From luis at tieguy.org Sun Jul 1 20:19:46 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 16:19:46 -0400 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> On 6/9/07, Luis Villa wrote: > Returning to an old rant, where I described some of the reasons I was > still using Ubuntu:[1] > > On 1/3/07, Luis Villa wrote: > > * QA: Ubuntu aggressively pushes people to use their development > > branch and report problems, which leads to better, more stable final > > releases. At the time I chose to use Ubuntu, people were not just not > > encouraged, but actively discouraged from using rawhide. This is > > improving... > > When I went looking for rawhide information tonight, I found it > impossible to find, so maybe I take back what I said about the > situation improving :/ Try googling for 'fedora rawhide', or 'rawhide > site:fedoraproject.org' and see what you get. > > What is up with that? I ask here because it could be a web or > marketing team problem (page exists, but needs SEO love) or because it > could be a QA team problem (page forgotten about?[2] page not deemed > to be required?) > > Whatever the cause/responsibility for the problem, it seems like a > critical problem to fix.[3] So... on the plus side: * it is now rawhide everywhere, so people can find information about it. Yay! on the negative side: * AFAICT, still no information about why people should actually use rawhide, or how they might use it. So the naming work is for naught. on the very negative side: * I tried to edit a bug today to make it more useful by correcting the out of date information in it. I'm now told that to make the bug more useful, I have to create a gpg key and sign the CLA. Needless to say, the bug is still useless and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Generally, I'm just shocked that Fedora seems to attach so little significance to an area where we should be kicking the crap out of proprietary operating systems, and where volunteers should be making it substantially more cost-effective to produce software. Luis From kwade at redhat.com Fri Jul 6 17:01:02 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 10:01:02 -0700 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> On Sun, 2007-07-01 at 16:19 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > on the plus side: > * it is now rawhide everywhere, so people can find information about it. Yay! > > on the negative side: > * AFAICT, still no information about why people should actually use > rawhide, or how they might use it. So the naming work is for naught. > > on the very negative side: > * I tried to edit a bug today to make it more useful by correcting the > out of date information in it. I'm now told that to make the bug more > useful, I have to create a gpg key and sign the CLA. This was all on the Wiki? Because there aren't any such requirements on bugzilla.redhat.com. The Wiki + CLA situation is a bit out of hand; we're working on it, but waiting for the next Moin release so we aren't making it _worse_. :) > Needless to say, the bug is still useless and will remain that way for > the foreseeable future. > > Generally, I'm just shocked that Fedora seems to attach so little > significance to an area where we should be kicking the crap out of > proprietary operating systems, and where volunteers should be making > it substantially more cost-effective to produce software. Sorry, which is the area with little significance attached? We have an ongoing problem with barriers to entry for Fedora. Legacy stuff + legal bits + lack of resources to fix stuff (compared to other perceived priorities). As a tie-guy-to-be, I thought you'd understand the murky waters around e.g. the CLA ... why it has to be, why it's hard to find good ways to sign it, etc. Fortunately, we do have this that I worked out with Mark Webbink: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KarstenWade/Drafts/CLAAcceptanceHierarchies Bottom line -- GPG signing required for work that goes directly into a package we ship. So, going onto the Wiki can be done with a click-through CLA. Which is why we are waiting for the next Moin release to implement ... any day now ... But this just feels like a bandage. We really need a small project focused on finding these barriers we've erected or stumbled behind, and figure out how to lower or knock them to the ground. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From alajal at gmail.com Tue Jul 10 13:18:48 2007 From: alajal at gmail.com (Mustafa Qasim) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:18:48 +0600 Subject: Self Introduction - Where Do I Start? Message-ID: <2c21bbf00707100618r25dfc013mb302a79b73dcc107@mail.gmail.com> Hello to all folks there ...well Mustafa here from Pakistan. I am doing my Bachelor's in software engineering right now. I started using Linux a year ago when I did a system and network administration course on RHL 9. After that I didn't got any chance to do something more with Linux. After that I get familiarized with the Open Source theory and truly I loved it, so that's y I chose JAVA for jumping into professional programming career INSTEAD of '.NET' bcoz i want to move on further with Linux. I m using FC 6 right now n when I came here I loved to c u all doing great work here. I would also like to be a part of FC community but didn't know where to start. I would love to work on Fedora documentation OR internationalization project for URDU language support in Fedora but as being a newbie at town I didn't know that how much knowledge is required to get on work in a particular project. I will love to hear whatever you have to share for me. I will be more then happy to get advice or comments or suggestions from u folks there. :) -- Mustafa Qasim Lahore, Pakistan Cell: 0321-6614972 URL: http://www.mustu.info -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jmbabich at gmail.com Tue Jul 10 14:16:11 2007 From: jmbabich at gmail.com (John Babich) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:16:11 +0300 Subject: Self Introduction - Where Do I Start? In-Reply-To: <2c21bbf00707100618r25dfc013mb302a79b73dcc107@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c21bbf00707100618r25dfc013mb302a79b73dcc107@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9d2c731f0707100716y2e46dabfned8bcc3643876e51@mail.gmail.com> Mustafa: Welcome to the Fedora Docs Project! It's a great time to do Java programming now that it's in the process of being open-sourced. Also, with Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss, I see Java skills becoming more widespread among Red Hat and Fedora developers. Be sure to check the task list for Fedora Docs Project at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks to see what's happening at the moment. Also drop by the #fedora-docs channel on Freeserve IRC and introduce yourself. John Babich Volunteer, Fedora Project From poelstra at redhat.com Thu Jul 12 23:42:28 2007 From: poelstra at redhat.com (John Poelstra) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:42:28 -0700 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 Message-ID: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-07-10 == Attendees == Jef Spaleta, Bill Nottingham, Paul Frields, Matt Domsch, Chris Blizzard, Steve Dickson, Greg DeKoenigsberg, Seth Vidal, Rex Dieter, Max Spevack, Karsten Wade, Chris Aillon, Rahul Sundaram, John Poelstra, Dennis Gilmore, Jeremy Katz. == Welcome by Max to new board members == * General provisions for meetings == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal == Set weekly meeting going forward == * 5 PM Eastern time * Historically board has found that meetings are most effective and constructive over the telephone * In favor of having periodic Q&A meetings with the board on #fedora-meeting on IRC == fedora-advisory-board at redhat.com list activity == * Has been quiet lately * Some wondered if planet.fedoraproject.org is where more activity is happening * Could board members be more active in their blogs about things that are happening with the board? == Thoughts and goals from new board members == === Steve Dickson === * Make Fedora easier to access and use without getting too buried in complex processes * Make Fedora the #1 Linux development environment === Jef Spaleta === * Interested in seeing how we can get more involved with upstream developers * Help more packagers get involved * Find a way to create smaller pieces of work that can be doled out to people that are interested === Dennis Gilmore === * Wanting to help make back end infrastructure work to make overall project successful === Chris Aillon === * Already in a lot of weekly communication with different distros--would like to use this to help bring community together * Would like to help overall communication to make sure information is getting to the right places * Invite upstream into our processes more * Help remove barriers with upstream * Integrate bug tracking systems across projects == Bug Tracking Integration == * Can Fedora help lead the way with better integration across projects and upstream with bugzilla? * Interface with upstream projects and other distros to move bugs between == Planning for Virtual FUDCon == * No one has responded to Karsten's email * Jef will start coordinating and pull together * For this to work there needs to be buy-in from folks leading features * Will continue discussion on FAB From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Fri Jul 13 01:00:59 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:00:59 -0500 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 16:42 -0700, John Poelstra wrote: > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-07-10 > > == Attendees == > > Jef Spaleta, Bill Nottingham, Paul Frields, Matt Domsch, Chris Blizzard, Steve Dickson, Greg DeKoenigsberg, Seth Vidal, Rex Dieter, Max Spevack, Karsten Wade, Chris Aillon, Rahul Sundaram, John Poelstra, Dennis Gilmore, Jeremy Katz. > > == Welcome by Max to new board members == > * General provisions for meetings > > == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == > * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo > * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates > * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to push it to FESCo. 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) 2) What packaging issues need to be discussed with legal? josh From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Jul 13 01:50:49 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:20:49 +0530 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> Message-ID: <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> Josh Boyer wrote: > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > push it to FESCo. > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) I did attend this meeting (last one as a leaving board member). GPLv3 is mutually incompatible with GPLv2. If we pull in updates where the code has been relicensed we would need to check for implications which are rather complex. See http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/ > 2) What packaging issues need to be discussed with legal? EULA and collective copyright is under GPLv2 for Fedora currently. Whether that needs to be changed to GPLv3 when we inherit GPL3 licensed software from various upstream projects and a better understanding of interactions between collective copyright and individual programs and trademarked software which are incompatible. Whether Software that is entirely under the copyright of Red Hat or where Fedora is upstream would move from GPLv2 to GPLv3. Whether it is worth the effort to separate the license tags in RPM between GPLv2 and GPLv3 licensed software from the legal perspective. Any other legal things to cross check as a result of a additional GPLv3 license and any new restrictions that it might have introduced to us as a distribution. Rahul From luis at tieguy.org Fri Jul 13 01:52:06 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:52:06 -0400 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> [Note that this is not an official position of Red Hat Legal; I am not a lawyer (yet), and I am particularly not your lawyer (yet). Were I speaking as part of Red Hat Legal, I would speak with an @redhat.com address.] On 