Fedora's audience

[Beartooth]

	Recent exchanges here and in related places have reminded me 
strongly of long discussions held on RedHat lists fifteen or twenty years 
ago. 

	Was (now is) RH/F, and Linux generally, *for* all & sundry? Or 
was/is it essentially a plaything of the Alpha Plus Technoids? Which 
*should* it be?

	That distinction applied to shoes and ships and sealing wax, to 
cabbages and kings; i.e., all the way from designing new apps for GUI, 
for CLI only, or for some compromise -- to what sorts of posters and 
questions ought to be welcome or unwelcome on the public lists. 

	I remember pointing out repeatedly that when the Baby Boomers 
began to retire, and cease to be bound to their employers' systems, some 
fraction of them would take up Linux -- and it wouldn't need a very big 
fraction of their numbers to make a substantial difference to Linux. 

	To the best of my recollection, that issue never resolved into 
any consensus. RedHat changed its whole strategy, and suddenly many of us 
had far more urgent concerns than just the philosophic ones.

	 By this time, at an informed guess, the Boomers must be retiring 
in spates and floods. My subjective impression is that I see more fellow 
retirees than before, but I can't guess numbers. Does anyone here have 
such numbers, or know of a source from whence to get them?

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck Not Quite Clueless Power User
Remember I have precious (very precious!) little idea where up is.