The future of optical media within the project.

[David Nalley]

2011/1/12 "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" <johannbg at gmail.com>:
> I'm just wondering if the board has discussed the future of optical
> media with in the project and perhaps set any dates/releases where we
> plan to no longer support them.
>
> This is just intended to get the discussion going and the pros and cons
> of continuing to distribute cd/dvd sized images as opposed to ( larger )
> images targeted against USB flash drives.
>
> JBG
> _______________________________________________
> advisory-board mailing list
> advisory-board at lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board
>

Honestly, I think you are talking to the wrong people. This issue
comes up from time to time on the f-a-b, and largely goes nowhere. The
core issue is, that the people that handle making media for Fedora
either aren't here, or are here but aren't being asked. The board
doesn't make media, or approve budget for media, or provide much
direction for media production. (the one exception that jumps to mind
is the ongoing issue with regards to non-releng produced isos for
media.)

Virtually all of the decisions (except what the finished media
contains, and the artwork on the media) is made by the Ambassadors in
each region. Some regions, like LATAM have a machine for burning CDs
and then labeling them with pre-printed labels. NA and EMEA have discs
pressed (and for instance, EMEA decided to have LXDE LiveCDs made in
addition to the Gnome LiveCDs a release or two back).

If you want something to come of this, those are the people you should
be talking with, and I think you'll find that those people are
re-evaluating the viability of using USB drives every release. If I
recall their last evaluation correctly, the cheapest USB drive we
could get in mass quantities was still almost 20x the cost of CDs.

Fedora, in display of one of the things that makes it very successful
in my opinion, and very community-centered, doesn't burden itself with
a lot of centralized decision making. Instead those that are doing the
work have a lot of authority invested in them to just get things done.

So perhaps sending a message to the fedora-ambassadors list [0] or if
you don't have access to that list, reaching out to some of the FAmSCo
members [1] would be more effective. I am excited that people are
interested in things like this, it's one of the very public displays
that you can take and put in people's hand and say - 'this is Fedora,
this is the open source project that I contribute to, try it out',
etc.


--David Nalley

[0]: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors
[1]: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAmSCo