Fedora: Freedom is a Feature.

[M Daniel R Magarzo]

El lun, 08-10-2007 a las 00:26 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot escribió:
> Le dimanche 07 octobre 2007 à 23:15 +0200, M Daniel R Magarzo a écrit :
> 
> > Most of you (developers -mostly from Red Hat or got involved there,
> > etc...-) think that everyone that uses Linux, having chose or not
> > Fedora, is a developer too, and therefore is in condition of promote big
> > changes in a Linux project.
> 
> That's one of the "identity signs" of Fedora. We fix stuff we don't wait
> for other distributions to do it for us. And we fix stuff at every level
> — development, packaging, artwork, etc
> 
Yes, precisely it's quite the opposite... you fix stuff in order that
other distributions (aka Red Hat) don't have to do it; you do it for
them. 
...and that I wouldn't call "an identity sign", but almost necessity.

> Another "identity sign" is Freedom. We get enough slack for making hard
> decisions (when other distributions formally tag stuff 'non-free" then
> distribute it anyway and make no active effort to replace it) to know
> they are hard decisions and not everyone makes them.

"Hard decisions" are when least "controversial decisions". Many people
think that to be too much rigid (no matter the topic, whatever issue in
life..) doesn't lead to anywhere. I personally agree.

> > That's precisely your fault, I think
> > developers are completely unable to abstract themselves by a moment and
> > to think like common end users would be (empathy).
> 
> Users think short term. Red Hat and Fedora think long term. We don't
> take decisions that may haunt us later lightly. That's a third "identity
> sign". Countless users decided at a time "RHL/Fedora is not
> user-friendly, I'll use foo distro" instead and then foo distro
> disappeared because it achieved short-term user-friendliness at the cost
> of long-term user-friendliness (being still there to help users)
> 

That's a wise decision from Red Hat. If I were Red Hat, probably I'd do
the same.. all in all, my clients wouldn't be end users, but enterprise
employees. But when Fedora follows (copy, reproduce) that strategy
(better than say "principles"), it's not so much clear that they are
getting right. You believe such things and I don't, but probably I'm
wrong. All in all, I'm just _the end user_ here, no more, and I think in
"short-term"...

> We certainly have poor communication but that's not because Fedora is
> lacking identity. Fedora has strong identity. 

Don't make me laugh. Proof that the last is not true is simply that many
people are discussing about this over there. If something has -really- a
_strong identity_ it is reflected instantaneously, and noboby brings up
the issue at all.

> It wants to build a free
> community platform period. That's something inherited from Red Hat. Red
> Hat didn't achieve its market-leader situation by being confused on the
> objectives.
> 

 Red Hat is Red Ha, and I don't care much about them, I sure they will
do their own things right; and Fedora should be maybe another thing, not
just an fixed extension from Red Hat. That isn't much Freedom indeed. 
But... who put the money and the human resources? Uncle Red.

Daniel