OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
I guess all the hassle about the mailing list over the past few weeks finally got to someone.
However, it also says that the mailing list is not going away, and that "users are encouraged to go to the forums first if they have support questions.
So now people will be going to two different places to NOT search the archives, and ask questions.
Brilliant!
On Apr 4, 2005 3:51 PM, David Hoffman dhoffman2004@gmail.com wrote:
OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
I guess all the hassle about the mailing list over the past few weeks finally got to someone.
However, it also says that the mailing list is not going away, and that "users are encouraged to go to the forums first if they have support questions.
So now people will be going to two different places to NOT search the archives, and ask questions.
Brilliant!
ROTFLMAO
On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 15:55, jim lawrence wrote:
On Apr 4, 2005 3:51 PM, David Hoffman dhoffman2004@gmail.com wrote:
OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
I guess all the hassle about the mailing list over the past few weeks finally got to someone.
However, it also says that the mailing list is not going away, and that "users are encouraged to go to the forums first if they have support questions.
So now people will be going to two different places to NOT search the archives, and ask questions.
Brilliant!
ROTFLMAO
LOL!
And this fixes the problems found on the mailing list how?
:)
Who is moderating the forums?
And this fixes the problems found on the mailing list how?
:)
Who is moderating the forums?
http://www.fedoraforum.org/?view=people
I've been wondering for most of the day how to put this, but I'm disappointed in the Fedora leadership.
Not so much for the decision (although I maintain it was a bad one), as for the way in which it was made.
One of the Red Hat strengths has always been to say "This isn't working well enough. This needs changing." Then they change it and pick up the pieces later. Sometimes it does take a while.
(Remember Red Hat 7 and the "snapshot" 2.96 compiler? Remember the move to UTF-8? We're still dealing with the fall-out from udev, and the NPTL move. There have been others.)
But usually, the change is technical (or business-related). One of the reasons I've stuck with Red Hat and Fedora is that I trust them to have technical talent. To make the right technical decisions. To make the changes that need to be made, to advance the platform.
They've proved themselves to be capable of seeing what the technical Right Thing is (or, at least, a much better thing) before the rest of the community. Eventually, most people agree.
This decision is different: it's about communities. We are not code to be pummelled, refactored, and, if needed, discarded. Crucially, we are supposed to be able to help change things by ourselves if necessary, if asked.
If *we* get the help. This forum works the way it does because Red Hat set it up that way, and have not been bothered to change it. We have just had a massive, long argument-cum-flame war trying to get some standards together and "approved" because there has been basically no help from Red Hat.
The mailing list is not perfect. We know that. We've gone ahead and forged a community, perhaps Fedora's biggest, despite that.
You know? "Community"? The words that the project website keeps using?
Let me tell you: "community" means "communication". It means "consultation". It means at *least* an attempt to come to a consensus. Especially on issues that change the status of that community.
Communication has only been one way. There has been no attempt at consultation: no attempt at consensus.
The ways that have served Fedora well for technical decisions Will Not Do when it comes to a major change to the status of a community. It would be charitable to call what happened an oversight, or that the people concerned don't have spare time to consult widely. But it looks from here like supreme indifference to our opinions and our contributions, veering towards contempt.
As a result, I'm seriously wondering what on earth I am doing here. There are other Linux communities: there are other OSes. I have probably been using Red Hat and Fedora as my main distribution for too long.
I am seriously considering switching distributions. (Any recommendations for AMD-64? I understand there's a new Ubuntu out tomorrow).
I'd like to hear what you all feel about this. I'll remain subscribed to the list for a while, but I doubt I'll contribute much in future.
Thank you all for what you've done. Thank you, Red Hat and the Fedora community, for all your technical achievements.
God bless, and God speed,
James.
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 12:34, James Wilkinson wrote:
I've been wondering for most of the day how to put this, but I'm disappointed in the Fedora leadership.
Not so much for the decision (although I maintain it was a bad one), as for the way in which it was made.
Not much control by the community yet. :)
As a result, I'm seriously wondering what on earth I am doing here. There are other Linux communities: there are other OSes. I have probably been using Red Hat and Fedora as my main distribution for too long.
I am seriously considering switching distributions. (Any recommendations for AMD-64? I understand there's a new Ubuntu out tomorrow).
I'd like to hear what you all feel about this. I'll remain subscribed to the list for a while, but I doubt I'll contribute much in future.
Thank you all for what you've done. Thank you, Red Hat and the Fedora community, for all your technical achievements.
Just because someone proclaimed fedoraforum.org as the "official support" for fedora does not mean this mailing list is going away. Unless Red Hat turns it off I expect it to remain just the way it is. I just hope this was not a decision based on advertising revenue generated by web hits.
Recent efforts to publish and distribute a standard list of rules for this mailing list is IMHO a good thing and should go a long way towards curbing some of the discussions that have been held here. It won't get rid of all such discussions but there will be some authority behind pointing out the rules if they are moved up one level from unofficial to official. A little help from Red Hat in getting this done would be greatly appreciated. (hint hint)
As you said this is something like a community. It is what we make of it. As such it would be a shame for people such as yourself to jump ship for something that won't affect this list that much, unless people such as yourself jump ship in large numbers.
Personally I find it easier to skim through large numbers of postings in this format. I have tried the forum, the question I posted received no responses over there. Could be due to smaller numbers of users, could be that the question was on a topic no one over there knew anything about. Experience here is that someone eventually responds, but YMMV. :)
So don't leave for this reason alone. If there are other reasons then it may be the right thing to do. But not for this reason by itself.
Scot L. Harris said:
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 12:34, James Wilkinson wrote:
I've been wondering for most of the day how to put this, but I'm disappointed in the Fedora leadership.
Not so much for the decision (although I maintain it was a bad one), as for the way in which it was made.
Not much control by the community yet. :)
Don't fall into the trap of thinking community = democracy. If in doubt, re-read the leadership page.
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/leadership.html
On Apr 5, 2005 1:49 PM, William Hooper whooperhsd3@earthlink.net wrote:
Scot L. Harris said:
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 12:34, James Wilkinson wrote:
I've been wondering for most of the day how to put this, but I'm disappointed in the Fedora leadership.
Not so much for the decision (although I maintain it was a bad one), as for the way in which it was made.
Not much control by the community yet. :)
Don't fall into the trap of thinking community = democracy. If in doubt, re-read the leadership page.
You are right. Myself, I've been reluctant to join this thread, because I too didn't know how to express my disappointment, and I do agree with every word from above. However, after seeing the web page you pointed out, I began to understand a little more: * Philosophy ... voting: " The Fedora leadership structure is not a voting structure. Our structure follows historical Linux and Red Hat practice; we seek rough consensus and working code, with a benevolent oligarchy (like a benevolent dictatorship, but hierarchical) to resolve disputes and ensure that consistent decisions are made. The leaders who need to achieve consensus will be chosen by merit; functionally, this will be a meritocracy.
The Technical Lead will be the main functional "benevolent dictator" (in the Linux kernel sense), but may be overridden by the Steering Committee, which itself reports to Red Hat's executive management."
That says it all doesn't it?
Also, it seems that the decision process not only doesn't have a voting structure, but it doesn't even care about the needs or opinions of the people influenced by their decisions. I say this because there has been a *very big* discussion here in this mailing list about alternatives before. Web fora was one option considered, and very much rejected by pretty much 99.9% of the good people here. Many other options were suggested. Just see:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&w=2&r=1&s=under+thre...
and all the good opinions were just **completely** ignored by the "leaders" (read, dictators) of the fedora project.
In the end, it makes me wonder... why do we even care debating this? We just got the news. Nothing we say will be heard anyways...
James Wilkinson wrote:
I've been wondering for most of the day how to put this, but I'm disappointed in the Fedora leadership.
Not so much for the decision (although I maintain it was a bad one), as for the way in which it was made.
SNIP
You know? "Community"? The words that the project website keeps using?
Let me tell you: "community" means "communication". It means "consultation". It means at *least* an attempt to come to a consensus. Especially on issues that change the status of that community.
Communication has only been one way. There has been no attempt at consultation: no attempt at consensus.
James, reading your message prompted me to remember a quotation I read the other day that was attributed to Harry Truman, "The only thing new in this world, is the history you did not know." Because I am a little familiar with at least part of the historical record that may touch on Red Hat's decision, I thoroughly disagree with the notion that the decision to adopt Fedoraforum.org as a vehicle was unilateral or done without consultation.
There was a rather extensive discussion several weeks back of the desirability of moving to a web interface for endusers. I found it an appalling idea at the time as list exchanges suggested to me that those subscribers possessing the technical skills to really help out endusers would be unlikely to populate the web interface subscriber group. I was also concerned by the general tone from many of the thread participants that endusers were really not welcome on fedora-list.
I strongly suspect that the number of endusers moving to linux is increasing at an increasing rate. With that in mind, I see the move by Red Hat to adopt fedoraforum.org as an official forum/vehicle as a concrete commitment of resources to further development of the linux desktop market and platform consistent with continuing support of its historical technically competent, sys-admin type user community. They are apparently willing to provide the bandwidth necessary to support both the webforum and the mailing lists. I see nothing to suggest that mailing lists sponsored by Red Hat have been deprecated in any way.
The ways that have served Fedora well for technical decisions Will Not Do when it comes to a major change to the status of a community. It would be charitable to call what happened an oversight, or that the people concerned don't have spare time to consult widely. But it looks from here like supreme indifference to our opinions and our contributions, veering towards contempt.
As a result, I'm seriously wondering what on earth I am doing here. There are other Linux communities: there are other OSes. I have probably been using Red Hat and Fedora as my main distribution for too long.
I too have been considering a change to an alternative linux. Fedora Core development schedules are simply too fast for many endusers. The primary reason I have stuck with Red Hat as long as I have is because it has been relatively easy to do so and there was little to nothing to gain from switching. But, the vague impressions I have about FC4 are not particularly attractive to me as an unsophisticated, technical neophyte enduser.
