Trends - how to save Fedora ?

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:45:34 +0000,
  JB <jb.1234abcd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some from an independent Fedora devs, others from other distros by adoption of
> those that are useful and not conflicting with its goals.

That is unlikely to happen. More likely the fork would just die.
 
> Fedora is unstable, release by release, progressively worse.

I am not seeing this. I am seeing a lot of change between releases, but the
stability within releases hasn't changed much. Most of the instability I
have seen over the last few years (once a version is released, rawhide tends
to have other issues) has been due to regressions in the upstream kernel.

> It is becoming a dump place for projects that are pushed by RH and
> automatically sanctioned by its subordinates here at Fedora (some of them
> admit to be torn between job loyalty and doubts), without consideration for
> their sometimes questionable goals, quality, effects on system stability,
> adherence to UNIX principles, lacking adequate testing, in short too
> disruptive even to pre-conditioned Fedora community.

Fedora is supposed to be a place to test out new technologies. Prerelease
testing for Fedora has improved for recent releases. I will agree that
there has been a lot of user facing change in the last few releases.
(Things like gnome 3 and systemd.)

> There is a lack of independent users representation in Fedora project's
> governing bodies who should and would be able to be more critical and stop
> some of this damage even before it enters the actual development, not to
> mention implementation stages.

I disagree there. Independent users do get elected to the board and FESCO.
And even for the Redhat employees, many of those were independent
contributors to Fedora who were hired by Redhat so that they could put
more time into Fedora. While this also gives Redhat more influence over
them, as far as I can observe most are acting pretty much as they did
before getting hired.

> SELinux is a static, straightjacket-like security control system, badly
> designed with its requirement for off-line system re-labeling, ineffective and

You can normally relabel online. You can relabel files unless you are
running in a more strict mode than the default. There can be interactions
with running processes, but within a release this normally isn't a problem.

> GNOME 3 is an example of how not to do it, also influenced by RH devs.

Maybe. But given gnome 3. it made sense to replace Gnome 2 in Fedora with
Gnome 3 given the goals of the Fedora project. Whether or not it should
be the featured desktop or whether the various supported desktops
should be showcased on a more equal footing is an area where there should
be discussion from time to time.

> The good results achieved even caused M$ to list Linux desktop as a danger to
> their desktop business in its SEC documents.
> Guess what ? They removed it recently.

That probably had more to do with being convicted of abusing their monopoly
position and with the requirement for monitoring ending.

> With regard to Systemd, it is the most recent example of non-UNIX-like (or
> more like old M$-like) approach to software develoment. It is obvious by its
> goals, design, and reaction to criticism - they are not of UNIX mind ...
> Linux API to be a new standard, over POSIX. Screw up everybody else ...

People haven't liked the init system for ages. That's why systemd is only
the latest of several attempts to improve it.

> There are still ca. 300 packages that are not converted from SysV/LSB to it by
> their maintainers who resist or do not see a reason for the "progress" despite
> all threats.

This is more likely due to contributors being overstretched, than actual
opposition to systed in the mahority of these cases.