Response to "Getting Fedora Out of the If-Then Loop"

Thomas Janssen thomasj at fedoraproject.org
Fri Feb 19 15:40:55 UTC 2010


Hello Máirín Duffy

2010/2/19 Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>:
> Hi Greg,
>
> On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 17:30 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>> Think of it this way: every Fedora subproject, from the lowest SIG to the
>> loftiest, competes for resources, to a greater or lesser extent.
>>
>> Like the homepage, for instance.  The homepage of redhat.com, for example,
>> is the subject of insanely brutal infighting, because everyone wants to
>> see their baby get equal treatment.  Which is fair, btw, and which we will
>> see more and more in Fedora-land as we continue to discuss issues of
>> "focus".
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
>>
>> "Attention", or "focus" if you prefer, is a scarce resource.  If you work
>> on KDE or Xfce, and all of the conversation is continually around "focus",
>> and it seems like that "focus" discussion continues to be "a usability
>> focus on the primary spin," then one wonders "will I have access to these
>> resources?"  In fact, one knows the answer, and therefore doesn't bother
>> to ask.
>
> Those resources are not as fluid or transferable as they seem in the
> abstract, though. Adam enjoys working on XFCE. Nobody is going to force
> him to stop working on it - it's just not reasonable. I have no QT or
> KDE app design expertise. If we suddenly decided to focus on the KDE
> spin as the default spin, am I going to be expected to start churning
> out mockups for KDE apps or am I going to be prevented from continuing
> to work on mockups for GTK+-based apps?

Sorry. But reading a lot of you GNOME/Desktop guys, and especially you
here, it comes down to (at least for me) "i'm afraid of losing my
default status and/or i have no idea about the other side so i will do
everything that the situation stays as it is". Poor.

> There's a reality here that's not being acknowledged, and it has little
> to do with popularity. I hope folks who work on XFCE or KDE in Fedora
> don't come into those projects with the expectation that the same amount
> of resources are dedicated to those as the desktop spin - because that's
> never been true, and I sure hope they've not been misled into thinking
> so.

Well, gladly there are other projects where things like that just
works. For example openSUSE.

But i would be interested in what you think what will happen with
Fedora if all the unwanted (it sounds exactly like that to me)
developers leave and Fedora is left behind with only GNOME?
Is that your perfect future?

-- 
LG Thomas

Dubium sapientiae initium


More information about the advisory-board mailing list