policy question

[Beartooth]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:32:01 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> Beartooth wrote:
>> 	Can anybody explain to a non-technoid how the developers go about
>> deciding whether a new thing gets added to the current Fedora release,
>> or held to become part of the next?
> 
> Can you explain what you mean by a "new thing"? 
	[snipperoo : lots of great stuff]

	Not very well, I'm afraid. It's a disadvantage autodidacts are 
always at -- worth it, but always at it. I chose a deliberately vague 
term, partly because of all the things I don't know, and partly because 
my thinking isn't that precise yet. 

	I don't even know if there's a sharp line between an app and an 
applet, or a package and a feature, for instance. Or, say, between things 
yum can find, and ones it can't -- such as Konqueror, which I use under 
Gnome. (I once tried not installing KDE at all, planning to install just 
Konqueror and whatever it brought with it; but couldn't till a guru told 
me more.)

> Do you mean a new software package or new feature or something else?

	All of those, for sure. Burning media is a good example of a job 
that's gotten vastly easier for the uninitiated over the years (and 
running GPS-interfacing topographic map software of one that I'm sure 
will yet). I don't recall, but I'd guess, that simplifying the K3B front 
end happened or could have happened during a release, but that 
introducing Brasero probably came with a new release.

	I did know from one of the LUGs I follow that more than I dream 
of gets added in, or sometimes obsoleted out, constantly. I've also 
noticed several times that the changes accompanying a new release may be 
vast  -- as replacing pirut with package-kit seems to me, and the 
introduction of SELinux was to more people than just me.

	That set me wondering if there were systematic priorities such as 
urgency on one hand, new convenient abilities on another, and something 
else again on the gripping hand. And how it might be that new bugs find a 
way into things as seemingly familiar for so long as Anaconda.

	I hope I'm making some sense. Anyway, the rest of your answer 
(all that good stuff I've cut here)  will give me plenty to chew on for 
quite a while. I knew, of course, that y'all'd've thought it through way 
beyond me -- but not that you'd've articulated so much of it explicitly, 
and even set it out in public. Many thanks!

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Fedora 8 & 9; Alpine 1.10, Pan 0.132; Privoxy 3.0.6;
nine (count 'em -- nine) different browsers
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.