I am seriously considering switching distributions. (Any recommendations for AMD-64? I understand there's a new Ubuntu out tomorrow).
I'd like to hear what you all feel about this. I'll remain subscribed to the list for a while, but I doubt I'll contribute much in future.
Thank you all for what you've done. Thank you, Red Hat and the Fedora community, for all your technical achievements.
God bless, and God speed,
James.
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 22:07 -0400, David Curry wrote:
I thoroughly disagree with the notion that the decision to adopt Fedoraforum.org as a vehicle was unilateral or done without consultation.
I don't. I agree with that. I would welcome some insight as to how you feel that decision was bi- or multi-lateral, or how the *users* were consulted.
There was a rather extensive discussion several weeks back of the desirability of moving to a web interface for endusers. I found it an appalling idea at the time as list exchanges suggested to me that those subscribers possessing the technical skills to really help out endusers would be unlikely to populate the web interface subscriber group. I was also concerned by the general tone from many of the thread participants that endusers were really not welcome on fedora-list.
May I ask where this discussion was held? I read darn near all of this mailing list, and I particularly care about threads like that one, and I do not recall much support for webfora on this list at all.
Furthermore, I politely beg to call "bullshit" at a "...general tone from many of the thread participants that endusers [sic] were really not welcome on fedora-list." Many, if not most, of the thread participants I remember, and many, if not most, of the strongest, most prolific, and most useful contributors to this list consistently express the conviction that this list is made up OF users, built FOR users, staffed BY users, who try to HELP OTHER USERS. That's all we do here!
Please, show me where "many" people here say that end-users are not really welcome on fedora-list. Because that statement contradicts the loads of stuff that come through my inbox. Directly. Irreconcilably. And, I believe, incorrectly.
Cheers,
On Apr 5, 2005 11:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 22:07 -0400, David Curry wrote:
I thoroughly disagree with the notion that the decision to adopt Fedoraforum.org as a vehicle was unilateral or done without consultation.
I don't. I agree with that. I would welcome some insight as to how you feel that decision was bi- or multi-lateral, or how the *users* were consulted.
Right. There was no consultation.
There was a rather extensive discussion several weeks back of the desirability of moving to a web interface for endusers. I found it an appalling idea at the time as list exchanges suggested to me that those subscribers possessing the technical skills to really help out endusers would be unlikely to populate the web interface subscriber group. I was also concerned by the general tone from many of the thread participants that endusers were really not welcome on fedora-list.
May I ask where this discussion was held? I read darn near all of this mailing list, and I particularly care about threads like that one, and I do not recall much support for webfora on this list at all.
The discussion was held here, on this list. See: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&w=2&r=1&s=under+thre...
However, the common sense there was that most people *did not* want to move to web fora.
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 01:39 -0500, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
The discussion was held here, on this list. See: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&w=2&r=1&s=under+thre...
However, the common sense there was that most people *did not* want to move to web fora.
Thanks for the URL. I recall that thread quite well. But I do not recall the sentiment Craig expressed that "end-users were really not welcome on this list." That in particular was my objection.
Cheers,
Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 01:39 -0500, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
The discussion was held here, on this list. See: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&w=2&r=1&s=under+thre...
However, the common sense there was that most people *did not* want to move to web fora.
Thanks for the URL. I recall that thread quite well. But I do not recall the sentiment Craig expressed that "end-users were really not welcome on this list." That in particular was my objection.
Cheers,
Craig made no such statement that I am aware of, Rodolfo. So please don't attribute it to him. I made that statement in the message that prompted your earlier remarks on this thread.
I made the statement because it is a *factual* and *accurate* description of *my* perception of the discussion under the earlier web fora thread. If you read through that thread you will find that I expressed the sentiment *at the time*.
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 02:33 -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 01:39 -0500, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
The discussion was held here, on this list. See: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&w=2&r=1&s=under+thre...
However, the common sense there was that most people *did not* want to move to web fora.
Thanks for the URL. I recall that thread quite well. But I do not recall the sentiment Craig expressed that "end-users were really not welcome on this list." That in particular was my objection.
---- I don't recall expressing any such sentiment.
I do believe that the volume of this mail list is way too much for most people...hence the forums use a technology that end users can deal with and an in box where they can get overwhelmed mostly by spam.
I surely don't get the 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' that Gustavo is claiming and then creating the nexus that something unfairly was done. I thought it was clear from Warren's first post that the intent was to drive support needs to the forums. All of the discussion after that was the mental masturbation that this list is highly capable of doing and is a rather interesting form of amusement in and of itself.
In the end though, multiple, overlapping support options seem to be a different strokes for different folks thing.
Craig
On Apr 6, 2005 8:36 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
I surely don't get the 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' that Gustavo is claiming and then creating the nexus that something unfairly was done.
