fedora mission (was Re: systemd and changes)

[Andrew Haley]

On 08/30/2010 07:22 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:03, Jesse Keating <jkeating at redhat.com> wrote:
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>> On 08/28/2010 09:25 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
>>> Jesse Keating wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> You say that as if it were a negative thing.
>>
>> To me it is.  It's you and people like you that want to shove a ton of
>> updates down the throats of our stable release users (including changes
>> that alter behavior and sonames etc...) that have ruined the Fedora I
>> helped to build.  I want my Fedora back, I don't want what you're creating.
> 
> The problem to quote a tv philosopher is:
> 
> The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
> 
> The changes towards a distribution that attracts people who live in
> the moment happened a while back, and has been building momentum for
> quite some time. Trying to erect barriers now is not going to help but
> make it so nothing exists afterwords. The things that can be done are:
> A) get out of the way, B) go with the flow, or C) figure out what you
> can build on top of it.  [I am looking at option C]

The pressure to stabilize is a much needed-correction to the pressure
to innovate.

Consider what happens without any such back-pressure.  Those who can
no longer stand the churn leave, with only the hard-core bleeding-
edgers remaining.  The churn gets faster.  Then, even some of those
who were the previous generation of bleeding-edgers can't cope, and
they leave.  Left behind, are the *serious* hard core.  Etc...  This
is a classic case of unrestrained positive feedback, just like thermal
runaway.

In my view, this is exactly the situation we're in at the moment, but
some people are trying to apply a correction to prevent the distro
burning out.  It is not too late.

Andrew.