7/12/07, Josh Boyer wrote: > > == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == > > * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo > > * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates > > * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > push it to FESCo. > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) Consider a not very hypothetical hypothetical: (the details of the incompatibility are simplified and possibly even incorrect, because I have been at the office *a lot* the past three days, but the basic idea is there) * Samba releases a library which is GPLv3. They are upstream for libsmbclient; it is their prerogative to do this. * Fedora packages and ships this new, GPL v3 libsmbclient. * Fedora rebuilds things which link against libsmbclient, but which are not GPL v3. * Fedora distributes. Voila... a (potential, depending on the details) license violation! Here, all relevant upstreams have done the right thing, and yet Fedora has committed a license violation. So Fedora might wish to put into place review procedures which minimize the risk of this occurring. > 2) What packaging issues need to be discussed with legal? In the past, I believe that Fedora has treated all GPL licenses as one and the same, when there are now, for compatibility purposes, "GPL v2 only", "GPL v2 or later", "GPL v3", and potentially dual-licensed "GPL v2/v3". (Ditto for LGPL.) Legal and Fedora might wish to discuss whether or not the license tag should spell that out. I really have no idea if that is worth the trouble or not. Luis From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 13 02:11:21 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:11:21 -0800 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707121911g11de2896n7bdf48791aabe2f2@mail.gmail.com> On 7/12/07, Luis Villa wrote: > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) > > Consider a not very hypothetical hypothetical: (the details of the > incompatibility are simplified and possibly even incorrect, because I > have been at the office *a lot* the past three days, but the basic > idea is there) > > * Samba releases a library which is GPLv3. They are upstream for > libsmbclient; it is their prerogative to do this. > > * Fedora packages and ships this new, GPL v3 libsmbclient. > > * Fedora rebuilds things which link against libsmbclient, but which > are not GPL v3. > > * Fedora distributes. Voila... a (potential, depending on the details) > license violation! > > Here, all relevant upstreams have done the right thing, and yet Fedora > has committed a license violation. So Fedora might wish to put into > place review procedures which minimize the risk of this occurring. I think this is a potential messy enough issue that all fedora maintainers need to make sure that they have an accurate idea of what their upstreams are doing with regard to GPLv3 and more importantly take a look at what the libraries your applications depend on plan to do. And please if you are a package maintainer and your upstream is looking at moving to GPLv3 or LGPLv3 try to ping fedora-maintainers with a note concerning the change of licensing status so people with packages that link to that library can get a heads up and talk to their upstreams. We really need to make sure that we (as well as other distribution packagers) are keeping the lines of communicating open with the upstream developers over potential licensing conflicts as individual projects make the licensing version jump. -jef From luis at tieguy.org Fri Jul 13 02:18:28 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:18:28 -0400 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707121918p5262088ft79d173b596946168@mail.gmail.com> On 7/12/07, Luis Villa wrote: > [Note that this is not an official position of Red Hat Legal; I am not > a lawyer (yet), and I am particularly not your lawyer (yet). Were I > speaking as part of Red Hat Legal, I would speak with an @redhat.com > address.] > > On 7/12/07, Josh Boyer wrote: > > > == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == > > > * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo > > > * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates > > > * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal > > > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > > push it to FESCo. > > > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) > > Consider a not very hypothetical hypothetical: (the details of the > incompatibility are simplified and possibly even incorrect, because I > have been at the office *a lot* the past three days, but the basic > idea is there) > > * Samba releases a library which is GPLv3. They are upstream for > libsmbclient; it is their prerogative to do this. > > * Fedora packages and ships this new, GPL v3 libsmbclient. > > * Fedora rebuilds things which link against libsmbclient, but which > are not GPL v3. > > * Fedora distributes. Voila... a (potential, depending on the details) > license violation! > > Here, all relevant upstreams have done the right thing, and yet Fedora > has committed a license violation. So Fedora might wish to put into > place review procedures which minimize the risk of this occurring. BTW, folks might want to take a look at the first question in : http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq to get a sense of GPL v3/v2 compatibility issues. I'm not completely sure I personally agree with every square of the chart, but it at least gives a good overview of where the likely problems are. Luis From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Fri Jul 13 02:39:56 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:39:56 -0500 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184294396.17091.8.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> On Fri, 2007-07-13 at 07:20 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Josh Boyer wrote: > > > > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > > push it to FESCo. > > > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) > > I did attend this meeting (last one as a leaving board member). GPLv3 is > mutually incompatible with GPLv2. If we pull in updates where the code > has been relicensed we would need to check for implications which are > rather complex. See http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/ Hm, ok. Should that be part of the review steps now? > > > 2) What packaging issues need to be discussed with legal? > > EULA and collective copyright is under GPLv2 for Fedora currently. Not packaging issues. > Whether Software that is entirely under the copyright of Red Hat or > where Fedora is upstream would move from GPLv2 to GPLv3. Not packaging issues. > Whether it is worth the effort to separate the license tags in RPM > between GPLv2 and GPLv3 licensed software from the legal perspective. OK. > Any other legal things to cross check as a result of a additional GPLv3 > license and any new restrictions that it might have introduced to us as > a distribution. This is what I'm asking about. Sounds like it's still in the investigatory stage. josh From katzj at redhat.com Fri Jul 13 02:40:00 2007 From: katzj at redhat.com (Jeremy Katz) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:40:00 -0400 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> Message-ID: <1184294400.4649.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 20:00 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > > == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == > > * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo > > * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates > > * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > push it to FESCo. Good summaries already, but the plan is to write it up and get it on the schedule for the FESCo meeting. But due to other meetings, it was known that Bill and I were highly unlikely to make FESCo today and thus putting it on this week's schedule was ... less helpful :-) So be prepared for it next week ;-) Jeremy From luis at tieguy.org Fri Jul 13 02:45:46 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:45:46 -0400 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <2cb10c440707121852k4c94ea1dn9efda66fc5fa0a4d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707121945hb1e8675md66e93a4b6b4589a@mail.gmail.com> On 7/12/07, Luis Villa wrote: > [Note that this is not an official position of Red Hat Legal; I am not > a lawyer (yet), and I am particularly not your lawyer (yet). Were I > speaking as part of Red Hat Legal, I would speak with an @redhat.com > address.] > > On 7/12/07, Josh Boyer wrote: > > > == Brief discussion of GPL v2/v3 and EULA for F8 == > > > * Consider adding license version tagging to spec file - push to FESCo > > > * Need to raise awareness to examine code coming from upstream during version updates > > > * Mostly packaging issues that need to be discussed with legal > > > > Can you explain this a bit more please? Particularly if you're going to > > push it to FESCo. > > > > 1) Why do we need to examine code coming from upstream updates? (E.g. > > only to make sure the license tag spells out the correct version?) > > Consider a not very hypothetical hypothetical: (the details of the > incompatibility are simplified and possibly even incorrect, because I > have been at the office *a lot* the past three days, but the basic > idea is there) > > * Samba releases a library which is GPLv3. They are upstream for > libsmbclient; it is their prerogative to do this. > > * Fedora packages and ships this new, GPL v3 libsmbclient. > > * Fedora rebuilds things which link against libsmbclient, but which > are not GPL v3. > > * Fedora distributes. Voila... a (potential, depending on the details) > license violation! > > Here, all relevant upstreams have done the right thing, and yet Fedora > has committed a license violation. So Fedora might wish to put into > place review procedures which minimize the risk of this occurring. Probably worth noting, finally, that of course this also eventually becomes an upstream problem which the library and application will have to work out between themselves. But because Fedora is the integrator, and Fedora is the one who (by linking) actually violates the license (and in the v2 case, technically immediately loses the right to distribute in the future!), Fedora needs to be on its toes and not wait for the two of them to work it out; instead it should try to see the problems before the upstreams do and help both sides to work it out instead of just waiting and hoping that they do. Luis From aoliva at redhat.com Fri Jul 13 08:14:48 2007 From: aoliva at redhat.com (Alexandre Oliva) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:14:48 -0300 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> (Rahul Sundaram's message of "Fri\, 13 Jul 2007 07\:20\:49 +0530") References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: On Jul 12, 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Whether it is worth the effort to separate the license tags in RPM > between GPLv2 and GPLv3 licensed software from the legal perspective. Suggestions to avoid trouble: automate as much checking as possible. New top-of-tree and new builds with License: GPL should be flagged and the maintainer should be asked to replace that with one of GPLv2, GPLv3, GPLv2+, GPLv3+, and perhaps other combinations thereof. Likewise for LGPL. New builds that change licensing terms should check any library dependencies for license incompatibility. E.g., a GPLv2 program must not depend on a GPLv3+ or LGPLv3+ library, and a GPLv3+ program must not depend on a GPLv2 library. (not sure about GPLv3+ / LGPLv2 compatibility, I haven't thought much about it, and IANAL :-) New builds containing libraries should check any dependent packages for license incompatibility similarly. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 13 11:34:18 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:34:18 -0800 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <604aa7910707130434h411d5487y6342afd1bf028df6@mail.gmail.com> On 7/13/07, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > New builds that change licensing terms should check any library > dependencies for license incompatibility. E.g., a GPLv2 program must > not depend on a GPLv3+ or LGPLv3+ library, and a GPLv3+ program must > not depend on a GPLv2 library. (not sure about GPLv3+ / LGPLv2 > compatibility, I haven't thought much about it, and IANAL :-) I'm very wary at attempting to rely the licensing tag in spec files for any automation like this out of the gate. There are packages which include multiple pieces of code under different licenses and of course packages with code under multiple licenses. These situations aren't codified in the licensing tag. -jef From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Fri Jul 13 13:16:08 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:16:08 -0500 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707130434h411d5487y6342afd1bf028df6@mail.gmail.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> <604aa7910707130434h411d5487y6342afd1bf028df6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184332568.6456.9.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Fri, 2007-07-13 at 03:34 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > On 7/13/07, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > > New builds that change licensing terms should check any library > > dependencies for license incompatibility. E.g., a GPLv2 program must > > not depend on a GPLv3+ or LGPLv3+ library, and a GPLv3+ program must > > not depend on a GPLv2 library. (not sure about GPLv3+ / LGPLv2 > > compatibility, I haven't thought much about it, and IANAL :-) > > > I'm very wary at attempting to rely the licensing tag in spec files > for any automation like this out of the gate. There are packages which > include multiple pieces of code under different licenses and of course > packages with code under multiple licenses. These situations aren't > codified in the licensing tag. Agreed. josh From smooge at gmail.com Fri Jul 13 17:16:04 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:16:04 -0600 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-10 In-Reply-To: <1184332568.6456.9.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <4696BC64.40802@redhat.com> <1184288459.17091.1.camel@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <4696DA79.7090302@fedoraproject.org> <604aa7910707130434h411d5487y6342afd1bf028df6@mail.gmail.com> <1184332568.6456.9.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707131016q72a2eb52k25d83bacd39be567@mail.gmail.com> On 7/13/07, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-13 at 03:34 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > > On 7/13/07, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > > > New builds that change licensing terms should check any library > > > dependencies for license incompatibility. E.g., a GPLv2 program must > > > not depend on a GPLv3+ or LGPLv3+ library, and a GPLv3+ program must > > > not depend on a GPLv2 library. (not sure about GPLv3+ / LGPLv2 > > > compatibility, I haven't thought much about it, and IANAL :-) > > > > > > I'm very wary at attempting to rely the licensing tag in spec files > > for any automation like this out of the gate. There are packages which > > include multiple pieces of code under different licenses and of course > > packages with code under multiple licenses. These situations aren't > > codified in the licensing tag. > > Agreed. > I think we went over this twice in the last 2 years.. the consensus in the past was that the Licensing Tag was insufficient (yet another item showing the age of RPM :)) to express the complexity of licensing of a lot of packages. Ideas on improving things was that all applicable licences would need to be included in /usr/share// or that a helper item be created that could allow a package to symlink the appropriate license to that directory. Most of the ideas required either extra bueracracy or code changes in how we layout packages. [Everypackage requiring fedora-licenses which would be a copy of all GPL's, MPL's, etc and have the appropriate symlink tool]. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From fedora at leemhuis.info Sun Jul 15 16:46:36 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:46:36 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 Message-ID: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> Hi all! Now that F7 is out, the new Board is elected and the new FESCo ready soon as well I'd like to restart the mailing list reorganization discussion that the Board asked me to handle months ago, but was first delayed (for the plan to have a dedicated fedora mail(man) server, which was dropped in between) and then not driven further by me as "the merge" seemed more pressing in recent months. Find the proposal below. It can be found in the wiki at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThorstenLeemhuis/MailingListReorganization as well. Comments appreciated. CU thl ---- ## restarted discussion summer 07, round 1 = Mailing list reorganization = [[TableOfContents]] A lot of contributors in the past yelled "there are to many mailing lists; that is contra-productive and leads to a lot of cross-posing and confusion " (this is the short explanation without all the boring details). Thus the idea came up to revisit some of the mailing lists that got created in the past years since Fedora was born and do some adjustments here and there. That means mainly: shut some down and adjust the usage model/name of some of the others. This will be a really complex task and we likely can't make everybody happy with it, but we at least hope to improve the situation. The Fedora Board asked me, ThorstenLeemhuis (knurd), to drive this task months ago -- I stopped working further on it as the Core and Extras merge was more important; then there were the Board and FESCo elections due -- those are finished now or will be finished soon, so I thought it would be wise to either do it now (or never). You can find my proposal below; comments much appreciated. Feel free to write a counter proposal if you think I did stuff (totally) wrong or if you think I ignored your comments (I read all those from the earlier discussion, but as I wrote: we can't make everyone happy -- but I'm trying my best to find a compromise thats better that what we have today and is acceptable for most of us). ---- == Quick overview == The details how do to the mailing list reorganization can be found below, but here is a quick summary for those that don't care about them. === List adjustments === The goal is to touch these lists: * fedora-extras-commits * fedora-extras-steering * fedora-maintainers * fedora-qa-list * fedora-test-list * fedora-triage-list And have these in the end: * fedora-devel-users * fedora-pkgs-commits * fedora-fesco === Other adjustments === Short term: create a alias @lists.fedoraproject.org under which the current and all the new lists are accessible. Long term: have a own mailman frontpage on lists.fedoraproject.org that lists only mailing lists used by the Fedora Project. == Details how to achieve that end-goal == Some lists get renamed (http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ; users thus don't have to care about re-subscribing) and some get closed, with the old users invited (not subscribed) to another list. === fedora-extras-commits === * Background: get rid of the term "extras" * Successor: fedora-pkgs-commits * Adjustment strategy: rename list to fedora-pkgs-commits directly under the hood of mailman === fedora-extras-steering === * Background: get rid of the term "extras" * Successor: fedora-fesco (or just fesco? but we have the fedora-prefix everywhere else, so better not) * Adjustment strategy: rename list === fedora-maintainers === * Background: not that different from fedora-devel in topics these days; closed list for contributors, but has seen flamewars and noise nevertheless * Successor: fedora-devel-list * Adjustment strategy: invite people to successor-list (most are likely subscribed there already) === fedora-qa-list === * Background: Not much traffic. We further should be able to assume that all users on fedora-devel-users are kind of testers/qa, so why not use that list for the QA discussions as well? * Successor: fedora-devel-users * Adjustment strategy: close list, invite users to successor === fedora-test-list === * Background: A lot of people never got the difference between fedora-devel and fedora-test list and ask users support questions on fedora-devel. One of the reasons for this is that it was not obvious what "testing" means. Another reason: we answered those users question on fedora-devel, even if they were not on topic (and thus those and other users thought it was on topic there). * Successor: fedora-devel-users * Adjustment strategy: rename list * Other benefits: We can point users that come up with question on devel to that list === fedora-triage-list === * Background: Not used much anymore. * Successor: fedora-devel-users * Adjustment strategy: close list, invite users to fedora-devel-users ---- == Not sure == There are some list where I'm not sure if we still need them and/or need to adjust their policy. === fedora-advisory-list / fedora-project === There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it === fedora-desktop-list === Had not that much traffic months ago, but in the recent two months it increased a bit again; but the stuff that got posted on this list was not that much different from stuff discussed on other lists. The name is confusing as well -- people using Fedora on their desktops now and then thought this is the proper list for usage questions. We could redirect users to fedora-devel-list and fedora-devel-users; or, if we want to keep the list, consider to rename it to fedora-desktop-developers. === fedora-devel-list === There were some different ideas for it floating around. One round about was: rename to something else (fedora-developers; that gets rid of the -list postfix as well) and let only real "developers" (Fedora or other distributions packagers; people participating in developing in software we ship or is well known; well known people active in Linux or Fedora-related projects) post freely to that list. Set the moderation flag for all the others initially until they have shown to understand the purpose of this list. Whatever we do with fedora-devel: with fedora-devel-users in place we should enforce its use and point users *and developers* that on fedora-devel ask questions about using to fedora-devel-users in the future. === fedora-list === This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users would thus be a proper name that would make its use obvious. But would renaming be worth the trouble? Maybe keep it in mind for the longer term === Other lists and misc stuff === Some other ideas floating around that I left out of the proposal for now, as they are not yet thought until the end or quite complex. * Some people questioned the needs for these lists. * fedora-r-devel-list * fedora-art * fedora-xen * fedora-websites Ask the list-maintainers if separate lists really make sense for these topics and let them decide how to move on * should we have a official mailing list coordinator that has to ACK new mailing lists? * what about fedora-laptop-list? Rename it to fedora-hardware or get rid of this completely (having a dedicated list for hardware issues might be acceptable and the best compromise). ---- == Miscellaneous == === Mailman guidelines === While at it let's define a standard look-and-feel for mailing lists as well, to avoid that people that are subscribed to multiple Fedora mailing lists get confused due to different setting on out lists (which happens). the individual mailing list admins are *strongly* encouraged to follow these guidelines, but they don't have to, *if* there are good reason for it (no, "I like foo better" is not a good reason!). Suggested settings (can all be found on the first mailman settings page) * the reply-to should not be modified by mailman (first_strip_reply_to = no) * the reply-to should point to the list (reply_goes_to_list = this list) * no explicit Reply-to-Address (reply_to_address = ) * no tagging (subject_prefix = ) === To -list or not to list === With lists.fedoraproject.org on the horizon the domainname will make it obvious that one is posting to the list, thus the plan is to not have the "-list" postfix in new lists. === rawhide reports === Send them only to one list -- fedora-devel-users. === updates-testing announcements === Create another channel in fedora-package-announce where those kind of reports get mailed to. f13 and wwoods considered that already and are evaluating. == Notes == * Ubuntu had "to much noise on the devel mailing list" problem; they splitted ubuntu-devel into ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-December/023022.html . * Renaming mailing lists in mailman: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ---- EOP Did I miss anything? From katzj at redhat.com Mon Jul 16 18:22:20 2007 From: katzj at redhat.com (Jeremy Katz) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:22:20 -0400 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 18:46 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > Now that F7 is out, the new Board is elected and the new FESCo ready > soon as well I'd like to restart the mailing list reorganization > discussion that the Board asked me to handle months ago, but was first > delayed (for the plan to have a dedicated fedora mail(man) server, which > was dropped in between) and then not driven further by me as "the merge" > seemed more pressing in recent months. Thanks for taking the time to really dive into this. I'll try to keep comments short as overall it looks pretty good. > === Other adjustments === > Short term: create a alias @lists.fedoraproject.org under which the > current and all the new lists are accessible. Need mmcgrath to comment on feasibility here. Mike? > Long term: have a own mailman frontpage on lists.fedoraproject.org that > lists only mailing lists used by the Fedora Project. We could also do a short-term form of this just by providing such a page. It could even just redirect to the wiki for now. > == Details how to achieve that end-goal == > Some lists get renamed > (http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ; users thus > don't have to care about re-subscribing) and some get closed, with the > old users invited (not subscribed) to another list. In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know if you want me to check into this > === fedora-extras-commits === > * Successor: fedora-pkgs-commits Why not just move all commit mail to fedora-cvs-commits and have people subscribe to it? Then it's an existing list that a lot of people are already subscribed to. > === fedora-extras-steering === > * Successor: fedora-fesco (or just fesco? but we have the fedora-prefix > everywhere else, so better not) > * Adjustment strategy: rename list Sounds good > === fedora-maintainers === > * Background: not that different from fedora-devel in topics these > days; closed list for contributors, but has seen flamewars and noise > nevertheless > * Successor: fedora-devel-list > * Adjustment strategy: invite people to successor-list (most are likely > subscribed there already) Yep. With fedora-devel-announce, we have a different avenue to fill the need of a "lower traffic, things that you really need to see" list. > === fedora-qa-list === > * Background: Not much traffic. We further should be able to assume > that all users on fedora-devel-users are kind of testers/qa, so why not > use that list for the QA discussions as well? > * Successor: fedora-devel-users > * Adjustment strategy: close list, invite users to successor I think Will has been trying to resurrect this somewhat to really concentrate on QA/testing. fedora-devel-users might be reasonable, but then what about people that are wanting to QA/test updates for released versions? I wonder if we're better off trying to migrate to fedora-test-list and then make its usage more clear > === fedora-advisory-list / fedora-project === > There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project > list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not > touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as > discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups > (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't > have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it As painful as it might be, fedora-devel-list really probably is that place. Otherwise, you end up with cross-posting with your hypothetical fedora-project list and the devel list given the amount of cross-over. > === fedora-desktop-list === > Had not that much traffic months ago, but in the recent two months it > increased a bit again; but the stuff that got posted on this list was > not that much different from stuff discussed on other lists. The name is > confusing as well -- people using Fedora on their desktops now and then > thought this is the proper list for usage questions. We could redirect > users to fedora-devel-list and fedora-devel-users; or, if we want to > keep the list, consider to rename it to fedora-desktop-developers. fedora-desktop-devel seems like a reasonable compromise. Having the separate list for desktop development discussion is definitely worthwhile. Just need to make it clearer that cross-posting is grounds for being thrown off the list (j/k :-) > === fedora-list === > This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users would thus > be a proper name that would make its use obvious. But would renaming be > worth the trouble? Maybe keep it in mind for the longer term fedora-list makes it match historically redhat-list and -list. Which was the intent. I don't think renaming is really worth the trouble. > * Some people questioned the needs for these lists. > * fedora-r-devel-list This is basically a SIG list afaik. > * fedora-art This one is important to keep around as there's a fair bit of art specific discussion that occurs there > * fedora-xen Originally set up to be analogous to fedora-selinux-list. Basically, a good avenue for specific troubleshooting and working through things for a new technology. Tends to be pretty focused discussion and helpful for people asking questions. > * should we have a official mailing list coordinator that has to ACK > new mailing lists? I really don't want to have to go to this level if we can avoid it... in some ways, I almost want to make it easier for special interest lists to pop up, especially ones which are going to help a specific subset of users or around the development of something that we're the "upstream" for. > === rawhide reports === > Send them only to one list -- fedora-devel-users. Maybe also a copy to fedora-package-announce with a certain topic set. Jeremy From mmcgrath at redhat.com Mon Jul 16 19:43:18 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:43:18 -0500 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> Jeremy Katz wrote: > >> === Other adjustments === >> Short term: create a alias @lists.fedoraproject.org under which the >> current and all the new lists are accessible. >> > > Need mmcgrath to comment on feasibility here. Mike? > > This should be near done. I'm waiting from some more info from Red Hat's guys on actual IP information. AFAIK though the lists are ready and waiting for @fedoraproject.org lists. Note: this does create more work for our team on new list creation because we'll have to create an alias in our systems for the new list. This could cause delay for some new lists. > >> == Details how to achieve that end-goal == >> Some lists get renamed >> (http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ; users thus >> don't have to care about re-subscribing) and some get closed, with the >> old users invited (not subscribed) to another list. >> > > In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. > Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know > if you want me to check into this > I'm not familiar with the history of this so if you get a moment I'd appreciate it. -Mike From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Mon Jul 16 20:02:29 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:32:29 +0530 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: Ah, chance to clear up one of my pet peeves. > > And have these in the end: > > * fedora-devel-users > > * fedora-pkgs-commits fedora-cvs-commits is better or make it fedora-packages-commits. packages makes it more clear and we are likely to be moving off cvs to a distribute SCM. > * fedora-fesco Are we going to move to open archives? Atleast the board members should have access to it. Previously this was extras specific but not anymore. > * Successor: fedora-fesco (or just fesco? but we have the fedora-prefix > everywhere else, so better not) Right. > There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project > list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not > touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as > discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups > (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't > have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it There is really no specific advisory board group anymore. This list is open to all so a name change might be better and fedora-project list sounds good. Do we need a fedora-ramblings list for random rants and news? We could redirect > users to fedora-devel-list and fedora-devel-users; or, if we want to > keep the list, consider to rename it to fedora-desktop-developers. Clarifying that it is for developers would be better than closing this. > === fedora-list === > > This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users would thus > be a proper name that would make its use obvious. But would renaming be > worth the trouble? Maybe keep it in mind for the longer term Rename isn't worth the trouble IMO. > * fedora-r-devel-list SIG list just like perl or java but there is inconsistency in between perl-devel and devel-java. Pick one style and rename the others. > * fedora-art We need this. This has a active team with many art specific discussion. > * fedora-xen Rename to fedora-virtualization since we now have kvm and shortly will have lguest too. > * fedora-websites This should be retained. > > * should we have a official mailing list coordinator that has to ACK > new mailing lists? FESCo might designate someone here. Warren Togami or Thomas Chung might be interested. > Suggested settings (can all be found on the first mailman settings page) > > * the reply-to should not be modified by mailman (first_strip_reply_to > = no) > * the reply-to should point to the list (reply_goes_to_list = this list) > * no explicit Reply-to-Address (reply_to_address = ) > * no tagging (subject_prefix = ) * reject HTML mail automatically with instructions on a wiki page to enable text messages on their mail clients. * Clean up web interface messages. Some of them refer to core and extras for example and nearly all of them have not been updated for years. Rahul From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Mon Jul 16 20:33:40 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:33:40 -0500 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184618020.9726.23.