[fab] discussion topics for red hat ceo

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 5/15/06, Michael Tiemann <tiemann at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 12:53 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > On 5/15/06, Michael Tiemann <tiemann at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2006-05-14 at 16:20 -0400, Max Spevack wrote:
> > Hi Tim, I am a little confused by the question. One perfection is
> > pretty much impossible, and two every engineer wants everything to be
> > perfect.
>
> Um...I'm Michael, not Tim.  But disregarding that small imperfection...
>

Syn Ack. My brains are filled with juniper pollen it would seem... I
confused you with Tim Krauskopf, the CTO I had at Spyglass who looked
a lot like you. My apologies.

> In my opinion, one of the most important things Fedora provides is a
> genuine platform for user-driven innovation.  I believe that Fedora's
> role in the SE Linux story was about as perfect as one could hope for
> (even when SE Linux had to be disabled because Strict Policy Is Not For
> Everybody (tm)).  However, Fedora is not the platform of choice for
> innovating on:
>
>         * Linux Audio
>         * GIS system development
>         * 3D content generation and distribution
>
> to name a few.  But is user-driven innovation the one thing that we
> should be most religious about?  Or should it be internationalization?
> In that context we could measure: what percentage of i18n and l10n work
> was done first and/or best via Fedora?  I actually suspect quite a lot.
>
> I believe that Ubunutu's popularity is due, in part, to the fact that
> they have communicated clearly what people can expect AND THEN DELIVER
> ON THOSE EXPECTATIONS.  The question I guess I'm driving at is: what are
> the most important (and distinguishing) expectations we can (1) set and
> (2) deliver on?
>

That and Ubuntu has a cool breaking all the rules aspect. They are the
OS that every mom warns their daughter about, and the fact that they
ended up actually showing up on time with the spiffy
HarleyDavidson(TM) chopper was added icing.  Fedora(TM) has a more
blue-collar Ford(TM) 4 door sedan to it. It gets the kids to the
soccer game and can get reasonable gas mileage to it. However, its not
what was considered a 'sexy' vehicle compared to the chopper (though
better than the Chevy(TM) station wagon that RHEL is.)

[Ok my allergy medicine is probably kicking in].

What expectations would I wish to set and deliver on? I would continue
on what was seen on the Selinux front: Security and configuration...
very standard stuff but things that people  look for in Fedora. People
here use Fedora for 'next-generation' development of stuff.. deploy
200 desktops, or a cluster, etc with Fed Core 5 and use RHEL-5 as the
long term supported product when it comes out.

-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
CSIRT/Linux System Administrator