Fedora's intended target audience?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Jeu 27 juillet 2006 17:35, Hans de Goede a écrit :

> Currently there seems to be an attitude that breaking stuff while going
> forward is ok, which is very user unfriendly and scares away users ( ==
> future contributers) to other Distro's and even to other OS's

Hans,

This is a very valid point but you chose a very inappropriate example to
raise it.

Fedora dearly needs some polishing. The core system is great but there are
lots of little things which require user intervention and as you wrote
scare users. So complain when one of these warts is added. Help hunt them
down, help fix them. This will make Fedora a better place for newcomers
and improve its image tremendously. (old timers mostly do not care as
they're used to the manual fixing-up) You'll have the heartfelt support of
every member of the community.

However whatever happens to closed software is not part of this covenant.
Closed software is NOT FEDORA'S PROBLEM. Whatever annoyance that causes to
users needs to be offset by better FLOSS packaging, not by trying to
bandaid the situation.

Fedora made a deliberate choice in being pure FLOSS. You don't help it,
its users or yourself by muddying waters and raising closed software
issues.

You won't ever make a great boat out of a car. You won't ever make a great
closed software platform out of Fedora. However many users will appreciate
Fedora on its own merits, just like many people appreciate their car, even
if it's somewhat lacking on the amphibious side.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot