premissions.
>   
I disagree while Fedora project is sponsored by RH the majority of the
contributors are from the community.  Max blogged about this the other
day if I remember correctly.  

I'm not to sure what the definition of a community project is but I
would have thought more than 50% constitutes a community project?

My point related mainly to developer-wise which translates to packagers
and docs I think.

Cheers,

Marc

[Zhukov Pavel]

On Dec 20, 2007 4:12 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt; wrote:
>  On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:06 +0300, Zhukov Pavel wrote:
>  > On Dec 20, 2007 3:20 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt; wrote:
>  > > Interesting post about whether Fedora is more popular for dev's than
>  > > Ubuntu.
>  > >
>  > >
> http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2007/12/18/fedora-more-successful-de...
>  > >
>  > > I personally don't think it's a fair comparison because Ubuntu is
>  > > derived from Debian and there is cross over.  What I would like to see
>  > > is a comparison with Debian and Fedora to see what the actual numbers
>  > > are.
>  > >
>  > > Cheers,
>  > >
>  > > Marc
>  > >
>  > > --
>  > > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  > > Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  > >
>  > Fedora project managed by RH. It means strict roadmap, defined
>  > chekpoints, clear release cycle.
>  > Debian on the other hand, fully community driven. no checkpoints, no
>  > erelease cycle, no "head": Debian Project Leader have very limited
>  > premissions.
>  >
>
>  I disagree while Fedora project is sponsored by RH the majority of the
>  contributors are from the community.  Max blogged about this the other
>  day if I remember correctly.
>
>  I'm not to sure what the definition of a community project is but I
>  would have thought more than 50% constitutes a community project?
>
>  My point related mainly to developer-wise which translates to packagers
>  and docs I think.
>
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  Marc
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  
by "Community driven" i mean that roadmap and other major decisions
defined by community using voting or other procedures.

[Mukul Dharwadkar]

It's really going to be very hard if we still continue to measure our
success on popularity in Developer community. Although it is a good thing to
be accepted by Developers, the true measure of success is the acceptance by
the user community in which, I am sorry to say, Ubuntu beats Fedora hands
down. Coincidentally, I just blogged about this yesterday.

http://www.dharwadkar.com/weblog/desktop_linux/view

We have to come up with ways to make sure that Linux in general and
specifically Fedora becomes the OS of choice. It's a large market out there
and we can make it if we get our priorities right.

regards,
Mukul


On 12/20/07, Zhukov Pavel <gelios(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Dec 20, 2007 4:12 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  >
>  > On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:06 +0300, Zhukov Pavel wrote:
>  > > On Dec 20, 2007 3:20 PM, Marc Wiriadisastra <marc(a)mwiriadi.id.au&gt;
>  wrote:
>  > > > Interesting post about whether Fedora is more popular for dev's than
>  > > > Ubuntu.
>  > > >
>  > > >
>
> http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2007/12/18/fedora-more-successful-de...
>  > > >
>  > > > I personally don't think it's a fair comparison because Ubuntu is
>  > > > derived from Debian and there is cross over.  What I would like to
>  see
>  > > > is a comparison with Debian and Fedora to see what the actual
>  numbers
>  > > > are.
>  > > >
>  > > > Cheers,
>  > > >
>  > > > Marc
>  > > >
>  > > > --
>  > > > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  > > > Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  > > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  > > >
>  > > Fedora project managed by RH. It means strict roadmap, defined
>  > > chekpoints, clear release cycle.
>  > > Debian on the other hand, fully community driven. no checkpoints, no
>  > > erelease cycle, no "head": Debian Project Leader have very limited
>  > > premissions.
>  > >
>  >
>  > I disagree while Fedora project is sponsored by RH the majority of the
>  > contributors are from the community.  Max blogged about this the other
>  > day if I remember correctly.
>  >
>  > I'm not to sure what the definition of a community project is but I
>  > would have thought more than 50% constitutes a community project?
>  >
>  > My point related mainly to developer-wise which translates to packagers
>  > and docs I think.
>  >
>  >
>  > Cheers,
>  >
>  > Marc
>  >
>  > --
>  > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  > Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  >
>
>  by "Community driven" i mean that roadmap and other major decisions
>  defined by community using voting or other procedures.
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  


-- 
Smile!!! :) It improves your face value...