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 01:32 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > > Ah, chance to clear up one of my pet peeves. > > > > > And have these in the end: > > > > * fedora-devel-users > > > > * fedora-pkgs-commits > > fedora-cvs-commits is better or make it fedora-packages-commits. > packages makes it more clear and we are likely to be moving off cvs to a > distribute SCM. I don't see why fedora-packages-commits is better than fedora-pkgs-commits, but whatever. As long as it's not fedora-$(SCM_OF_THE_DAY)-commits. > > * fedora-fesco > > Are we going to move to open archives? Atleast the board members should > have access to it. Previously this was extras specific but not anymore. I think this whole list can just die. If things really need to be discussed in private (which most don't), an email alias similar to rel-eng can be set up. > > There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project > > list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not > > touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as > > discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups > > (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't > > have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it > > There is really no specific advisory board group anymore. This list is > open to all so a name change might be better and fedora-project list > sounds good. Do we need a fedora-ramblings list for random rants and news? fedora-project is entirely too ambiguous as to what should be discussed there. "Project" is the most overloaded term we have in Fedora today. I think the current name is just fine, but if you must rename it call it fedora-advisory. > * reject HTML mail automatically with instructions on a wiki page to > enable text messages on their mail clients. I think that should be avoided for fedora-list. We don't want to punish newbies with our plain-text elitism, nor can we possibly provide instructions on how to do plain text for every email client out there. josh From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 17 07:05:00 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:05:00 -0700 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> On Mon, 2007-07-16 at 14:43 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > Jeremy Katz wrote: > > In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. > > Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know > > if you want me to check into this > > > > I'm not familiar with the history of this so if you get a moment I'd > appreciate it. In the past, I've been told by IT that they did not like renaming Mailman lists. There is sure to be a (possibly arcane) reason for it. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 17 07:16:33 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:16:33 -0700 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <1184656593.26011.448.camel@erato.phig.org> On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 18:46 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > Long term: have a own mailman frontpage on lists.fedoraproject.org that > lists only mailing lists used by the Fedora Project. To be clear, the request from everyone is satisfied with the lists.fedoraproject.org alias. Mike specifically said (IIRC) that we should really stick with the Red Hat supplied Mailman instance (listman.redhat.com); it works very well and is not worth breaking. So, such a page as you describe would need to be either manually created or screen-scraped. > == Details how to achieve that end-goal == > > Some lists get renamed > (http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ; users thus > don't have to care about re-subscribing) and some get closed, with the > old users invited (not subscribed) to another list. It is _possible_ we could have one, well-organized renaming event. Mike can find out. > === fedora-advisory-list / fedora-project === > > There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project > list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not > touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as > discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups > (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't > have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it I'm mixed myself on what to do here. On one hand, I like the signal:noise ratio on this list. I would be pretty bummed if it were a free-for-all to discuss all manner of random ideas. As others have pointed out, there are lists where every new idea is on topic. -devel, -marketing, etc. It doesn't make sense to start or force focus on one list, when the active communities are within the existing lists. For now, I think we should encourage people to have future/idea discussions on the existing lists. > === fedora-devel-list === > > There were some different ideas for it floating around. One round about > was: rename to something else (fedora-developers; that gets rid of the > -list postfix as well) and let only real "developers" (Fedora or other > distributions packagers; people participating in developing in software > we ship or is well known; well known people active in Linux or > Fedora-related projects) post freely to that list. Set the moderation > flag for all the others initially until they have shown to understand > the purpose of this list. > > Whatever we do with fedora-devel: with fedora-devel-users in place we > should enforce its use and point users *and developers* that on > fedora-devel ask questions about using to fedora-devel-users in the > future. What is the problem we are trying to solve with moderation? > * should we have a official mailing list coordinator that has to ACK > new mailing lists? We sort of do in the form of Fedora Infrastructure. We'll have to have more something in the future. Either Red Hat IT needs to inform Fedora Infra, or we'll consolidate list request in Fedora Infra. I think the latter is the best idea. Just enter a Trac ticket for a new list; F Infra person requests it; when they get the go-ahead back, the alias is created, and the new list owner is informed. > === Mailman guidelines === > > While at it let's define a standard look-and-feel for mailing lists as > well, to avoid that people that are subscribed to multiple Fedora > mailing lists get confused due to different setting on out lists (which > happens). the individual mailing list admins are *strongly* encouraged > to follow these guidelines, but they don't have to, *if* there are good > reason for it (no, "I like foo better" is not a good reason!). > > Suggested settings (can all be found on the first mailman settings page) > > * the reply-to should not be modified by mailman (first_strip_reply_to > = no) > * the reply-to should point to the list (reply_goes_to_list = this list) > * no explicit Reply-to-Address (reply_to_address = ) > * no tagging (subject_prefix = ) The tool that Red Hat IT uses for mailing list requests is a Web form; it includes a few choices from amongst standard sets for configuration defaults. Maybe Mike can get a "new Fedora mailing list" default type added. It would then come pre-configured in to match the guidelines. An owner could change the details, but they would have to know what they were doing and why. I think most people just accept and get used to the defaults. :) > === To -list or not to list === > > With lists.fedoraproject.org on the horizon the domainname will make it > obvious that one is posting to the list, thus the plan is to not have > the "-list" postfix in new lists. FWIW, I'm partially dubious about typing 26 characters instead of 10. So, anything that _reduces_ the character count overall is good. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From fedora at leemhuis.info Tue Jul 17 14:04:43 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:04:43 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> On 16.07.2007 20:22, Jeremy Katz wrote: > On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 18:46 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: >> Now that F7 is out, the new Board is elected and the new FESCo ready >> soon as well I'd like to restart the mailing list reorganization >> discussion that the Board asked me to handle months ago, but was first >> delayed (for the plan to have a dedicated fedora mail(man) server, which >> was dropped in between) and then not driven further by me as "the merge" >> seemed more pressing in recent months. > Thanks for taking the time to really dive into this. BTW, is the Board (and the other on the list) still backing the general idea for a reorganization? Otherwise I can save myself to work further on this. > I'll try to keep > comments short as overall it looks pretty good. thx > [...] >> Long term: have a own mailman frontpage on lists.fedoraproject.org that >> lists only mailing lists used by the Fedora Project. > We could also do a short-term form of this just by providing such a > page. It could even just redirect to the wiki for now. Might be the easiest solution. >> == Details how to achieve that end-goal == >> Some lists get renamed >> (http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=all#4.70 ; users thus >> don't have to care about re-subscribing) and some get closed, with the >> old users invited (not subscribed) to another list. > In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. > Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know > if you want me to check into this /me waits for further outcome from the subthread that is discussing this I added it to the proposal to make sure it's not forgotten >> === fedora-extras-commits === >> * Successor: fedora-pkgs-commits > Why not just move all commit mail to fedora-cvs-commits and have people > subscribe to it? Then it's an existing list that a lot of people are > already subscribed to. Because * more people are likely on fedora-extras-commits ATM, as fedora-cvs-commits is only for Core <= 6 * because we should avoid the SCM's name in the list name But yeah, you raised a good point: What to do with fedora-cvs-commits? Close? Leave it working till FC6 is EOL (easy)? Merge with fedora-pkgs-commits? I tend to "Leave it working till FC6 is EOL, but invite subscribers to fedora-pkgs-commits" >> === fedora-qa-list === >> * Background: Not much traffic. We further should be able to assume >> that all users on fedora-devel-users are kind of testers/qa, so why not >> use that list for the QA discussions as well? >> * Successor: fedora-devel-users >> * Adjustment strategy: close list, invite users to successor > I think Will has been trying to resurrect this somewhat to really > concentrate on QA/testing. fedora-devel-users might be reasonable, but > then what about people that are wanting to QA/test updates for released > versions? I wonder if we're better off trying to migrate to > fedora-test-list and then make its usage more clear Well, renaming "fedora-test-list" to "fedora-devel-users" is IMHO part of the "make its usage more clear", as a lot of people never got what test-list is for. Maybe "fedora-testers" would be the better name than "fedora-devel-users", but as I want to have "rawhide users/user to {user,developer} talks (like "foo> We need feature bar? us> Will you work on that foo> No, I have no skills for that ") on that list as well, so I still prefer the "fedora-devel-users" name. Especially as that has the "devel" in the name -- a term users often search for. >> === fedora-advisory-list / fedora-project === >> There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project >> list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not >> touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as >> discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups >> (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't >> have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it > As painful as it might be, fedora-devel-list really probably is that > place. Otherwise, you end up with cross-posting with your hypothetical > fedora-project list and the devel list given the amount of cross-over. Well, then we need to make fedora-devel-list that place, but that's not in line with other parts of the proposal, that target into a direction to make fedora-devel-list a list where real developers talk to other developers. (I'll go a bit more in depth into this and the previous issue in another reply to this list later) >> === fedora-desktop-list === >> Had not that much traffic months ago, but in the recent two months it >> increased a bit again; but the stuff that got posted on this list was >> not that much different from stuff discussed on other lists. The name is >> confusing as well -- people using Fedora on their desktops now and then >> thought this is the proper list for usage questions. We could redirect >> users to fedora-devel-list and fedora-devel-users; or, if we want to >> keep the list, consider to rename it to fedora-desktop-developers. > fedora-desktop-devel seems like a reasonable compromise. Having the > separate list for desktop development discussion is definitely > worthwhile. Just need to make it clearer that cross-posting is grounds > for being thrown off the list (j/k :-) Added that para to the proposal for now. >> * fedora-xen > Originally set up to be analogous to fedora-selinux-list. Basically, a > good avenue for specific troubleshooting and working through things for > a new technology. Tends to be pretty focused discussion and helpful for > people asking questions. Agreed. /me wonders if we should rename it to "fedora-virtualization", to cover kvm as well /me will forget about this thought for now -- remind me of it if you like it ;-) > [...] CU thl From fedora at leemhuis.info Tue Jul 17 14:07:25 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:07:25 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <469CCD1D.3080809@leemhuis.info> On 17.07.2007 09:05, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-16 at 14:43 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: >> Jeremy Katz wrote: >>> In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. >>> Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know >>> if you want me to check into this >> I'm not familiar with the history of this so if you get a moment I'd >> appreciate it. > In the past, I've been told by IT that they did not like renaming > Mailman lists. There is sure to be a (possibly arcane) reason for it. Just to note: stuff like that was afaics the reasons why some people wanted a own mailman server back half a year ago. But now with Mike in place (and him poking the right people the right way) I currently assume it will work fine without one. CU thl From fedora at leemhuis.info Tue Jul 17 14:14:46 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:14:46 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184618020.9726.23.