Craig, would you mind quoting the exact moment I used the terms 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' ? I don't reacall using them in this way, and i just couldn't find it in this thread. however, I do remember using 'it was suggested' or 'suggested good solutions'. The difference is subtle but important: noone 'decided' anything. But there were 'suggestions' that seemed to be more widely accepted, so I may have writte 'better slutions' when referring to those.
I thought it was clear from Warren's first post that the intent was to drive support needs to the forums. All of the discussion after that was the mental masturbation that this list is highly capable of doing and is a rather interesting form of amusement in and of itself.
In that you are right. Again, we have the vice of confusing "community" with "democracy" (as was clearly cited before), and then trying to stick our noses where they don't belong.
In the end though, multiple, overlapping support options seem to be a different strokes for different folks thing.
There has never been an objection to that. But notice the "overlapping" term you used yourself. This is the important detail that can't be overstressed: give people the option to access the information in any way they want, but keep all the information in the same place.
The only question I would put is: is *any* post to fedoraforum appear automatically in the list, and vice versa? (In other words, are they just two different means to access the same information?)
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 10:36 -0500, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
On Apr 6, 2005 8:36 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
I surely don't get the 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' that Gustavo is claiming and then creating the nexus that something unfairly was done.
Craig, would you mind quoting the exact moment I used the terms 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' ? I don't reacall using them in this way, and i just couldn't find it in this thread. however, I do remember using 'it was suggested' or 'suggested good solutions'.
---- your phrasing is more accurate than my paraphrasing, I'm quite sure of that. ----
The difference is subtle but important: noone 'decided' anything. But there were 'suggestions' that seemed to be more widely accepted, so I may have writte 'better slutions' when referring to those.
---- You are splitting hairs on the differences between 'decided' and 'widely accepted' but any semantical difference is lost on me when you make any argument that uses 'widely accepted' as it's foundation. ----
I thought it was clear from Warren's first post that the intent was to drive support needs to the forums. All of the discussion after that was the mental masturbation that this list is highly capable of doing and is a rather interesting form of amusement in and of itself.
In that you are right. Again, we have the vice of confusing "community" with "democracy" (as was clearly cited before), and then trying to stick our noses where they don't belong.
---- I understand that there is this notion that Fedora uses the the term community supported quite liberally and at those moments when some want to count on that as indicative that their opinions do count, they get their nose out of joint when they find out that their opinions don't really could when it comes down to it.
Those with the power to move mountains so to speak - in Fedora seem to be the developers, those on the development list, those actively involved with projects that are key to the Red Hat distribution and if you or anyone else wish to gain a voice in the direction of Fedora, then it would behoove you to be represented there - not here. Fedora-list is more for mental masturbation...the heavy lifting is fedora-devel- list@redhat.com ----
In the end though, multiple, overlapping support options seem to be a different strokes for different folks thing.
There has never been an objection to that. But notice the "overlapping" term you used yourself. This is the important detail that can't be overstressed: give people the option to access the information in any way they want, but keep all the information in the same place.
The only question I would put is: is *any* post to fedoraforum appear automatically in the list, and vice versa? (In other words, are they just two different means to access the same information?)
---- as I said, you can't expect to get authoritative answers on this list. You might get a diversity of opinions perhaps, but not authoritative answers.
This is a mail list - run by Red Hat, subject to Red Hat's rules and despite the notion that Fedora is community supported, this list and Fedora packages are not democratic processes.
Craig
On Apr 6, 2005 12:16 PM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 10:36 -0500, Gustavo Seabra wrote:
On Apr 6, 2005 8:36 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
I surely don't get the 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' that Gustavo is claiming and then creating the nexus that something unfairly was done.
Craig, would you mind quoting the exact moment I used the terms 'it was decided' and 'reached good solutions' ? I don't reacall using them in this way, and i just couldn't find it in this thread. however, I do remember using 'it was suggested' or 'suggested good solutions'.
your phrasing is more accurate than my paraphrasing, I'm quite sure of that.
The difference is subtle but important: noone 'decided' anything. But there were 'suggestions' that seemed to be more widely accepted, so I may have writte 'better slutions' when referring to those.
You are splitting hairs on the differences between 'decided' and 'widely accepted' but any semantical difference is lost on me when you make any argument that uses 'widely accepted' as it's foundation.
I thought it was clear from Warren's first post that the intent was to drive support needs to the forums. All of the discussion after that was the mental masturbation that this list is highly capable of doing and is a rather interesting form of amusement in and of itself.
In that you are right. Again, we have the vice of confusing "community" with "democracy" (as was clearly cited before), and then trying to stick our noses where they don't belong.
I understand that there is this notion that Fedora uses the the term community supported quite liberally and at those moments when some want to count on that as indicative that their opinions do count, they get their nose out of joint when they find out that their opinions don't really could when it comes down to it.