Visit me at
http://www.dharwadkar.com
http://www.dharwadkar.org
Sister Site:
http://www.saraswatibhuvan.org

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, Mukul Dharwadkar wrote:

>  It's really going to be very hard if we still continue to measure
> our 
>  success on popularity in Developer community. Although it is a good 
>  thing to be accepted by Developers, the true measure of success is the 
>  acceptance by the user community in which, I am sorry to say, Ubuntu 
>  beats Fedora hands down. 
"True measure of success"?

The most persistent fallacy in the open source world is that desktop usage 
by grandma and grandpa is the "true measure of success".  If the "true 
measure of success" is number of novice desktop users, then Microsoft is 
beating all of us by such a wide margin that we may as well not bother.

Ubuntu is extremely good at polishing what currently exists for new Linux 
users.  That's a good goal.  But it is not Fedora's primary goal.

Fedora's goal is to put together the best *and most free* general purpose 
operating system with *the strongest community of contributors* in order 
to *drive innovation*.

>  We have to come up with ways to make sure that Linux in general and 
>  specifically Fedora becomes the OS of choice. It's a large market out 
>  there and we can make it if we get our priorities right. 
I agree that we must keep working to make Fedora more useful to more 
people.  Note that the differences in that regard between Ubuntu and 
Fedora shrink with every release.

We must not, however, compromise the Free Software principles that give us 
our strength.

--g

-- 
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Community Development Manager
Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
"To whomsoever much hath been given...
...from him much shall be asked"

[John Babich]

On Dec 20, 2007 9:52 PM, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

<snip>

>  I agree that we must keep working to make Fedora more useful to more
>  people.  Note that the differences in that regard between Ubuntu and
>  Fedora shrink with every release.
>
>  We must not, however, compromise the Free Software principles that give us
>  our strength.
>  
+1

John Babich
Volunteer, Fedora Project

[Mukul Dharwadkar]

Well I can certainly respect that, but what good is innovation if nobody (or
at least not enough) is going to use it. And I did think that providing a
viable alternative to Windows was one of the objective of Linux. I didn't
compare Fedora with Windows because it is accepted that Microsoft has a
monopoly on the desktop OS market. It is within the Linux community where
the question of popularity exists.

If not compromising the principles means less usable and less popular
operating system, the I deeply believe that the priciples are wrong to start
with. I understand this is a very strong statement, but I think the
underlying principle of Free Software Foundation is tha software should be
free for ALL and not only for those who are technical enough to understand
it. I think we all would agree to it.

I order to abide by our principles I feel we must make our software more
appealing and usable than the competition, for which the immediate goal is
Ubuntu, then MAC and then ultimately challenge the supremacy of Windows.

I am not trying to start a flame war. After all we are all on the same side.
I just wanted to contribute my thoughts.

regards,
Mukul


On 12/20/07, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, Mukul Dharwadkar wrote:
>
>  > It's really going to be very hard if we still continue to measure our
>  > success on popularity in Developer community. Although it is a good
>  > thing to be accepted by Developers, the true measure of success is the
>  > acceptance by the user community in which, I am sorry to say, Ubuntu
>  > beats Fedora hands down.
>
>  "True measure of success"?
>
>  The most persistent fallacy in the open source world is that desktop usage
>  by grandma and grandpa is the "true measure of success".  If the "true
>  measure of success" is number of novice desktop users, then Microsoft is
>  beating all of us by such a wide margin that we may as well not bother.
>
>  Ubuntu is extremely good at polishing what currently exists for new Linux
>  users.  That's a good goal.  But it is not Fedora's primary goal.
>
>  Fedora's goal is to put together the best *and most free* general purpose
>  operating system with *the strongest community of contributors* in order
>  to *drive innovation*.
>
>  > We have to come up with ways to make sure that Linux in general and
>  > specifically Fedora becomes the OS of choice. It's a large market out
>  > there and we can make it if we get our priorities right.
>
>  I agree that we must keep working to make Fedora more useful to more
>  people.  Note that the differences in that regard between Ubuntu and
>  Fedora shrink with every release.
>
>  We must not, however, compromise the Free Software principles that give us
>  our strength.
>
>  --g
>
>  --
>  Greg DeKoenigsberg
>  Community Development Manager
>  Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
>  "To whomsoever much hath been given...
>  ...from him much shall be asked"
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  


