Spins

[Paul W. Frields]

Unfortunately I think this thread is suffering from a bit of OT-ness,
because originally this thread was asking Board members about
participating in the working group.  I'm changing the subject line
accordingly and then people can break the thread in their email client
program if needed. ;-)

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 11:29:06AM -0600, Mike McGrath wrote:
> Pretend you're on the desktop team.  You've got lots of people working
> with you and are going to spend the next 3 years on something.  Is it
> going to be features or usability?  Sure it's a mix of both, but when an
> issue comes up that that will either sacrifice usability for a feature,
> or will sacrifice a feature for usability what do you do?  You can't
> answer that question without a target audience or what is Fedora (the OS).
> 
> At the moment though we seem to be sacrificing usability for features,
> that may be right or it may be wrong for Fedora.  I have no idea and
> neither can anyone else without some focus.

Many of the technologies that enter the Fedora universe have
ramifications for contributors who are remixing it.  Having the Fedora
distro be defined simply as "a universe of packages" ignores that
there are places where the basic building blocks of the platform
interact.  For instance, NetworkManager induces specific requirements
for any desktop environment that includes it.

Having the Board or any other group decide conflicts on an ad-hoc
basis doesn't scale.  I'd predict that would lead to an increasingly
jerry-rigged final product that works more poorly for everyone.
Setting direction and focus is what the Board was created to do.  It
may not be possible for every single person to be 100% happy at the
end of the process, but the goals (in order) should be to establish
that direction, and then ensure that contributors have freedom to try
things outside of it.  Where there is a conflict, the first goal has
to win out, just as with our freedom principle for instance.

> > *Individual spins* (including the default spin) would definitely
> > benefit from targeting specific audiences but the Board and
> > FESCo's responsibility is to help all the sub-communities that
> > make up Fedora be able to derive usable products from the Fedora
> > Package Collection.  This means mediating disputes, drumming up
> > support for switching base parts of our architecture (like moving
> > from SysVinit to upstart), and defining the absolute limitations
> > that the Fedora Project will follow (free software, legality
> > within the US).
> 
> The funny thing here is I think spins are a detriment to Fedora.  We
> pretend they're useful and interesting but they're really not.  If we
> describe them as "a subset of what is in the Everything/ directory" which
> is what they are, they're not at all compelling.

Spins (the branded remixes of Fedora software) are only able to be
interesting to a small degree.  To keep the Fedora brand value intact,
more latitude for spins is problematic.  If a spin makes changes to
platform infrastructure or defaults while continuing to be called
"Fedora," it creates problems for maintainers and potentially upstream
developers.  Any bugs created by departure from the defaults can't be
delineated from each other.

I think that anyone reading Mike's comments shouldn't confuse "spins"
(the remixes) with the special interest groups (SIGs) that sometimes
create spins.  SIGs are a great benefit to the Fedora Project and the
distribution.  They have the ability to focus on specific areas in the
software and drive contributions from their specialty areas to the
Project.  They make the Fedora repository of packages better overall.

Take the contributors who work on Chitlesh Goorah's FEL spin for
instance.  They've brought software into the Fedora repository, and do
an amazing job of showing engineers, companies, and government and
academic institutions the flexibility and value of FOSS in their
specialized environments.  It's a great example of how a remix or spin
can be a tool for advancing FOSS.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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