Those with the power to move mountains so to speak - in Fedora seem to be the developers, those on the development list, those actively involved with projects that are key to the Red Hat distribution and if you or anyone else wish to gain a voice in the direction of Fedora, then it would behoove you to be represented there - not here. Fedora-list is more for mental masturbation...the heavy lifting is fedora-devel- list@redhat.com
In the end though, multiple, overlapping support options seem to be a different strokes for different folks thing.
There has never been an objection to that. But notice the "overlapping" term you used yourself. This is the important detail that can't be overstressed: give people the option to access the information in any way they want, but keep all the information in the same place.
The only question I would put is: is *any* post to fedoraforum appear automatically in the list, and vice versa? (In other words, are they just two different means to access the same information?)
as I said, you can't expect to get authoritative answers on this list. You might get a diversity of opinions perhaps, but not authoritative answers.
This is a mail list - run by Red Hat, subject to Red Hat's rules and despite the notion that Fedora is community supported, this list and Fedora packages are not democratic processes.
Craig
Why are you guys bickering over this? Time will prove which venue is better. If fedoraforums.org does not get technical support from list members, Red Hat will be required to provide support personnel (creates more jobs, good for economy).
Kam Leo said: [snip]
Why are you guys bickering over this? Time will prove which venue is better. If fedoraforums.org does not get technical support from list members, Red Hat will be required to provide support personnel (creates more jobs, good for economy).
Fedora is an unsupported product. Red Hat isn't paying _anyone_ to directly provide support for Fedora.
On Apr 6, 2005 5:07 PM, William Hooper whooperhsd3@earthlink.net wrote:
Kam Leo said: [snip]
Why are you guys bickering over this? Time will prove which venue is better. If fedoraforums.org does not get technical support from list members, Red Hat will be required to provide support personnel (creates more jobs, good for economy).
Fedora is an unsupported product. Red Hat isn't paying _anyone_ to directly provide support for Fedora.
-- William Hooper
I am familiar with the Red Hat to Fedora Core transition. FC is a way for Red Hat to remain in the desktop market and perform beta testing for EL on the cheap; i.e use volunteers for support and testing. If there is no one to step up to the plate for fedoraforum.org what are they going to do?
Kam Leo said:
On Apr 6, 2005 5:07 PM, William Hooper whooperhsd3@earthlink.net wrote:
Kam Leo said: [snip]
Why are you guys bickering over this? Time will prove which venue is better. If fedoraforums.org does not get technical support from list members, Red Hat will be required to provide support personnel (creates more jobs, good for economy).
Fedora is an unsupported product. Red Hat isn't paying _anyone_ to directly provide support for Fedora.
-- William Hooper
I am familiar with the Red Hat to Fedora Core transition. FC is a way for Red Hat to remain in the desktop market and perform beta testing for EL on the cheap; i.e use volunteers for support and testing. If there is no one to step up to the plate for fedoraforum.org what are they going to do?
You seem to be operating on the mistaken assumption that fedoraforum.org is starting from scratch with no members. The forum has been operating fine for a while now with it's own community.
Nothing has changed other than the forums going from "unofficial" to "official". People that prefer mailing lists will stay on the mailing lists and people that prefer forums with stay on the forums.
On 4/7/05, William Hooper whooperhsd3@earthlink.net wrote:
You seem to be operating on the mistaken assumption that fedoraforum.org is starting from scratch with no members. The forum has been operating fine for a while now with it's own community.
Nothing has changed other than the forums going from "unofficial" to "official". People that prefer mailing lists will stay on the mailing lists and people that prefer forums with stay on the forums.
Well said. I prefer web forums mostly (I'm Jman, a moderator, on fedoraforum.org) but as you can see I also subscribe to the lists.
FedoraForum has been independent since the beginning. Red Hat does not host it, FedoraForum is merely the first link under the web forums support category.
As to the size of the community we built, as of right now there are 28,000 members and a couple hundred thousand posts, not counting the list archives. There's a volume problem with both support methods, but together we can handle the volume and give the user a choice for how they want to ask their question.
On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 09:07:19PM -0400, William Hooper wrote:
Kam Leo said: [snip]
Why are you guys bickering over this? Time will prove which venue is better. If fedoraforums.org does not get technical support from list members, Red Hat will be required to provide support personnel (creates more jobs, good for economy).
Fedora is an unsupported product. Red Hat isn't paying _anyone_ to directly provide support for Fedora.
-- William Hooper
Let us add to that that RedHat has yet to admit that Fedora is a RedHat product. They may not be paying anyone to support Fedora but they are certainly depending on a lot of free support from us to improve their commercial products. ======================================================================= Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices. No one else in town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts. ------------------------------------------- Aaron Konstam Computer Science Trinity University One Trinity Place. San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
telephone: (210)-999-7484 email:akonstam@trinity.edu
Hi
Let us add to that that RedHat has yet to admit that Fedora is a RedHat product.
fedora.redhat.com is the homepage for the Fedora project.
"They may not be paying anyone to support Fedora"
Not true. All of the developers work on Fedora. There are other costs like bandwidth for the mirrors
" but
they are certainly depending on a lot of free support from us to improve their commercial products."