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> <1184618020.9726.23.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469CCED6.1010501@leemhuis.info> On 16.07.2007 22:33, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 01:32 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: >>> * fedora-pkgs-commits >> fedora-cvs-commits is better or make it fedora-packages-commits. >> packages makes it more clear and we are likely to be moving off cvs to a >> distribute SCM. > > I don't see why fedora-packages-commits is better than > fedora-pkgs-commits, but whatever. +1 But we need do choose one. I choose pkgs-commits because pkgs is what we use in CVS as well -- that made most sense to me. > As long as it's not fedora-$(SCM_OF_THE_DAY)-commits. +1 >>> * fedora-fesco >> Are we going to move to open archives? Atleast the board members should >> have access to it. Previously this was extras specific but not anymore. > I think this whole list can just die. That's up for (the new) FESCo do decide. But I tend to agree, as a list accidentally leads to private discussions (seen to often in the past IMHO -- just two or three month ago FESCo voted on a proposal from notting that accidentally got discussed on the private list only beforehand). > If things really need to be > discussed in private (which most don't), an email alias similar to > rel-eng can be set up. Then there are no archives -- that has benefits (new FESCO members can't look up what the earlier ones said about them in the past) and disadvantages ("Who said what when"). >[...] >> * reject HTML mail automatically with instructions on a wiki page to >> enable text messages on their mail clients. > I think that should be avoided for fedora-list. We don't want to punish > newbies with our plain-text elitism, nor can we possibly provide > instructions on how to do plain text for every email client out there. +1 CU thl From fedora at leemhuis.info Tue Jul 17 14:28:22 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:28:22 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <469BCED5.7070904@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <469CD206.2070709@leemhuis.info> I replied to some parts of this mail in the reply to jwb already. Some more here: On 16.07.2007 22:02, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: >> There was the idea to rename fedora-advisory-list to fedora-project >> list. But fedora-advisory-list works well, so maybe it's better to not >> touch it... Should we nevertheless create a fedora-project list as >> discussion list for Fedora-wide things where different groups >> (packagers, art, docs, EPEL, ...) can share informations -- we don't >> have such a place currently and some people seem to miss it > There is really no specific advisory board group anymore. This list is > open to all so a name change might be better and fedora-project list > sounds good. Do we need a fedora-ramblings list for random rants and news? I fear this will become a problem. I'll think about it some more; see also my to-be-written reply to Karsten (not sure yet if I'll find enough time for that today) > [...] >> === fedora-list === >> This is mostly a list where users help he other. fedora-users would thus >> be a proper name that would make its use obvious. But would renaming be >> worth the trouble? Maybe keep it in mind for the longer term > Rename isn't worth the trouble IMO. +1, nevertheless I wanted to list it > [...] >> * fedora-art >> * fedora-websites Gone from proposal. > We need this. This has a active team with many art specific discussion. > >> * fedora-xen > Rename to fedora-virtualization since we now have kvm and shortly will > have lguest too. +1 BTW, sorry, I just mentioned this idea in another mail -- seems that was not my idea and was instead your one which my mind picked up now (I skimmed over your mail some hours ago already) >> * should we have a official mailing list coordinator that has to ACK >> new mailing lists? > FESCo might designate someone here. Warren Togami or Thomas Chung might > be interested. I think this is something for the Board and FESCo. But I more and more think we need such a coordinator, to avoid that each and every SIG gets a own list. Sure, for some SIGs it makes sense, but I find it unhelpful that for example the games-sig has it's own list, but doesn't report much of their doings on the normal lists -- that IMHO would be crucial to make sure non-lists members that maintain games in Fedora know what's up (easy information flow) without following yet another mailing list. >> Suggested settings (can all be found on the first mailman settings page) >> * the reply-to should not be modified by mailman (first_strip_reply_to >> = no) >> * the reply-to should point to the list (reply_goes_to_list = this list) >> * no explicit Reply-to-Address (reply_to_address = ) >> * no tagging (subject_prefix = ) > [...] > * Clean up web interface messages. Some of them refer to core and extras > for example and nearly all of them have not been updated for years. Added to the proposal (as FIXME for now). CU knurd From notting at redhat.com Tue Jul 17 14:41:44 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:41:44 -0400 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184656593.26011.448.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184656593.26011.448.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <20070717144144.GB22206@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Karsten Wade (kwade at redhat.com) said: > On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 18:46 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > > > Long term: have a own mailman frontpage on lists.fedoraproject.org that > > lists only mailing lists used by the Fedora Project. > > To be clear, the request from everyone is satisfied with the > lists.fedoraproject.org alias. Mike specifically said (IIRC) that we > should really stick with the Red Hat supplied Mailman instance > (listman.redhat.com); it works very well and is not worth breaking. > > So, such a page as you describe would need to be either manually created > or screen-scraped. I believe mailman can do vhosting just fine (hiding lists at one address from appearing under the other, even if it's the same main host) Bill From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 17 15:05:47 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 08:05:47 -0700 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <1184684747.26011.485.camel@erato.phig.org> On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 16:04 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > BTW, is the Board (and the other on the list) still backing the general > idea for a reorganization? Otherwise I can save myself to work further > on this. I think you are clear to proceed; the original mandate never expired, just got OBE (overcome by events.) > /me wonders if we should rename it to "fedora-virtualization", to cover > kvm as well fedora-virt -- common usage now, save some repetitive stress. :) - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From smooge at gmail.com Tue Jul 17 15:35:22 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:35:22 -0600 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707170835m1a6947c4v8d99ef5fa4086fde@mail.gmail.com> On 7/17/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-16 at 14:43 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > Jeremy Katz wrote: > > > In the past, there has been resistance to doing list renames like this. > > > Perhaps that's changed, but it needs investigating. Mike -- let me know > > > if you want me to check into this > > > > > > > I'm not familiar with the history of this so if you get a moment I'd > > appreciate it. > > In the past, I've been told by IT that they did not like renaming > Mailman lists. There is sure to be a (possibly arcane) reason for it. > A long time ago, when I only had a dozen grey hairs... the problems with renaming lists was that people kept replying to the old emails and the angry emails about why the link on XYZ page is broken would end up with postmaster, etc until it got to the CEO level where someone would say "please fix this.. I had 200 phone calls in my voice mail about not being able to post to not-my-memo-list at redhat.com anymore." So requests would go that not only do I need "not-my-memo-list" to be called "i-luv-bumper-stickers-on-memo-list at redhat.com" but please also redirect email for a certain time or have an auto-responder added for each of the 10 lists I changed. Then as we 'acquired/merged' various companies there was the need for making us receive "my-old-memo-list at cygfree.com" to "we-merged-really at redhat.com" and it needs to go out to the mail servers in california because we can't move over this stuff yet because it breaks things. So in the end, the front-end Red Hat mail servers ended up with a sendmail.cf file that only Alan Cox and maybe Eric Allman could understand. [At one point we went on a push to move to postfix, but we actually ended up going back after Wietse Venema was found drunk in a bar crying "please dont make me look at RH's bug reports anymore... There was also a very vocal contingent to use exim but when told that they would need to be available 24/7 to answer reports and we gave them a listing of every email problem that development opened per day not including marketing, three took jobs with Oracle because it would be easier work. (Ok I am going overboard on the hyperbole here...)] In any case, the email routing has been a proverbial nightmare at times... mainly because it had to be inside of Red Hat AND it had to use existing Red Hat infrastructure AND it had to work for everyone at every office AND there are 2-4 people who know how it exists (no one knows how it works.. although when we quit making sacrifices of virgin technical support people once.. and the dot.com bust occurred the next day). That being said, moving it to use its own infrastructure WITHOUT using the existing servers should be easier than trying to get vhosts, mail routes to rename fedora-memo-list at redhat.com -> fedora-tech-list at fedoraproject.org, etc. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 17 18:27:48 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:27:48 -0700 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707170835m1a6947c4v8d99ef5fa4086fde@mail.gmail.com> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469BCA56.9080602@redhat.com> <1184655900.26011.434.camel@erato.phig.org> <80d7e4090707170835m1a6947c4v8d99ef5fa4086fde@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184696868.26011.540.camel@erato.phig.org> On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 09:35 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > > > > A long time ago, when I only had a dozen grey hairs... [snip LOLstuff] Thanks for the history lesson, Smooge. Sounds about what I figured it was like. Once I think I suggested something like that to mgalgoci, and I could feel the heat via IRC. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 14:49:56 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:19:56 +0530 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software Message-ID: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> Hi When the earlier discussions about codec buddy (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureCodecBuddy) in Fedora came up, the board decided on the Fluendo. This is not a very ideal solution since it promotes proprietary software and except for the MP3 plugin is also a commercial solution. However the decision was in favor of this as this was considered the only safe legal choice at that time in comparison rather than pointing to third party repositories. After the decision was made, there has a recent supreme court case in between MS vs AT&T ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._AT&T). This ruling in essence weakens software patents and holders of U.S. software patents cannot enforcing those patents in other countries anymore unless they also hold a patent in other regions if they allow it. It appears as a result of this decision we might be able to point to a third party repository as a alternative to the Fluendo codecs. We had a long discussion in Fedora Project Board list before and there has been no consensus so far in this issue even assuming this is a legally valid solution. There was questions raised about whether this violates the GPL license and I have received clarification from FSF that it would not (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF). I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe choice for us. Comments? Rahul From david at lovesunix.net Wed Jul 18 15:02:37 2007 From: david at lovesunix.net (David Nielsen) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:02:37 +0200 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184770957.3040.6.camel@dawkins> ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 20:19 +0530, skrev Rahul Sundaram: > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate > warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to > do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe > choice for us. Comments? If we are going to do this it should be amply documented on the wiki why we can now take this step after spending so much time saying it would be a legal risk for Fedora. Just to avoid confusion and additional FUD. We definitely should try to avoid repeating the Mono inclusion communication problem, we get enough bad press as it is. That being said, any legal way to improve the multimedia experience I am sure would be welcomed by our users and I would definitely be in favor of exploring this solution in full. - David Nielsen -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Dette er en digitalt underskrevet brevdel URL: From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Wed Jul 18 15:06:46 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:06:46 -0500 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate > warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to > do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe > choice for us. Comments? I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. josh From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Wed Jul 18 15:07:09 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:07:09 -0400 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <1184771229.606.148.camel@cutter> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:06 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > > > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate > > warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to > > do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe > > choice for us. Comments? > > I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's > legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are > not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. > +1 not to mention having to constrain the 3rd party repos to make sure nothing else that's quasi-legal goes in. -sv From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 15:18:39 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:48:39 +0530 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469E2F4F.6010900@fedoraproject.org> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to >> pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate >> warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to >> do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe >> choice for us. Comments? > > I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's > legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are > not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. Well some board members think it is pointless to ask legal before deciding we want to do this even if it is a legally good solution. Catch-22? Rahul From rdieter at math.unl.edu Wed Jul 18 15:19:44 2007 From: rdieter at math.unl.edu (Rex Dieter) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:19:44 -0500 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to >> pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate >> warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to >> do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe >> choice for us. Comments? > > I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's > legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are > not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. Ha, so we have 2 camps: 1. Let's not decide, until legal says it's ok. 2. Let's not take it to legal, until we're sure we want to try to do this. fwiw, the board did ask for such clarification from Mark, and from initial comments, looks like this may be something we can do. No commitment, mind you, partly because we don't have the necessary implementation details sorted out yet. -- Rex From kwade at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 15:20:54 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:20:54 -0700 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <1184772054.26011.792.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:06 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > > > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate > > warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to > > do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe > > choice for us. Comments? We have a chicken and egg situation. Can we have a large enough sampling to reach a consensus? The larger the sampling, the less chance of easy, quick, or reasonable consensus. I actually thought deciding these kinds of things for Fedora as representatives of everyone is why we have elections and Boards and stuff. So, just a realization that having this discussion is most likely verbal masturbation. It's still going to be the Board deciding in the end. > I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's > legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are > not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. I volunteered to take questions to Mark, but I refused to do so until we knew if we wanted to do it *if* the answer were 'yes'. In 99.999% of the cases, I am more conscious of avoiding abusing volunteer time than of Red Hat time. Mark is the one exception to that, for two reasons -- i) whatever I put in front of him needs to be the one question I want answered, and ii) I think of his time as having extra value because his is one of the few voices doing what he does, he does it very well, and there are tens of thousands of us techie types. So, IMO, we need to know if we want to do it before we find out if we can. Or do you think that is a foregone conclusion? I don't, I reckon. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From mspevack at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 15:19:48 2007 From: mspevack at redhat.com (Max Spevack) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:19:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > It appears as a result of this decision we might be able to point to a > third party repository as a alternative to the Fluendo codecs. We had > a long discussion in Fedora Project Board list before and there has > been no consensus so far in this issue even assuming this is a legally > valid solution. There was questions raised about whether this violates > the GPL license and I have received clarification from FSF that it > would not (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF). > > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with > appropriate warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something > we wanted to do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a > legally safe choice for us. Comments? The was this needs to be approached is just like all the other Features we're trying to develop. 1) Acknowledge that the "scope" of what was supposed to be Codec Buddy 6 months ago *may have changed* as a result of the court decision that Rahul mentioned. 2) Have someone who cares enough about this particular feature commit themselves to being the owner, and commit themselves to participating in the feature process as run by John Poelstra. Maybe Rahul is this person. 3) Re-scope the entire strategy of what Codec Buddy was meant to do, what new options may be available now that weren't six months ago, and make very clear what the options are. 4) Ask f-a-b for a decision, escalating to f-p-b if need be. 5) Clear options with Legal. 6) Do it. From mmcgrath at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 15:22:15 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:22:15 -0500 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> Message-ID: <469E3027.4010201@redhat.com> Rex Dieter wrote: > > Ha, so we have 2 camps: > 1. Let's not decide, until legal says it's ok. > 2. Let's not take it to legal, until we're sure we want to try to do > this. Two!!! -Mike From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 15:24:57 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:54:57 +0530 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184770957.3040.6.camel@dawkins> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184770957.3040.6.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <469E30C9.3010804@fedoraproject.org> David Nielsen wrote: > ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 20:19 +0530, skrev Rahul Sundaram: > >> I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to >> pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate >> warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to >> do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe >> choice for us. Comments? > > If we are going to do this it should be amply documented on the wiki why > we can now take this step after spending so much time saying it would be > a legal risk for Fedora. The legal risk might have changed as I explained earlier in this mail. Just to avoid confusion and additional FUD. We > definitely should try to avoid repeating the Mono inclusion > communication problem, we get enough bad press as it is. Of course. I am starting with a public discussion. If we decide to do this, I would document everything clearly. Rahul From bpepple at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 15:26:58 2007 From: bpepple at fedoraproject.org (Brian Pepple) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:26:58 -0400 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <1184772418.2790.0.camel@kennedy> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:06 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 20:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > > > I would like to get comments on whether folks here are favorable to > > pointing to a third party repository from codec buddy (with appropriate > > warnings and disclaimers). If this is considered something we wanted to > > do we will consult with Red Hat legal to verify that is a legally safe > > choice for us. Comments? > > I would want to see something in writing from Mark Webbink saying it's > legally OK for Fedora to do before we even begin discussing it. We are > not lawyers and this exercise is pointless if legal says no. +1 /B -- Brian Pepple http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BrianPepple gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 810CC15E BD5E 6F9E 8688 E668 8F5B CBDE 326A E936 810C C15E -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From mspevack at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 15:39:06 2007 From: mspevack at redhat.com (Max Spevack) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:39:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The Multimedia Question Message-ID: Before we can do stuff with a feature like Codec Buddy, the Fedora Board needs to reaffirm its larger strategy about Multimedia. Givens: 1) Fedora is Free by default, and always must be. 2) If people want to add anything non-Free to Fedora, they must do so in a way that is legal for them. 3) Fedora must abide by US laws, as Red Hat is a US company. What follows: 4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that makes it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to exist in Fedora? We need to decide on this from a philosophical standpoint. The lawyers will help us with the legal standpoint. 