[Fedora-ambassadors-list] RedHat v/s Fedora Events

[Patrick W. Barnes]

On Saturday 08 April 2006 19:45, "Chitlesh GOORAH" 
<chitlesh at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Fedora might not have a booth as .org (here in Strasbourg, France), great
> !!!!
>
> After more than two hours of discussion (on thursday night) with local
> LUGs members about Fedora's presence as an organization, it might
> happened that I can't convince my lugs members (and myself). I WAS
> introduced to the Fedora Project.
>
> It all started with :
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2006-April/msg00016.ht
>ml (which I haven't read before)
> versus the initial objectives of the Fedora Project.

Maintaining Fedora is more important that creating an independent organization 
for it.  If we created the Fedora Foundation and made it responsible for 
everything, it would be impossible for Red Hat to provide the massive 
contributions and sponsorship that it currently does.  The contributions Red 
Hat could make would be dependent upon how much is collected from the 
community, which couldn't even come close to what would be required for a 
non-profit foundation.  Without the massive contributions from Red Hat, the 
Fedora Project would be impossible to maintain.  This is really the single 
biggest reason not to create the foundation.  The other reasons outlined in 
the announcement can be considered secondary.

>
> Below are some of the topics discussed, please don't try to fool me
> around with URLS.
>
> I've already made myself a fool today, (thanks) and if there's no
> CONCRETE information given to Fedora Ambassadors, personally The
> Fedora Ambassador project needs to be revised.

What more concrete information are you looking for?  All of the facts are 
public information.

>
> I've nothing against with Red Hat but instead I feel that Fedora is
> making a fool out of us, free contributors.
>
> #001 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/UnleashKDE
>
> KDE will be Extras soon for the release of Fedora Core 7, according to
> UnleashKDE.

This is only a proposal, not an official plan.

> Really unleash isn't the right word here, it sounds like DUMPING KDE.
>
> Question 1a:
> The Fedora Project is a community driven project, sponsored by Red
> Hat. But here, it shows clearly that there are 2 groups, Red Hat and
> Community. In this wiki page, there's a lot of 'Red Hat's.

Red Hat, up to this point, has maintained Fedora Core almost entirely on its 
own, without much involvement from the community.  Fedora Extras, on the 
other hand, is a massive community effort that has a number of contributors 
from the community as well as from Red Hat.  The Infrastructure team is 
working to open up Core to the community more.  This distinction is what that 
page addresses.  Fedora is a community project, but Red Hat's position and 
involvement cannot be ignored.  The distinction between Red Hat and the 
community is necessary to measure where the project is and where it is going.

>
> Answer 1a:
> To answer this Q1, I've listed the authors on this wiki page :
> RahulSundaram : (starter) Red Hat
> Rex Dieter : Community
> PatrickBarnes : Community, I guess from my private chat on IRC with him.

Yes, I am a community member, not a Red Hat employee, and I am the original ad 
principal author of the document.

>
> Question 1b:
> Fedora Ambassadors are requested to stay neutral concerning KDE and
> GNOME. It is clear that moving KDE from Core to Extras this is not
> Neutral!!

You have to remember that we wish to meld Core and Extras to a point where 
users do not make the distinction.  GNOME is, and will continue to be, the 
default desktop for Fedora.  Moving KDE to Extras allows a default 
installation to consume less space on the distribution media and also reduces 
the risk of confusion among new Linux users over the desktop environments.

>
> Answer 1b:
> It doesn't make any difference because anaconda will have integrated
> features to choose Extras packages during the Install.
>
> Personal thoughts:
> Fedora will turn out to be like Ubuntu, where there will be paid
> developpers from Canonical to work on gnome.
> And also this contradicts greg's words on the Umeet Conference:
> http://umeet.uninet.edu/umeet2005/talks/?lang=en&s=fedora
> @gregdek	* And Fedora Ambassadors, in which we encourage individuals
> to be advocates for Fedora, Linux and open source in their
> communities, and to whom we provide as much support as we can in doing
> these things.

Red Hat has had paid developers working on GNOME since long before the 
creation of Fedora and certainly long before Ubuntu ever even existed.  With 
all of the commercial sponsorship of GNOME, nobody complains.  Why is the 
situation so different for Fedora?  It certainly shouldn't be.  It isn't like 
Red Hat could ever "take back" Fedora -- it could be easily forked by the 
community if Red Hat decided to discontinue their support.  The licenses 
surrounding Fedora guarantee that.  I would be a the forefront of that effort 
if Red Hat betrayed Fedora, but they have no reason to.  It would not be in 
their best interests, and I do not believe they would ever do so.  They 
continue to fund projects that do not directly contribute to the technologies 
they pull into RHEL, such as the Ambassadors project, and will keep doing so 
for the foreseeable future.

>
> This means that we, the community and Fedora ambassadors, shall
> advocate KDE with Fedora, since there sounds like to be a division
> between Red Hat and Community.

The division is only a logistical one.  Ambassadors can advocate the 
availability of KDE, but should make it clear that GNOME is the default.  The 
full package sets of both Core and Extras should be pushed by Ambassadors 
without any special preference for one option over another.

>
> Ambassadors were once told in the Ambassador wiki page to redirect any
> discussions concerning RedHat towards RedHat representatives.
> This statement is not longer available on the wiki. Why ?

I don't know where this statement was printed, but it remains true.  Fedora 
Ambassadors cannot speak on behalf of Red Hat, so matters that are specific 
to Red Hat should be referred to Red Hat's teams.

>
> #002 -- #004 TO BE CONTINUED !!
>
> Just to end (for today), how can the community help the project if
> event organizers such as Linuxtag (Wiesbaden) does not consider Fedora
> as an organisation ? It's true that now, Mac's email is supporting
> Linuxtag's statement.
>

Fedora is not the only community distribution that is entirely sponsored by a 
larger commercial entity.  Many of these events' organizers have their 
favorite distributions to which they will be loyal, but even those 
distributions are rarely independent of commercial interests.  Event 
organizers who pick and choose who they will support among free distributions 
are only damaging the advancement of free Linux solutions.  LinuxTag has 
failed to justify how they classify Fedora and the other free distributions, 
and so they are guilty of failing the community.  We are unwilling to be 
bullied by such people.

Ubuntu, for example, only exists because of the commercial interests that have 
propelled it to its current standing.  Since that commercial interest is not 
clearly advertised and didn't have a well-known history with Linux prior to 
the creation of the distribution, many members of the Linux community 
conveniently ignore this commercial backing.  They have a tendency to mark 
large companies that make money supporting Linux as being evil, and so they 
target Red Hat without any justification.

Red Hat, Novell, and IBM all face the same challenges in proving where they 
stand with Linux, but do more for the advancement of Linux than anyone else 
even dreams of.

No company has made the same kinds of contributions to Linux as Red Hat has.  
Nobody has been pushing Linux to the world longer or harder than Red Hat.  If 
others want to consider Red Hat as being evil, then they haven't done their 
research and won't get any respect from me.

If I didn't think that Fedora was an outstanding free distribution, and that 
Red Hat presented any risk to the success or freedom of the project, I 
wouldn't be here.  I am in a unique position to understand Red Hat's goals 
with regard to Fedora, and have seen the honest goals of the Red Hat 
employees who are involved with Fedora, and I have complete confidence that 
Red Hat will continue to do the right thing for Fedora and for Linux.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64 at n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/

Have I been helpful?  Rate my assistance!
http://rate.affero.net/nman64/
-- 

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