Fedora itself is freely available for download so its supposed to work in a mutually beneficial manner
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 22:07 -0400, David Curry wrote:
I too have been considering a change to an alternative linux. Fedora Core development schedules are simply too fast for many endusers. The primary reason I have stuck with Red Hat as long as I have is because it has been relatively easy to do so and there was little to nothing to gain from switching. But, the vague impressions I have about FC4 are not particularly attractive to me as an unsophisticated, technical neophyte enduser.
---- just a thought on this
I use CentOS (previously Whitebox) on servers. Gives you a five year life and all that is good with RHEL/Fedora too. Dag repo, leverage of Fedora knowledge/utility.
I use Fedora on my desktop - that way, I can keep close to cutting edge on my desktop.
I figure I have the best of all worlds.
Forums are a good idea too. Some people like them. Some people like mail lists. Something for everybody
Craig
Craig White wrote:
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 22:07 -0400, David Curry wrote:
I too have been considering a change to an alternative linux. Fedora Core development schedules are simply too fast for many endusers.
just a thought on this
I use CentOS (previously Whitebox) on servers. Gives you a five year life and all that is good with RHEL/Fedora too. Dag repo, leverage of Fedora knowledge/utility.
I use Fedora on my desktop - that way, I can keep close to cutting edge on my desktop.
I figure I have the best of all worlds.
Forums are a good idea too. Some people like them. Some people like mail lists. Something for everybody
Craig
Thanks for the suggestion, Craig.
On 04/04/2005 09:51 PM, David Hoffman wrote:
OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
The note said "This decision has been made by comittee because of the many advantages web forums have over mailing lists in support of end-users."
This made me believe that it was an April fools message sent a couple of days too late.
I have (tried to) used the fedoraforum.org but find it unusable due to the high amount of traffic. I can not see any advantages with a forum, visa vi a mailing list, especially when dealing with high volume traffic. Nothing beats a mailinglist (or newsgroup) when the amount of messages are high.
Lars
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 10:52 +0200, Lars E. Pettersson wrote:
I have (tried to) used the fedoraforum.org but find it unusable due to the high amount of traffic. I can not see any advantages with a forum, visa vi a mailing list, especially when dealing with high volume traffic. Nothing beats a mailinglist (or newsgroup) when the amount of messages are high.
---- many people are overwhelmed by large volume mailing lists
Craig
On Apr 5, 2005 2:41 PM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
many people are overwhelmed by large volume mailing lists Craig
Mailing lists are much more manageable. And most importantly, they consume less bandwidth.
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 09:25 -0400, Phil wrote:
Mailing lists are much more manageable. And most importantly, they consume less bandwidth.
Less bandwith??? maybe that is a problem if you are using dialup???
---- less bandwidth in the context of fedora-list@redhat.com is oxymoronic.
Craig
On 04/05/2005 11:11 AM, Craig White wrote:
many people are overwhelmed by large volume mailing lists
Yes, quite right. I have noted though, that many of these have not turned on threading in their mail readers, and are not using a filter to move the mailing list material into a special folder. Doing those two steps help alot.
Lars
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 02:11 -0700, Craig White wrote:
many people are overwhelmed by large volume mailing lists
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
Cheers,
On Apr 5, 2005 8:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com
You sound like you need gmail. Should I send you an invite?
Dotan Cohen
Dotan Cohen said:
On Apr 5, 2005 8:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
You sound like you need gmail.
You sound like you completely missed Rodolfo's point.
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 23:07 +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote:
On Apr 5, 2005 8:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
You sound like you need gmail. Should I send you an invite?
Good Lord, no. Thanks for your good intentions, but I can see nothing that Gmail would offer me that my Linux-based notebook (and my 60GB email account) don't already give me, and indeed it would offer me a whole lot less.
But you *have* missed the point. I'm on the run right now and don't have time to explain, but in brief: I think fora...
- are slower to use - are slower to browse - are slower to respond - don't let me work offline (as I am doing now, for instance) - don't let me filter/search/manage massive amounts of traffic - don't let me store my own archives and copies - waste massive amounts of bandwidth - require a mouse... - ...and a lot of patience for EACH page to load after EACH click - and much, much more
As someone who answers more questions than I ask, and as someone who reads a large part of the 400 messages I get per day, and as someone who has been doing this (Usenet, mailing lists, fora) for almost as long as they've all been around, I can categorically tell you that a forum is much less functional for experts.
And we're going to be less valuable as a community if we have fewer people answering fewer questions, aren't we?
Cheers,
Forums are NOT a good idea for support --- I agree. Simple email lists work. Sounds to me like "committee" wants to control too much suggest voting with feet David
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 23:07 +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote:
On Apr 5, 2005 8:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
You sound like you need gmail. Should I send you an invite?
Good Lord, no. Thanks for your good intentions, but I can see nothing that Gmail would offer me that my Linux-based notebook (and my 60GB email account) don't already give me, and indeed it would offer me a whole lot less.
