PROPOSAL: Fedora user survey

[Ewan Mac Mahon]

On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 05:55:33PM +0000, Terry Barnaby wrote:
> On 09/03/10 16:50, Ewan Mac Mahon wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 09:33:45AM -0500, Al Dunsmuir wrote:
> >>
> >> I  have  limited  time to do system installs and maintenance. Sticking
> >> with  one  distribution  helps keep that sane. I have a dual boot XP +
> >> Ubuntu machine that I do some play with, but I find it strange, having
> >> used  Fedora  since  FC3.
> >>
> > You should consider running a RHEL rebuild like Scientific Linux or
> > CentOS then; they're very Fedora-like in most respects, and are
> > supported for very, very long periods.
> >
> The trouble is that Fedora does not want to lose this user or group of
> users.
>
I don't think it's about the users so much as the uses; I run Fedora on
machines it's suitable for, and SL where that's a better fit. I am not
lost to Fedora. Equally Al Dunsmuir clearly also has multiple systems
(hence wanting to keep one distribution); so there's no reason to think
they couldn't do the same.

> If all of the users that use Fedora for reasonably important
> tasks (not mission critical) stop using it, it will lose all of the
> real use testing and feedback to upstream developers that Fedora is
> good for and Linux needs.
>
I use Fedora for important things, both by home and work desktops run
it, I just don't use it for things that I expect to run for a long time
without interruption or intervention or alteration.

> My feeling is that is likely to be happening ...
> 
> I think Fedora should have a carefully balanced position between the
> mission critical systems and completely play only systems.
>
I think that's a false dichotomy; Fedora shouldn't be a bad system
unsuitable for real work, it should be a good system. But it can still
be a good fast-moving system. There doesn't seem much purpose in trying
to turn it into a good stable long running server system, when we have a
perfectly good one of those already. 

Clearly, if there was a way to have Fedora's 'freshness', but RHEL's
lack of hassle that would be ideal, but it's not clear that there is.

Ewan