"expected gains in market share"

Thu Apr 6 12:20:37 UTC 2006

2006/4/6, Rudolf Kastl <che666 at gmail.com>:
> 2006/4/6, Cam <camilo at mesias.co.uk>:
> > Eric,
> >
> > Do you really think that a substantial population of adopters are ready
> > and waiting but held back because mp3 isn't in Fedora?
>
> i agree... installing the livna release package and yum installing an
> mp3 addon package isnt a really big deal. and also this way we push
> superior formats that are free... mp3 is just a suboptimal legacy
> format in my eyes anyways.
>
> >
> > I think that's nonsense. If you rank potential users by ability, the
> > vast majority will not use Fedora because they can't buy a machine with
> > it pre-installed;
>
> Lots of users have windows preinstalled and they dont know anything
> else or cant imagine that something else that doesnt cost anything can
> even be better for their use cases.
>
>
> > others will not use Fedora because they aren't
> > confident about partitioning disks or shrinking NTFS partitions.
>
> You cant do that with windows xp... you need addon tools whereas the
> most known and easiest to find tools are proprietary. The win os just
> doesent even provide those basic features and i doubt vista will fix
> it because they have a tough time to catch up with their desktop to
> not look like from 1995. Vector based desktop in vista... i use svg
> themes since ages on linux ... also well i dont expect them to develop
> lots of additions to the basic os because fixing up the few basic apps
> they supply (like gnomemeeting and the directx crash i reported around
> 8 years ago that is still present in the xp version).

another typo: instead "gnomemeeting" i meant "netmeeting" of course.
It crashes when even a small directx application is open... just one
of the many bugs in the simple and small tools they provide for ages.

>
> >
> > I'm not aware of any vendor that ships Fedora (and IMHO it's not likely
> > as a vendor would chose something which would be supported for longer
> > than a given Fedora release). Given that other users will have to follow
> > technical instructions to burn CDs or perform a network install, they
> > will have a level of ability where they are more than capable of getting
> > mp3 support through the established methods.
>
> There are how tos. If a person isnt able to follow a simple 3 step
> procedure that is well documented with how tos i am asking myself if
> the person:
>
> a) should use a computer at all
> b) maybe should start learning to read
> c) is a member of the intended audience for _any_ software product
>
>
> >
> > I think there are better goals that would increase adoption:
> >
> > 1. marketing: a 'sampler' live-CD or VMWare image; web based tutorials
> > and demos with video showing features
>
> A live cd would definitely help and also show the user if the system
> actually does support his hardware and meet his requirements and use
> cases. A vmware image would probably just introduce additional bugs
> and make linux appear lots slower than it actually is. Sure live cds
> are slower than a hd install aswell but theres no host os eating up
> ram and cpu power.
>
>
> > 2. technical improvements: provide email notification through
> > thunderbird; provide desktop integration for firefox; any other workflow
> >  related improvements
>
> Well i prefer evolution personally. And as for firefox... a new
> frontend to the renderer like galeon that does integrate properly with
> gnome would be nicer and faster as well as better integrating. I just
> dont see that happen with firefox.
>
> > 3. better documentation from a user's perspective - how to do task X
> > instead of how to use 'Banshee' (or any other obscurely named app)
>
> Thats two completly different kinds of documentation. Theres
> application specific ones and task specific ones. Task specific ones
> should probably describe how to achieve a result in multible and as
> far as possible task independent ways.
>
> > 4. bling, because people will make the effort to see it, even if it's
> > not a productivity enhancement; it also gets you noticed in print. As a
> > bleeding edge distro Fedora is well placed to make the most of this.
>
> Bling on by default also requires it to be less buggy and
> problematic.Installing bling is nothing but adding one repo yumming
> the server, using gdmsetup and choosing aiglx and enabling composite.
> Then triggering a gconf switch and done. I think if you cant handle
> that at the moment you are also not able to attach gdb and report bugs
> upstream properly which is what is required at the moment besides
> fixing more drivers up for it and getting bugs squashed.
>
> But yes i agree... the majority of win users can be easily attracted
> with nice eye candy that doesent need a dual core cpu (compare vista).
>
> >
> > I think any of the above would do more to increase adoption than merely
> > including mp3 support.
>
> Looking at mp3 support for me means looking back to nonfree legacy
> stuff. i never look back.
>
>
> regards,
> Rudolf Kastl
>
> p.s. as always just my personal opinion
>
> >
> > -Cam
> >
> > --
> >
> >                                                                      <--
> > camilo at mesias.co.uk
> >
> > --
> > fedora-devel-list mailing list
> > fedora-devel-list at redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
> >
>

p.s. sorry for all the typos... didnt have much time to respond but
couldnt resist.