But you *have* missed the point. I'm on the run right now and don't have time to explain, but in brief: I think fora...
- are slower to use
- are slower to browse
- are slower to respond
- don't let me work offline (as I am doing now, for instance)
- don't let me filter/search/manage massive amounts of traffic
- don't let me store my own archives and copies
- waste massive amounts of bandwidth
- require a mouse...
- ...and a lot of patience for EACH page to load after EACH click
- and much, much more
As someone who answers more questions than I ask, and as someone who reads a large part of the 400 messages I get per day, and as someone who has been doing this (Usenet, mailing lists, fora) for almost as long as they've all been around, I can categorically tell you that a forum is much less functional for experts.
And we're going to be less valuable as a community if we have fewer people answering fewer questions, aren't we?
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com
-- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
English Owner & Captain of British Registered 60' bluewater Ketch S/V Taurus.
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 17:16 -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 23:07 +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote:
On Apr 5, 2005 8:15 PM, Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@simpaticus.com wrote:
When you find one who is more successful at handling very-high-volume traffic and contributing meaningfully to it with fora rather than mailing lists, let me know... I'd like to meet that person, for I've never found someone like that.
You sound like you need gmail. Should I send you an invite?
Good Lord, no. Thanks for your good intentions, but I can see nothing that Gmail would offer me that my Linux-based notebook (and my 60GB email account) don't already give me, and indeed it would offer me a whole lot less.
But you *have* missed the point. I'm on the run right now and don't have time to explain, but in brief: I think fora...
- are slower to use
- are slower to browse
- are slower to respond
- don't let me work offline (as I am doing now, for instance)
- don't let me filter/search/manage massive amounts of traffic
- don't let me store my own archives and copies
- waste massive amounts of bandwidth
- require a mouse...
- ...and a lot of patience for EACH page to load after EACH click
- and much, much more
As someone who answers more questions than I ask, and as someone who reads a large part of the 400 messages I get per day, and as someone who has been doing this (Usenet, mailing lists, fora) for almost as long as they've all been around, I can categorically tell you that a forum is much less functional for experts.
And we're going to be less valuable as a community if we have fewer people answering fewer questions, aren't we?
---- I have little interest in forums myself but I certainly wish for those who find forums a more comfortable fit, a happy and rewarding experience.
Personally, I haven't a clue what you are so worked up about.
Craig
On Apr 6, 2005 12:49 AM, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:
I have little interest in forums myself but I certainly wish for those who find forums a more comfortable fit, a happy and rewarding experience.
Personally, I haven't a clue what you are so worked up about.
Craig
Craig,
The point isn't the web forum, but just the way it was done. We had an extensive discussion about his a couple of months ago. People here have debated, and reached good solutions. Actually, web forum was one of them. However, the idea was to have *this list* available in all formats: discussion group, mailing list and web forum, so as to suit anyone's preference. There are programs that do this automatically, so it wouldn't really be a big change. And, more importantly, the people who like to help would *not* have to go searching web fora for questions to answer (which few are willing to do). They would still get the list in their preferred format (mostly the list, as it is) but the other options would be available for everyone.
Last, but not least, the information would be kept concentrated in one point. Now, the way it was done,
(1) people who like to help won't see the problems others are having: If fedoraforum is deemed *official*, people with problems are more likely to try help there, but less likely to find it, since most "helpers" don't like the forum idea;
(2) The information will be even more scattered and harder to find. That means another archive to search, more places where to look for the same information, which makes it more difficult to find it. Wouldn't it be better to concentrate all official support in one place, and then make this one available for all tastes?
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Gustavo Seabra wrote:
~ > Last, but not least, the information would be kept concentrated in one | point. Now, the way it was done, | | (1) people who like to help won't see the problems others are having: | If fedoraforum is deemed *official*, people with problems are more | likely to try help there, but less likely to find it, since most | "helpers" don't like the forum idea; | | (2) The information will be even more scattered and harder to find. | That means another archive to search, more places where to look for | the same information, which makes it more difficult to find it. | Wouldn't it be better to concentrate all official support in one | place, and then make this one available for all tastes?
Mailing list is working fine for me, but there are no doubt plenty of people who do not want to commit to taking the list and sucking from that firehose going on, just to ask a question on the list, get their answer and then their interest is ended. Visiting a site and then closing their browser window fits that model of use better.
In terms of search, Google is the main way to search, so if both the forum and the list archives are in Google, that is not going to be too much of an inconvenience.
There's nothing to stop mailing list traffic getting copied into the forums, and forum traffic getting autosync'd on to the mailing list. Then you have a single unified database of posts which is viewable and contributable to in multiple ways.
Probably Redhat made a reasonable decision going on to move to forums, looking at the way that Fedora is gradually leaking down into more mainstream folks who expect that kind of interface and who consider the idea of committing to taking the (busy) list just to ask a question pretty demanding.
Hey who knows, maybe on the Forums there will be less of people with problems being faced with a pointless, contentless reply - for the whole list to read again and again - complaining about irrelevant nonsense like top-posting but not actually helping.
