[Ambassadors] The Future of release names

[inode0]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Jukka Palander <jukka at devspain.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2012-05-12 at 13:29 -0500, inode0 wrote:
>> The release name's purpose is not to be used that way though, it never
>> has been intended for that as our website demonstrates. The fact that
>> few people refer to the release name when discussing Fedora isn't
>> really relevant to whether we should have a release name. It certainly
>> wasn't the standard of value used prior to now.
>
> Why the release name is in there then? ..not for the "website
> demonstrates" (whatever it means) and not for the discussions (when
> people _will_ say the _number_ what they are using or suggesting instead
> than _name_) ??? Please tell me why, why?

There are a number of reasons and I won't pretend to know them all but
here are a few.

(1) Contributors report that when they were new to the project
participating in the selection of our release name made them feel like
they were a part of our community. This isn't a small thing. Welcoming
new contributors and making them quickly feel like they belong to the
Fedora community is worth doing even if we don't do anything of any
importance with the release name beyond letting the community select
it and announcing what it is.

(2) Media reports announcing the new release name almost always
include the fact that Fedora is different from other distributions by
letting its community select its release names. This regular reminder
that our project governance is different from other communities by
engaging the community in decision making (even if this particular
decision is of no importance) is another nice thing for our project.
It plants the seed in people's minds that there is something different
about the Fedora Project and its community.

(3) Sometimes the release name has provided nice inspiration for
design/artwork. Other times it hasn't. Whether this is a plus or a
minus is open to debate, but it has been a historical use of the
release name.

> I strongly suggest that we should go into our own paths and simply throw
> "naming" to the bin. If other distributions (whatever OS) keep their
> naming, why should we do the same?
> We want to be first and in here we can be first to go out from those
> stupid names. We could (and should) simplify things in here as well.
>
> ...and by making things simple for the common users; It really is the
> Fedora way!

We are the only community selected release name. I'd say keeping it
that way preserves our place as not only being the first to do it but
the only distribution to do it. :)

John