Worthless updates

[Thomas Janssen]

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Mathieu Bridon
<bochecha at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 13:51, Thomas Janssen <thomasj at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Mathieu Bridon
>> <bochecha at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 13:33, Thomas Janssen <thomasj at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>>> What cost? I'm the maintainer of those packages. If i want them as
>>>> well for people who want it in F-11, i give it to them. Why should i
>>>> force someone to upgrade every 6 month? Or even worse to rawhide as
>>>> mentioned in this thread? I had skipped F-11 myself entirely because
>>>> it was (FOR ME) too broken (personal opinions i dont want to discuss,
>>>> because i dont have to discuss it, it's my right to think that a
>>>> release is bad and skip it). I respect people who wants to do that as
>>>> well.
>>>
>>> And what would have happened if those packages that made F11 "too
>>> broken" had found their way in Fedora 10 as stable updates?
>>>
>>> - Joe User: "Foobar is too buggy in F11, and it's a critical part of
>>> my usage of my computer, so I'm staying on F10"
>>> - Foobar maintainer: "I'm updating Foobar in F10 so that F10 users can
>>> benefit from the same new features as those on F11"
>>>
>>> To me, not updating F(x-1) to the same level as Fx is actually the
>>> best way to let people their "right to skip a Version". If you update
>>> F(x-1) to the same level as Fx, then those users will (almost) not
>>> have skipped anything.
>>
>> As i said before. Nobody holds a gun on my head and tells me "you have
>> to update that packages". If you dont want it, read the man yum and
>> exclude what you dont want. That's what i did in F-10.
>
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 13:51, Thomas Janssen <thomasj at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Mathieu Bridon
>> <bochecha at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 13:33, Thomas Janssen <thomasj at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>>>> What cost? I'm the maintainer of those packages. If i want them as
>>>> well for people who want it in F-11, i give it to them. Why should i
>>>> force someone to upgrade every 6 month? Or even worse to rawhide as
>>>> mentioned in this thread? I had skipped F-11 myself entirely because
>>>> it was (FOR ME) too broken (personal opinions i dont want to discuss,
>>>> because i dont have to discuss it, it's my right to think that a
>>>> release is bad and skip it). I respect people who wants to do that as
>>>> well.
>>>
>>> And what would have happened if those packages that made F11 "too
>>> broken" had found their way in Fedora 10 as stable updates?
>>>
>>> - Joe User: "Foobar is too buggy in F11, and it's a critical part of
>>> my usage of my computer, so I'm staying on F10"
>>> - Foobar maintainer: "I'm updating Foobar in F10 so that F10 users can
>>> benefit from the same new features as those on F11"
>>>
>>> To me, not updating F(x-1) to the same level as Fx is actually the
>>> best way to let people their "right to skip a Version". If you update
>>> F(x-1) to the same level as Fx, then those users will (almost) not
>>> have skipped anything.
>>
>> As i said before. Nobody holds a gun on my head and tells me "you have
>> to update that packages". If you dont want it, read the man yum and
>> exclude what you dont want. That's what i did in F-10.
>
> Not everyone is capable of even remotely understand what those
> mysterious words are saying. What they know however is that "updating
> is supposed to fix problems and make my computer works better".
>
> Yes, in an ideal world, everyone has access to a friendly sysadmin
> taking care of their computers. We're not in an ideal world, so we
> should make it possible for anyone to use our software, or else it's
> no good that it's possible for anyone to modify our software.

Latest versions updated into still-alive/supported-fedora-versions
doesn't mean the box gets unusable or open new problems automatically.
If upstream releases new versions, they are either bugfixes or more
features or both (ok, sometimes they remove features). That's nothing
bad, the opposite is the truth. Of course is there as well the
possibility of new bugs. But hey, software has always bugs, it just
takes some time and a lot of people to find them.
If that scares someone away, maybe they should consider stop using a computer.

>> Best thing mentioned on this list since that mega thread was to use
>> another repo "updates-stable" and make that enabled by default.
>>
>> Educate then people with popups what the other repos bring in before
>> they get it enabled. So everyone can have what he want as well.
>
> There's already the need for checking a box so that the Rawhide and
> updates-testing repos are even visible. Yet, lot's of people did
> enable it, thinking it would provide them more software. That's why
> the Rawhide repo was separated in its own subpackage so it would not
> be installed by default. Why would this be any different with what you
> propose?

The difference would be, that my proposal started right. I said
*educate* people with a popup what that repo (the regular updates repo
with everything else than in updates-stable) so they *know* what
happens, not just guessing.

The problem is that the end-user has no idea what rawhide means. Why
not let them know. I said already a few times, give people new to
fedora (fresh installation) something like openSUSE has. A tour trough
Fedora, and educate them there. It pops up automatically if you
install fresh and login the first time. Make it with a checkbox to not
popup everytime you login.

What we "the leader" do, is just throw the software we have on the
users box, leaving them alone with what we think is the best for them.
We, "the leader" who wants so badly new users, do nothing there to
welcome the user and make them comfortable with Fedora.

So if you want Fedora for the uneducated/unexperienced users, the
Linux first timers, then get your ass up and change that. But leave it
as well possible for experienced users to have their fun with Fedora.

-- 
LG Thomas

Dubium sapientiae initium