-- 
Smile!!! :) It improves your face value...

Visit me at
http://www.dharwadkar.com
http://www.dharwadkar.org
Sister Site:
http://www.saraswatibhuvan.org

[Jef Spaleta]

On Dec 20, 2007 10:19 AM, Mukul Dharwadkar <mukul.dharwadkar(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Well I can certainly respect that, but what good is innovation if
> nobody (or
>  at least not enough) is going to use it. 
How do you know that not enough be are going to use it? 2 years from
now, 5 years from now 10 years from now... can you see that far ahead?
 Looking at every 6 month release as the end result, is an absolutely
fantastic way to NOT see how innovations are being adopted. You have
to look much further out than that... at least 2 years.  How far would
Ubuntu have come if Debian community wasn't already there for years
and years doing the hard work of putting a distribution together?
Every release of Fedora is a step a long a path. Not an end product.
We choose to put disruptive technology into the distribution so that
long term everyone benefits because we help mature that technology in
an open dialog between users and developers.

Remind me again, with which distribution does the software for OLPC
share the closest heritage?  5 years  out from now will there be
enough OLPC users in the world to satisfy what you personally think
are "enough" users for innovative technology that is being created now
in conjunction with Fedora?

Innovation is best measured by taking into account of all the ways you
didn't expect it to be used when you were creating it. In that sense,
mozilla is a great example of an innovation generator.  By all rights,
they lost the browser war by the time Netscape opened its codebase and
created the Mozilla foundation.  They lost it, hands down. Everyone
involved with mozilla should have just packed it up and gone home, IE
ate their lunch in marketshare.  But they didn't, and because they
focused heavily on innovating open source technology we've got all
these very interesting web-centric applications that are making use of
xul technology that aren't a traditional browser... not to mention a
pretty nice traditional browser or two as well.

The real magic of innovation is not how appealing it is when you are
creating it, but how it inspires more people to do new supremely
interesting things in the future.  An analogy, this year the color
pink may be appealing for rain jackets, but the innovation of Goretex
was revolutionary when it was created for the space program. I'd
rather have Fedora focus on developing innovations has impactful as
Goretex and not worry so much about what this year's hot color will
be.

>  And I did think that providing a
>  viable alternative to Windows was one of the objective of Linux. I didn't
>  compare Fedora with Windows because it is accepted that Microsoft has a
>  monopoly on the desktop OS market. It is within the Linux community where
>  the question of popularity exists. 
There are NO valid comprehensive comparable metrics of linux adoption
across openly developed distributions...full stop. You can wave your
hands all you want. But the hard reality is Fedora is the ONLY
distribution that is putting any effort into producing a methodology
in counting adoption trends.

>  I order to abide by our principles I feel we must make our software
> more
>  appealing and usable than the competition, for which the immediate goal is
>  Ubuntu, then MAC and then ultimately challenge the supremacy of Windows. 
if you feel Ubuntu is competition, then you absolutely the wrong
mindset in place to be an effective contributor for Fedora. The Fedora
 mission is about being a conduit for upstream development. We
integrate the work of multiple upstreams has faithfully as we can, and
drive the necessary changes back into upstream projects for everyone
to make use of. If you are looking for to make Fedora more appealing
by adding a lot of downstream patches that other distributions don't
get access to via upstream, that is in direct conflict with the
mission.  We try very hard limit how we differentiate from upstream to
thematic elements that users can easily change after install.  If
there is general UI polish, then we want that to go into the upstream
projects so that everyone making use of those project components to
build a distribution benefit.

>  I am not trying to start a flame war. After all we are all on the same side.
>  I just wanted to contribute my thoughts. 
You aren't starting a flame war. This is discussion is as old as the
fedora project.

-jef

[Mukul Dharwadkar]

Well, you are right. I don't know 2 years from now how many people will be
using it. But I know that whoever will be using F8 or even F9 will be at
least 3 versions out of date or will have to reinstall thrice.

How many of the "users" would be looking forward to do that on a regular
basis unless we come with a in-place upgrade option like what Ubuntu
provides. And while I am on that subject a competition need not always mean
that you have destroy the opponent. It can always be a healthy competition
where both Fedora and Ubuntu can become better and stronger and more widely
adopted. If we don't consider Ubuntu as competition then why do we keep a
track and follow what is happening in Ubuntu world. I remember not so long
ago on the same mailing list.

If we don't want to measure the adoption and success rates, then we might as
well drop all pretense of developing an operating system for the consumption
of user community and limit it for research and educational purposes because
it all points to the same thing. Innovation has it's own place, but as I
have already said, innovation is no good if nobody is going to use it.
Mozilla (specifically Firefox) is a case of innovation driven by and towards
an end user need keeping ease of use & adoption in mind. Innovation is not
magic. It is driven by specific user demand and necessity. As we say,
"Necessity is the mother of Invention".

We cannot disregard this point and absolve of our responsibility of
providing a good and free (or extremely affordable) alternative to the user
by saying that it is as old as mother earth and nothing can be done about
it. We are empowered people who have the vision and boldness to challenge
the established and create a change.

I am just voicing my opinions of what expectations the user community will
be having from us.

-- 

Mukul Dharwadkar
http://www.dharwadkar.com
http://www.dharwadkar.org
Sister site:
http://www.saraswatibhuvan.org

[image: Mukul Dharwadkar's weblog]
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/mdharwadkar/%7E6/1>


On Dec 21, 2007 4:28 PM, Jeff Spaleta < jspaleta(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Dec 20, 2007 10:19 AM, Mukul Dharwadkar <
> mukul.dharwadkar(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  wrote:
>  > Well I can certainly respect that, but what good is innovation if nobody
>  (or
>  > at least not enough) is going to use it.
>
>  How do you know that not enough be are going to use it? 2 years from
>  now, 5 years from now 10 years from now... can you see that far ahead?
>   Looking at every 6 month release as the end result, is an absolutely
>  fantastic way to NOT see how innovations are being adopted. You have
>  to look much further out than that... at least 2 years.  How far would
>  Ubuntu have come if Debian community wasn't already there for years
>  and years doing the hard work of putting a distribution together?
>  Every release of Fedora is a step a long a path. Not an end product.
>  We choose to put disruptive technology into the distribution so that
>  long term everyone benefits because we help mature that technology in
>  an open dialog between users and developers.
>
>  Remind me again, with which distribution does the software for OLPC
>  share the closest heritage?  5 years  out from now will there be
>  enough OLPC users in the world to satisfy what you personally think
>  are "enough" users for innovative technology that is being created now
>  in conjunction with Fedora?
>
>  Innovation is best measured by taking into account of all the ways you
>  didn't expect it to be used when you were creating it. In that sense,
>  mozilla is a great example of an innovation generator.  By all rights,
>  they lost the browser war by the time Netscape opened its codebase and
>  created the Mozilla foundation.  They lost it, hands down. Everyone
>  involved with mozilla should have just packed it up and gone home, IE
>  ate their lunch in marketshare.  But they didn't, and because they
>  focused heavily on innovating open source technology we've got all
>  these very interesting web-centric applications that are making use of
>  xul technology that aren't a traditional browser... not to mention a
>  pretty nice traditional browser or two as well.
>
>  The real magic of innovation is not how appealing it is when you are
>  creating it, but how it inspires more people to do new supremely
>  interesting things in the future.  An analogy, this year the color
>  pink may be appealing for rain jackets, but the innovation of Goretex
>  was revolutionary when it was created for the space program. I'd
>  rather have Fedora focus on developing innovations has impactful as
>  Goretex and not worry so much about what this year's hot color will
>  be.
>
>  > And I did think that providing a
>  > viable alternative to Windows was one of the objective of Linux. I
>  didn't
>  > compare Fedora with Windows because it is accepted that Microsoft has a
>  > monopoly on the desktop OS market. It is within the Linux community
>  where
>  > the question of popularity exists.
>
>  There are NO valid comprehensive comparable metrics of linux adoption
>  across openly developed distributions...full stop. You can wave your
>  hands all you want. But the hard reality is Fedora is the ONLY
>  distribution that is putting any effort into producing a methodology
>  in counting adoption trends.
>
>  > I order to abide by our principles I feel we must make our software more
>  > appealing and usable than the competition, for which the immediate goal
>  is
>  > Ubuntu, then MAC and then ultimately challenge the supremacy of Windows.
>
>  if you feel Ubuntu is competition, then you absolutely the wrong
>  mindset in place to be an effective contributor for Fedora. The Fedora
>   mission is about being a conduit for upstream development. We
>  integrate the work of multiple upstreams has faithfully as we can, and
>  drive the necessary changes back into upstream projects for everyone
>  to make use of. If you are looking for to make Fedora more appealing
>  by adding a lot of downstream patches that other distributions don't
>  get access to via upstream, that is in direct conflict with the
>  mission.  We try very hard limit how we differentiate from upstream to
>  thematic elements that users can easily change after install.  If
>  there is general UI polish, then we want that to go into the upstream
>  projects so that everyone making use of those project components to
>  build a distribution benefit.
>
>  >
>  > I am not trying to start a flame war. After all we are all on the same
>  side.
>  > I just wanted to contribute my thoughts.
>
>  You aren't starting a flame war. This is discussion is as old as the
>  fedora project.
>
>  -jef
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  


