fedora mission (was Re: systemd and changes)

[Mike McGrath]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010, Jon Masters wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-08-27 at 15:23 -0700, Jesse Keating wrote:
>
> > >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.
>
> So I'm filing another FESCo ticket as I type this. They can decide to
> reject my proposal again, in which case I will bring it up with the
> Fedora Board by way of appeal. I will take "no" for an answer once it's
> been escalated all the way, because then at least I will have tried.
>
> > The cynic in me would expect that the people who want something
> > different than the fire hose we have now are silently leaving,
> > and those that are left are going to say they like the deluge of
> > updates.
>
> On some level, if they say that, I suppose I get to eat my hat and deal
> with the deluge. At least we'll know. Maybe we'll be surprised :)
>
> > Or I could just quote Henry Ford, or any other people who talk
> > about design by committee.
>
> But I feel it is "design by committee" now, just the Open Source
> version. A small group of people (f-d-l and similar) arbitrarily decide
> what the userbase "wants" without asking them, and based on what they
> would like to see in the distribution themselves.

I said something similar at the board meeting today.  I think "designed"
isn't the right word.  I don't think we have any designs we're following
at all.  It's just engineered.  Fedora literally just comes to being
without any thought or design of a coherent whole.  All focus is on the
pieces.  We're just seeing trees, not the forest.

	-Mike