fedora mission (was Re: systemd and changes)

[Jon Masters]

On Fri, 2010-08-27 at 17:54 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-08-27 at 16:37 -0400, Jon Masters wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Ah yes, attack the symptom and not the disease. Yay. Let me let you in
> > on a secret. Most people (and by which I mean, those not on this list)
> > generally don't like re-installing or upgrading their computer every 6
> > months. People install older releases because it's what they have (in
> > which case, there's a valid reason to push for the latest) BUT also
> > because they don't want to be using an extension of rawhide. They want
> > to wait a little time for things to settle down, for there to be fewer
> > updates to waste their time on, etc. It's the rate of churn, lack of
> > durability in the length of the cycle, etc. that are the problems.
> > 
> > But sure, we can blame the users, and scratch our heads when the figures
> > indicate what might be happening, why people are jumping ship, etc. and
> > not have a user survey to tell us what the users want (a fantastic
> > idea). These would all help maintain the status quo just fine.
> 
> Your attack is misguided, Jon. It is very much our responsibility to
> inform users that the software they install or use is no longer actively
> supported.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the real problem here might be
people are running older releases because they are looking for a more
stable environment or just don't want to upgrade every 6 months. This
isn't a RHEL/other-derivative vs. Fedora thing. Because "Enterprise"
distributions give you many years and lots more guarantees. Way beyond
what I personally feel is needed here. But again, since we have never
taken the initiative to ask people why they leave Fedora or why they
stick with old releases, we won't know the answer to this.

Again, I feel it is necessary to have a survey of Fedora users.
Preferably annually. And listen to the feedback. If they say "yep, we
just love the churn, the number of updates" and so forth, then fine. If
they say "actually we'd like less than 800 updates after installing",
then also fine. I'm sorry to beat a dead horse, I just feel it is very
important that we finally, clearly articulate who our users are and what
they want by treating more like customers and gathering their input.

Jon.