-- 
Smile!!! :) It improves your face value...

Visit me at
http://www.dharwadkar.com
http://www.dharwadkar.org
Sister Site:
http://www.saraswatibhuvan.org

[William Cattey]

Here is a simple metric for you:

Each September MIT offers a brief introduction to computing at MIT to  
all comers, but particularly focused on the incoming freshmen.   
Institutionally MIT is a Red Hat Enterprise Linux shop.   
Unfortunately, most incoming freshmen run what is free, not what is  
supported.

For many years the informal poll, "by show of hands, what distro are  
you running" the majority was Fedora.  Starting last year, Fedora  
took a distant second to Ubuntu.  In the "Linux Stand and be Counted  
Survey" departments, labs, centers and individuals at MIT run a  
significant majority of Debian/Ubuntu compared to any other distro.

Maybe this is just because, like Mandrake before it, there was some  
significant that made the distro very popular for a time, but then  
then it was abandoned and the majority returned to the steadfast  
source of interesting new and useful functionality, Fedora (and Red  
Hat Linux before it.)

My experience, however is:

	Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for large institutions where ANY change  
is bad, and
	where nobody cares about laptops.  Functionality is always a couple  
years behind
	what people find on Windows, MacOS or Fedora.

	Fedora is for people interested in playing with and contributing to  
the bleeding edge
	of Linux.  Stuff is always changing, and it's often different from  
what everyone
	else is using, and it sometimes need a little tweaking to get stuff  
working.  Sometimes
	this is a welcome challenge.  Sometimes it's too much of a pain.

	Ubuntu is for people who want to use Linux, preferably on their  
laptops, and
	preferably not for development.  But also, Ubuntu is COOL.  It is  
easy to get it
	going and working with the same stuff that the guy next door runs on  
the Mac
	or under Windows.  Contributing in the future is a real possibility.

I am concerned that Fedora and Red Hat are losing mindshare in a way  
that a few years down the line will "kill the seed corn."  There's no  
nice middle ground between Red Hat Enterprise with well established  
functionality, and Fedora with bleeding edge functionality.  Well  
there is
but it's called Ubuntu.

