"What is the Fedora Project?"

[Mike McGrath]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009, Paul W. Frields wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 11:05:44PM -0500, Mike McGrath wrote:
> > On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 08:13:29PM -0500, Mike McGrath wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 7 Oct 2009, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > > > > This is why I feel so strongly that we should not be assuming that the
> > > > > people we see every day in our roles in the Fedora community,
> > > > > participating and contributing in constructive ways, are de facto
> > > > > representative of our only target audience.  Do we want those people
> > > > > involved?  Almost invariably the answer is "yes."  But there are many
> > > > > more people we reach, and more that we want to be reaching, to
> > > > > encourage an appreciation for sustainable software freedom, on the
> > > > > terms we set out in our mission and core values:
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Can you give some more detailed examples here?  You've defined the people
> > > > we see day to day but then went on to describe the people we don't see day
> > > > to day.  Those two groups combined are everyone :)
> > >
> > > Dangling reply never went out:
> > >
> > > People we see daily:  Packagers, admins, and developers.
> > > People we don't, in decreasing levels of visibility:  Ambassadors, bug
> > > filers, potential bug filers, independent open source developers,
> > > students
> > >
> >
> > Also windows users, oracle employees, those without computers.  I guess
> > I'm just not following the logic.  If you're saying we should cater to
> > those we don't ever see, how?
>
> If you're committed to reductio ad absurdum, this discussion can't get
> anywhere meaningful.  I specifically indicated we want to reach people
> on the terms we set out in our mission and core values (see above).
>

I bring it up because I still honestly don't know your stance on this and
being the project lead it's pretty important to this discussion.  Are we
excluding people or are we including everyone?

> The people you and I are in direct contact with every day in our
> Fedora $DAYJOB represent a much smaller set of people than the people
> who use the Fedora distribution and are interested in what the Fedora
> Project does.  Set A is a very small subset of Set B, not a disjoint
> set.  By ensuring that Fedora gets better and is more appealing for
> Set B, we can not only generally make Set A's life better but we can
> also grow Set B, and if the size of Set A is governed by some
> proportion (albeit small), Set A is likely to grow as well.
>
> Calling this "catering" comes off as exclusionary to me, and I think
> that's unhealthy for the Fedora Project in the long run.
>

I'm just going to bring up the elephant in the room, at least the one I
see.  Up until this discussion I was under the impression that Ubuntu and
us were not in direct competition.  They were catering to noobs and
general users, we were catering to enthusiasts and experienced users.
Coming out of this conversation (not just with Paul but with everyone) it
seems clear that Ubuntu's goals and our goals greatly overlap if not
completely overlap.

The problem?  They are KILLING us.  I'm not talking about market share,
I'm talking about my recent converts from Fedora to Ubuntu.  I haven't had
to do a single thing to my wifes computer since I put Ubuntu on there
except setup my printer.  With Fedora I was on it almost daily.

	-Mike