- -Andy
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 10:57 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
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Gustavo Seabra wrote:
~ > Last, but not least, the information would be kept concentrated in one | point. Now, the way it was done, | | (1) people who like to help won't see the problems others are having: | If fedoraforum is deemed *official*, people with problems are more | likely to try help there, but less likely to find it, since most | "helpers" don't like the forum idea; | | (2) The information will be even more scattered and harder to find. | That means another archive to search, more places where to look for | the same information, which makes it more difficult to find it. | Wouldn't it be better to concentrate all official support in one | place, and then make this one available for all tastes?
Mailing list is working fine for me, but there are no doubt plenty of people who do not want to commit to taking the list and sucking from that firehose going on, just to ask a question on the list, get their answer and then their interest is ended. Visiting a site and then closing their browser window fits that model of use better.
---- amen ----
In terms of search, Google is the main way to search, so if both the forum and the list archives are in Google, that is not going to be too much of an inconvenience.
---- amen ----
There's nothing to stop mailing list traffic getting copied into the forums, and forum traffic getting autosync'd on to the mailing list. Then you have a single unified database of posts which is viewable and contributable to in multiple ways.
Probably Redhat made a reasonable decision going on to move to forums, looking at the way that Fedora is gradually leaking down into more mainstream folks who expect that kind of interface and who consider the idea of committing to taking the (busy) list just to ask a question pretty demanding.
---- amen ----
Hey who knows, maybe on the Forums there will be less of people with problems being faced with a pointless, contentless reply - for the whole list to read again and again - complaining about irrelevant nonsense like top-posting but not actually helping.
---- amen
this way, the people who want to beat up on top posters, etc. will still have some people to beat up on but it won't necessarily be the only way to get help. Makes sense to me.
Craig
Gustavo Seabra said: [snip]
However, the idea was to have *this list* available in all formats:
Please do some research.
discussion group,
I assume you mean NNTP. http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.general
mailing list
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
and web forum,
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=48
On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 08:29 -0400, William Hooper wrote:
Gustavo Seabra said: [snip]
However, the idea was to have *this list* available in all formats:
Please do some research.
discussion group,
I assume you mean NNTP. http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.general
mailing list
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
and web forum,
I think the problem is that the interaction appears to be one way with this new "official support forum".... They have the list messages but do not appear to be able to post new threads... It's under "archive" after all.... :-(
--Rob
Robert Locke said: [snip]
I think the problem is that the interaction appears to be one way with this new "official support forum".... They have the list messages but do not appear to be able to post new threads... It's under "archive" after all.... :-(
I wouldn't know. Since I don't have an account all of the areas are in the "Forum is Closed for Posting" state.
On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 02:51:56PM -0500, David Hoffman wrote:
OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
I guess all the hassle about the mailing list over the past few weeks finally got to someone.
However, it also says that the mailing list is not going away, and that "users are encouraged to go to the forums first if they have support questions.
So now people will be going to two different places to NOT search the archives, and ask questions.
Brilliant!
As many others have said this is a rotten idea. Especially if the use of the forum displaces the use of the list.
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 02:51:56PM -0500, David Hoffman wrote:
OK, so I get this note today that says that the new official support site for Fedora is going to be the web-based forums at fedoraforum.org.
I guess all the hassle about the mailing list over the past few weeks finally got to someone.
However, it also says that the mailing list is not going away, and that "users are encouraged to go to the forums first if they have support questions.
So now people will be going to two different places to NOT search the archives, and ask questions.
Brilliant!
As many others have said this is a rotten idea. Especially if the use of the forum displaces the use of the list.
I don't think that's likely to happen really.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, consider three types of users:
1. Those with a specific problem looking for help.
2. Those looking to improve their general Linux/Fedora knowledge.
3. Those you might term "experts" that answer far more questions than they ask.
Of these, I think that forums work well for the first type of user but mailing lists work better for the other two types. The problem is that the people that can provide the answers for the first type of user are likely to still be on the mailing lists...
Paul.
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
As many others have said this is a rotten idea. Especially if the use of the forum displaces the use of the list.
I signed up for the forum a long time back and I think that I used it once to check it out and don't think that I logged in more than three time. I just signed up again and thought, Oh! Now I remember, I signed up to the list before.
I doubt that the list will suffer any dramatic shift of posters from the list changing to the forum, but if I was a good predictor, I would be richer than I am today.
Oh! and I get to try to post using VB! What is it. <b>This is bold</b>
Jim
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akonstam＠trinity.edu -
Andy Green -
Craig White -
David Curry -
David Hoffman -
Dotan Cohen -
Gustavo Seabra -
James Wilkinson -
Jim Cornette -
jim lawrence -
John Mahowald -
Kam Leo -
Lars E. Pettersson -
Paul Howarth -
Phil -
Rahul Sundaram -
Robert Locke -
Rodolfo J. Paiz -
Scot L. Harris -
Vivek J. Patankar -
vizion＠ixpres.com -
William Hooper