For the people already committed to the development community, Fedora  
is perfect just as it is.
But for people not sure whether they want to use Linux, or join the  
developer community, Ubuntu works, but Fedora has issues.

Perhaps those who feel as Mukul Dharwadkar and myself will find a way  
to provide a particular spin on Fedora that will be an intermediate  
stage between Fedora as it is now, and Enterprise such that the  
developer community will build from the Fedora code base, not the  
less interesting, but more usable Debian/Ubuntu code base.

-Bill

----

William Cattey
Linux Platform Coordinator
MIT Information Services & Technology

N42-040M, 617-253-0140, wdc(a)mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/


On Dec 21, 2007, at 5:28 PM, Jeff Spaleta wrote:

>  if you feel Ubuntu is competition, then you absolutely the wrong
>  mindset in place to be an effective contributor for Fedora. The Fedora
>   mission is about being a conduit for upstream development.

[Jef Spaleta]

On Dec 23, 2007 7:46 PM, William Cattey <wdc(a)mit.edu&gt; wrote:
>  I am concerned that Fedora and Red Hat are losing mindshare in a way
>  that a few years down the line will "kill the seed corn."  There's no
>  nice middle ground between Red Hat Enterprise with well established
>  functionality, and Fedora with bleeding edge functionality.  Well
>  there is
>  but it's called Ubuntu. 
Point to specific functionality... open functionality that Fedora
doesn't have that we should.
If you are talking about nvidia or ati proprietary drivers out of the
box.. then that's a non-starter.  What piece of open technology is
Fedora not providing that let's people
"working with the same stuff that the guy next door runs on the Mac or
under Window"

It's real easy to speak in generalities and yet not actually say
anything significant.

>  For the people already committed to the development community, Fedora
>  is perfect just as it is.
>  But for people not sure whether they want to use Linux, or join the
>  developer community, Ubuntu works, but Fedora has issues. 
Every distribution has issues.   What in the Fedora Desktop LiveCD doesn't work?

>  Perhaps those who feel as Mukul Dharwadkar and myself will find a way
>  to provide a particular spin on Fedora that will be an intermediate
>  stage between Fedora as it is now, and Enterprise such that the
>  developer community will build from the Fedora code base, not the
>  less interesting, but more usable Debian/Ubuntu code base. 
Again isn't the Fedora Desktop Livecd exactly what you want?

-jef

[Jon Stanley]

On Dec 24, 2007 2:49 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  Point to specific functionality... open functionality that Fedora
>  doesn't have that we should. 
I think that what is being referred to here is the Ubuntu 'LTS'
releases, that get long term support updates.  I 'm kind of on the
fence on whether or not we should do this - it means extra developer
cycles that may or may not exist, and the fact that we *do* have RHEL
and it's derivatives, a la CentOS.  Someone looking for a free as in
{speech,beer} distribution with long term support I tend to point
towards CentOS, but maybe there is middle ground between that and the
current Fedora that we don't have.

[Jeroen van Meeuwen]

Jon Stanley wrote:
>  On Dec 24, 2007 2:49 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>  
> > Point to specific functionality... open functionality that Fedora
> > doesn't have that we should.
>  
>  I think that what is being referred to here is the Ubuntu 'LTS'
>  releases, that get long term support updates.  I 'm kind of on the
>  fence on whether or not we should do this - it means extra developer
>  cycles that may or may not exist, and the fact that we *do* have RHEL
>  and it's derivatives, a la CentOS.  Someone looking for a free as in
>  {speech,beer} distribution with long term support I tend to point
>  towards CentOS, but maybe there is middle ground between that and the
>  current Fedora that we don't have.
>   
I don't think Ubuntu LTS gives you the latest and greatest unless you 
upgrade, does it?

Same with CentOS; although it might be supported longer then you are 
going to use it, whenever you feel you want newer software you upgrade 
to the next release. Meanwhile, it's stable.

The Fedora Project moves in with EPEL, Extra Packages for Enterprise 
Linux, perfectly suitable for a CentOS machine and with the same release 
and 'support' cycle.

