Good times! ( was Re: Updates next steps )

["Jóhann B. Guðmundsson"]

On 04/23/2010 12:05 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Or maybe its just that spins as they are defined now aren't such a
> good idea.  They don't really have the flexibility to define and
> design their own experience.  The difference between GNOME and KDE for
> example, to the user, is nearly as great as the difference between
> Windows and OS X.  Spins are each different operating systems with
> diverging not converging experiences and goals.  We have a development
> architecture that forces agreement or artificial commonality between
> very different things and it is no surprise that we have a lot of
> conflict.
>
>    

As far as I see alot of this conflicts can be traced back to not 
involving all parties which looks like has happened with this thread 
here ( Updates next steps and this being discussed on the desktop list 
). The other major issue is that the Fedora project in whole has a 
"Default" as it sides with one application or group of application over 
another which shadows development and work efforts of others.

Projects are not allowed competing amongst themselves on even ground 
which not only hinders their development efforts but also the growth of 
the community surrounding + it also hinders further enhancements in the 
project themselves on all sides which would come through competing 
application advancing themselves to get the small extra edge over the 
project it's competing against.

Hey we even don't let competing desktop project being able to work their 
way up to become the so called "Default" or choose a new one each 
release cycle so no carrot there to try to improve community efforts and 
growth around those projects....


> See  http://www.christoph-wickert.de/blog/2010/02/20/spins-suck/ :
> Chrisoph Wickert "spins suck"
> Kevin Kofler  "Let’s fight together against GNOME-centricism in Fedora!"
>
> Good times!
>
> Look, creating a compelling operating is real fucking hard.  No,
> seriously, really really super fucking really hard.  If we devote all
> of our energy and time into creating one operating system we probably
> can't even pull it off.  But we certainly can't pull it off if we have
> 4 different operating systems stepping on each other toes, getting in
> each other grill, sucker punching, and begrudging.  No way.  Honestly,
> even if we manage to widen our community (remember Fedora is just one
> small part of the larger open source community, folks) to include
> other projects with similar goals and all work on one thing we'll have
> a really difficult struggle on our hands.  But the good kind of
> struggle - creative struggle - not the destructive struggle we
> currently have in Fedora.  Like Kevin, I want to fight too.  But
> unlike Kevin, I want to fight to create something monumental - a
> tribute to open source.  Something that can demonstrate to the world
> that we can.  The other kind of fighting - is mud.  And the rest of
> the world understandably walks right past it.
>    

Their and others frustration is understandable after being treated like 
second hand Fedora citizens and that frustration will exist until the 
Fedora project reaches that point which it inevitably will and stops 
siding with one project over the other and removes the "Default" label.  
You must realize that your vision maybe that there exist only one Linux 
Desktop and it's called Gnome, their vision is the same it's just called 
KDE LXDE XFCE etc.. It's the very nature of Open Source to reinvent the 
wheel and "Fork off!" so there will never be only one ( Pidgin vs 
Empathy, Rhytmbox vs Exaile. Totem vs mplayer vlc xine etc ). However 
that does not mean that people cant work together help each other out in 
the need of coding thou their projects may differ but unfortunately I 
dont think that kind of collaboration will start to happen until the 
label "Default" ( which perhaps had a meaningful existence here back in 
the day when floppy disks roamed the earth and bandwidth was scarce ) is 
removed from the Fedora Project and that hatchet be buried forever...

JBG