F19 DVD over size - what to drop?

[John Reiser]

On 05/01/2013 06:37 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote:

> Why are we tied to DVD-5, 4.7GB (4.3GiB) at all?
> Do we distribute DVDs?

Yes.  Check with Fedora Ambassadors in EMEA.

> If so couldn't we use a newer DVD standard?

That would reduce coverage significantly.
The de facto standard (what "customers" have)
is what was prevalent in the first world 5 to 7 years ago;
which omits 8.5GB DVD (DVD/DL).

> I can't see any users wanting to burn DVDs
> rather than using USB sticks etc.

I burn DVDs.  I use them.  I use USB flash memory, too,
but DVDs have advantages for some of my uses:
  - DVD can be labeled with a marking pen
  - burning 16X DVD+R is faster than livecd-iso-to-disk to USB flash memory
  - keeping track of 10 DVD (different contents) is not a problem
  - DVD is much less likely to be overwritten (DVD+R "never")
  - DVD is incrementally less expensive (the next 16X DVD+R is $0.25 to $0.40;
    4X DVD+RW is $0.40 to $0.60;  8GB USB flash memory with >= 5MB/s average
    during an install is $9)
  - DVD is inexpensive to give away
  - DVD collection of releases is useful for archive and support
  - DVD+R lasts >= 10 years; USB flash tends to fail (bit errors)
    in 7 to 8 years.
  - I still support hardware that cannot boot directly from USB.

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