Kind regards,

Jeroen van Meeuwen
-kanarip

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Dec 24, 2007 at 04:02:39PM -0600, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  and it's derivatives, a la CentOS.  Someone looking for a free as
> in
>  {speech,beer} distribution with long term support I tend to point
>  towards CentOS, but maybe there is middle ground between that and the
>  current Fedora that we don't have. 
There was, in Fedora Legacy. But there turned out to be too little interest.

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm(a)mattdm.org          <http://mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>              <http://linux.bu.edu/>

[Jon Stanley]

On Dec 24, 2007 4:19 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen <kanarip(a)kanarip.com&gt; wrote:

>  I don't think Ubuntu LTS gives you the latest and greatest unless
> you
>  upgrade, does it? 
I think that's the whole point.

>  Same with CentOS; although it might be supported longer then you are
>  going to use it, whenever you feel you want newer software you upgrade
>  to the next release. Meanwhile, it's stable. 
Correct - however security updates are backported to the "old"
versions of the software.

>  The Fedora Project moves in with EPEL, Extra Packages for Enterprise
>  Linux, perfectly suitable for a CentOS machine and with the same release
>  and 'support' cycle. 
Not entirely sure what you mean here.  I think what was being called
for was a release whereby it's "supported" (with security updates,
etc) beyond the current 1 year, however perhaps not as much as the 7
years that RHEL is supported.

However, as Matthew said in the e-mail that came in as I was writing
this, there was little interest in Fedora Legacy when it existed.
What makes us think that there's more of a demand now?  It's either
the short, bleeding edge release cycle of Fedora as we know it, or the
long release cycle of RHEL.  Both serve different purposes.

-Jon

[Jeroen van Meeuwen]

Jon Stanley wrote:
> > The Fedora Project moves in with EPEL, Extra Packages for
> Enterprise
> > Linux, perfectly suitable for a CentOS machine and with the same release
> > and 'support' cycle.
>  
>  Not entirely sure what you mean here.  I think what was being called
>  for was a release whereby it's "supported" (with security updates,
>  etc) beyond the current 1 year, however perhaps not as much as the 7
>  years that RHEL is supported.
>   
EPEL is a Fedora Project effort for Enterprise Linux providing extra 
packages and updates to those packages for the same amount of time the 
Enterprise Linux distribution it ships for is supported. I don't really 
know what their policy is on actively back-porting fixes for security 
issues, but as far as I know you can at least log bugs again an EPEL 
package until the end of the release's lifecycle.

>  However, as Matthew said in the e-mail that came in as I was writing
>  this, there was little interest in Fedora Legacy when it existed.
>  What makes us think that there's more of a demand now?  It's either
>  the short, bleeding edge release cycle of Fedora as we know it, or the
>  long release cycle of RHEL.  Both serve different purposes.
>   
Yes, and the shorter release cycle for Fedora -at least in my opinion- 
helps us to do what we do best, moving forward, not "wasting" resources 
to what Enterprise Linux does best, being stable.

Kind regards,

Jeroen van Meeuwen
-kanarip

[William Cattey]

It turns out that 1000 seats at MIT are switching to Ubuntu from  
Enterprise.
They will not be using LTS, because they expect to need more recent  
hardware drivers.

They are switching to Ubuntu instead of Fedora even though they  
expect there will be an annual OS update of Ubuntu required, the apt  
package management system makes a lot of the work to switch from our  
present tightly integrated OS + alternate versions of packages +  
additional packages to alternate versions and additional packages  
layered on a pre-installed system.

It is product focus, however that makes Ubuntu attractive to me and  
many at MIT.  With Fedora and Enterprise, the two choices are three   
year old functionality, or bleeding edge functionality.  Example: in  
November Fedora 8 came out with important laptop power management  
functionality, but it also shipped with a broken rewrite of  
NetworkManager, and an alpha version of BIND.  Fedora 6 shifted to  
not getting any attention, and the clock to get off Fedora 7 started  
EVEN BEFORE FEDORA 8 FUNCTIONALITY WAS STABLE!

