I did it!

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sat, 2006-04-22 at 13:14 -0400, Sam Folk-Williams wrote:
> > I must respectfully disagree here.  What is best for Fedora depends on
> > the user.  Certainly, an experienced user should be using the newest
> > release unless they are trying to do something critical and do not feel
> > they can afford to be patient while potential bugs were addressed.  On
> > the other hand, someone who is very new to Linux is not going to be very
> > skilled at troubleshooting or even describing Linux problems.  So, the
> > value of the feedback that such a person can offer to the project will
> > generally be less than normal.  Maybe even more important, a novice
> > Linux user may be frightened away if he runs into too many bumps in the
> > road.  In the long term, the project may be best served if we have more
> > people using the "old" release as their first release.  Then, with that
> > experience under their belts, they can join the mainstream when the next
> > new release comes out.  Bottom line is we would probably have more
> > people testing the *next* new release.
> 
> I actually don't think there is much to be gained by new users using old
> versions. The improvements and added features are so dramatic between versions,
> and the entire support community quickly migrates, making it unlikely that
> users would benefit or have any easier time of it by using an old release.
> 
> That said, I see Debbie's point and a "which version to install first?" might
> be a good section for the planning guide.

A "choosing your release" section sounds like not only a good
compromise, but a good acknowledgement of the issues that might
otherwise confuse new users.  Although I think "older release, fewer
bugs" is kind of a red herring, given the usability strides I mentioned
previously, one of the keys to making this document attain its goal is
to at least confront some of the more "mythical" issues that swirl
around at release time.  Perhaps gathering some of these from the Fedora
Forum would be a good thing...?

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/
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