Remaining issues for the multi desktop DVD (was: Re: Dear Fedora board, please open your trac)

[Máirín Duffy]

On Wed, 2011-01-12 at 12:14 -0600, inode0 wrote:
> per having one more sales agent to help sell your product
> > is helpful, but you have to consider whether it's worth it if said sales
> > agent makes your product come off basement-produced rather than polished
> > and professional. Let's not sell ourselves short when we do actually
> > have the skills and professionalism to do it right...?
> 
> I completely agree. However, for some of the uses I've described even
> a basement-produced product is better than the existing polished
> product we have. It is only one menu that lacks polish and the person
> I'm showing this to doesn't even need to see that menu, then it boots
> right into what you see by booting the spin directly. Let's clean up
> that extra menu layer though by all means so new users can boot it
> themselves and we aren't unhappy with what they see.

I'd like to make it clear that the unpolished menu is not a problem for
ambassadors themselves to use home-burnt multispin media in usage for
demo machines. I do personally take issue with Fedora funding media that
includes an unpolished syslinux menu with the purpose of distributing
said media far and wide to would-be users for the promotion of Fedora,
as I strongly believe it would compromise our brand. 

The difference in opinions I think is because where some see a
functional product that solves a technical problem, I see an
embarrassingly, visibly flawed promotional item. Such distributed media
primarily are promotional items IMHO. E.g., people have come up to me at
show booths to tell me they 'collect' the media but don't actually use
it as they download Fedora to install from our website.

I don't think the syslinux menu timeout is a great solution for less
advanced users on a multispin dvd as it's giving a much more expensive
piece of plastic to someone who would use it in the same way as the
cheaper one and might not ever realize there's more on it. With careful
wording on the sleeve design (which I've yet to see any proposed copy or
description or mockups of after repeated requests) this may be a
surmountable issue.

Honestly, the changes I proposed to polish the menu are quick and
simple. I was able to do them myself and I am far less technical than
pretty much everyone involved here. I will support the proposed DVD if:

- It includes my proposed changes to syslinux
- If sensible copy is written for the media sleeve (note that we have
heightened requirements for legal text on the sleeve since F14 GA so
there is much more limited space) and that copy / even better a mockup
is provided for review here
- If acceptable syslinux screenshots with the proposed changes are made
available here for review. 
- If it works functionally (of course)

Whether or not my support actually matters is another matter
altogether :) 

~m

P.S. screenshots for review of these things are *always* helpful. It is
bandwidth and time-intensive and requires a level of technical expertise
to have to download and burn the image just to see a screen that is a
simple camera click or PrtSc away for the folks who are looking for
support here.