With Ubuntu, a single common code base is taken care of by different  
groups serving different clientele.  Canonical Inc. will take money  
from corporate customers who need help managing systems or getting  
new functionality.  Volunteers explore new functionality and move  
forward on the process of producing open source solutions.  At  
particular points a particular version is flagged for longer term  
support, but the primary focus is not on exploring new functionality,  
or on back porting popular functionality to an ancient codebase  
tailored to customers afraid of change. It is simply:  Produce a  
usable experience with a balance of stable code and new  
functionality.  What Fedora-based spin has this focus?

-Bill

----

William Cattey
Linux Platform Coordinator
MIT Information Services & Technology

N42-040M, 617-253-0140, wdc(a)mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/


On Dec 24, 2007, at 5:38 PM, Jon Stanley wrote:

>  On Dec 24, 2007 4:19 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen
> <kanarip(a)kanarip.com&gt;  
>  wrote:
>
> > I don't think Ubuntu LTS gives you the latest and greatest unless you
> > upgrade, does it?
>
>  I think that's the whole point.
>
> > Same with CentOS; although it might be supported longer then you are
> > going to use it, whenever you feel you want newer software you  
> > upgrade
> > to the next release. Meanwhile, it's stable.
>
>  Correct - however security updates are backported to the "old"
>  versions of the software.
>
> > The Fedora Project moves in with EPEL, Extra Packages for Enterprise
> > Linux, perfectly suitable for a CentOS machine and with the same  
> > release
> > and 'support' cycle.
>
>  Not entirely sure what you mean here.  I think what was being called
>  for was a release whereby it's "supported" (with security updates,
>  etc) beyond the current 1 year, however perhaps not as much as the 7
>  years that RHEL is supported.
>
>  However, as Matthew said in the e-mail that came in as I was writing
>  this, there was little interest in Fedora Legacy when it existed.
>  What makes us think that there's more of a demand now?  It's either
>  the short, bleeding edge release cycle of Fedora as we know it, or the
>  long release cycle of RHEL.  Both serve different purposes.
>
>  -Jon
>
>  -- 
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list

[Jef Spaleta]

On Dec 24, 2007 2:51 PM, William Cattey <wdc(a)mit.edu&gt; wrote:
>  apt
>  package management system makes a lot of the work to switch from our
>  present tightly integrated OS + alternate versions of packages +
>  additional packages to alternate versions and additional packages
>  layered on a pre-installed system. 
And you can't accomplish this with yum in a fedora ecosystem of repositories?


>  It is product focus, however that makes Ubuntu attractive to me and
>  many at MIT.  With Fedora and Enterprise, the two choices are three
>  year old functionality, or bleeding edge functionality.  Example: in
>  November Fedora 8 came out with important laptop power management
>  functionality, but it also shipped with a broken rewrite of
>  NetworkManager, and an alpha version of BIND.  Fedora 6 shifted to
>  not getting any attention, and the clock to get off Fedora 7 started
>  EVEN BEFORE FEDORA 8 FUNCTIONALITY WAS STABLE! 
The NM in F8 is not "broken".. in any event there is the older network
stack that does not rely on NM for usage cases that NM isn't ready
for.  NM works for more network situations for my laptop in F8 did it
did in F7.

>  At particular points a particular version is flagged for longer term
>  support, but the primary focus is not on exploring new functionality,
>  or on back porting popular functionality to an ancient codebase
>  tailored to customers afraid of change. It is simply:  Produce a
>  usable experience with a balance of stable code and new
>  functionality.  What Fedora-based spin has this focus? 
Fedora Legacy was tried ealier and had a 2 year live cycle .. and
while there was interest in using such a distribution from a usage
standpoint, there was not enough people interested in contributing to
actually doing to back ports.  When legacy was decommissioned the
Fedora lifecycle was adjust to give approximately 13 months of
updates, along individuals to 'skip' a Fedora release.  There's
absolutely nothing stopping another community attempt at 2 year
target.


-jef