5) Acknowledge that people can use the Fedora base as a starting point for a derivative work that potentially includes stuff that can't be included in the United States, or in the official version of Fedora. 6) Acknowledge that just because something is illegal in the US, it isn't illegal everywhere in the world. Help people use Fedora, remix Fedora, and redistribute Fedora, in ways that are Legal for them and acceptable to Red Hat as the legal entity that controls Fedora. -- Max Spevack + http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack + gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc + fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21 From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 15:46:16 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:16:16 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> Max Spevack wrote: > 4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that makes > it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to exist in > Fedora? We need to decide on this from a philosophical standpoint. The > lawyers will help us with the legal standpoint. Note that Free software but patent encumbered is not equivalent to non-free. The Fluendo codecs are non-free. Pointing to a third party repository with Free software is obviously not a non-free solution. Rahul From kwade at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 15:47:02 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:47:02 -0700 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> Message-ID: <1184773622.26011.807.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 10:19 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote: > Ha, so we have 2 camps: > 1. Let's not decide, until legal says it's ok. > 2. Let's not take it to legal, until we're sure we want to try to do this. If the vote lands with the first camp, I might hand-off the "talk with Legal" responsibility. I'm very cautious about when I use my "Fishing Expedition With Legal" tickets, I don't have enough to share with everyone. > fwiw, the board did ask for such clarification from Mark, and from > initial comments, looks like this may be something we can do. No > commitment, mind you, partly because we don't have the necessary > implementation details sorted out yet. For the edification of the current Board, can anyone find this thread in the archives and expose it on f-board-l for us to peruse? Again, I'd like to know _exactly_ what has been asked and answered of Mark before I go asking anything again. Been there, done that, don't want to do it no more. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Jul 18 15:57:13 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:27:13 +0530 Subject: Codec buddy and Free software In-Reply-To: <1184773622.26011.807.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469E2894.60707@fedoraproject.org> <1184771206.16299.15.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469E2F90.8070705@math.unl.edu> <1184773622.26011.807.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <469E3859.3000906@fedoraproject.org> Karsten Wade wrote: > For the edification of the current Board, can anyone find this thread in > the archives and expose it on f-board-l for us to peruse? Done. Rahul From jspaleta at gmail.com Wed Jul 18 17:48:21 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:48:21 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <604aa7910707181048l448f8de5mdbf14c1d17408d23@mail.gmail.com> On 7/18/07, Max Spevack wrote: > What follows: > > 4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that makes > it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to exist in > Fedora? We need to decide on this from a philosophical standpoint. I've absolutely no problem philosophical with making it reasonably easy for end-user to choose legal proprietary optional software, post-install. We already sort of do this for content through the rhythmbox to magnatunes et al. End users can choose to buy content that cannot be distributed as part of Fedora because its non-Free (in magnatune's case Non-Commercial CC) There is one primary caveat however. We need to be reasonable sure that making such choices more accessible does not come back to unduly burden Fedora developers and contributors via bug reports and other misplaced support requests that can't be dealt with. For music content, the probability of this is inherently low. For functional code, like a codec plugin we need to have some technical means in place to ensure support requests don't get shovelled to Fedora's bugtracker and just pile up. If we are going to integrate something like CodecBuddy and points people to an external source, do we also have a means to shuffle bugs and feature tickets into their hands as well? And can we get a commitment from 3rd party sources to be good citizens and actually deal with the bug reports? The secondary caveat is... we will also need to be reasonably sure that we are not creating exclusive partnerships. For whatever mechanisms we expose to users, there needs to be clear and public rules for inclusion and exclusion of 3rd party sources that are listed. We may decide for example, that exclusion may happen when a specific competing technology implementation becomes available in the mainline Fedora repositories which makes the 3rd party offering essentially duplicative. > 6) Acknowledge that just because something is illegal in the US, it > isn't illegal everywhere in the world. Help people use Fedora, remix > Fedora, and redistribute Fedora, in ways that are Legal for them and > acceptable to Red Hat as the legal entity that controls Fedora. revisor and the open build system take this pretty far from a technical nuts and bolts point of view. But the harder question is how can we integrate these derivative works into the larger Fedora community in a way that lets everyone know that such efforts are welcomed and encouraged. How can we use the Fedora brand in a way that makes the Fedora project tent bigger so that we don't have to point to "them" but instead other people can point to "us" collectively so we can all benefit from the community building perception created from the additional volunteer work. -jef From tcallawa at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 20:08:42 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:08:42 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 21:16 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Max Spevack wrote: > > > 4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that makes > > it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to exist in > > Fedora? We need to decide on this from a philosophical standpoint. The > > lawyers will help us with the legal standpoint. > > Note that Free software but patent encumbered is not equivalent to > non-free. The Fluendo codecs are non-free. Pointing to a third party > repository with Free software is obviously not a non-free solution. Last time I checked, the Fluendo codecs were under a BSD license. That's a free software license. ~spot From david at lovesunix.net Wed Jul 18 20:07:03 2007 From: david at lovesunix.net (David Nielsen) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:07:03 +0200 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 15:08 -0500, skrev Tom "spot" Callaway: > > Last time I checked, the Fluendo codecs were under a BSD license. That's > a free software license. The majority of the codecs are under a completely proprietary license, exceptions to that rule are: * an MIT-licensed mp3 decoder * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream and Program Stream demuxer * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream muxer Neither one of these comes with a patent grant unless you get the official binaries from Fluendo. - David -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Dette er en digitalt underskrevet brevdel URL: From tcallawa at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 22:50:24 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:50:24 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 22:07 +0200, David Nielsen wrote: > ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 15:08 -0500, skrev Tom "spot" Callaway: > > > > Last time I checked, the Fluendo codecs were under a BSD license. That's > > a free software license. > > The majority of the codecs are under a completely proprietary license, > exceptions to that rule are: > > * an MIT-licensed mp3 decoder > * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream and Program Stream demuxer > * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream muxer > > Neither one of these comes with a patent grant unless you get the > official binaries from Fluendo. OK, there are two issues then: - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install proprietary software (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under proprietary licenses)? - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install free software that we know to be patent encumbered (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under free licenses, dodging patent issues because they come from Fluendo)? I think my answer to the second question is yes, but my answer to the first question is no. I'm not really interested in helping Fluendo sell proprietary software. That seems utterly hypocritical to me. ~spot From jkeating at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 21:55:25 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:55:25 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070718175525.50c27217@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:50:24 -0500 "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" wrote: > OK, there are two issues then: > > - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install proprietary > software (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under proprietary licenses)? > - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install free software > that we know to be patent encumbered (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under > free licenses, dodging patent issues because they come from Fluendo)? > > I think my answer to the second question is yes, but my answer to the > first question is no. > > I'm not really interested in helping Fluendo sell proprietary > software. That seems utterly hypocritical to me. Ditto for me too. We could catch the attempted use of proprietary stuff and dump them to an informative page about why we aren't enabling proprietary software, but I don't think I want to drive them to Fluendo revenue. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From david at lovesunix.net Wed Jul 18 22:36:27 2007 From: david at lovesunix.net (David Nielsen) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:36:27 +0200 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 17:50 -0500, skrev Tom "spot" Callaway: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 22:07 +0200, David Nielsen wrote: > > ons, 18 07 2007 kl. 15:08 -0500, skrev Tom "spot" Callaway: > > > > > > Last time I checked, the Fluendo codecs were under a BSD license. That's > > > a free software license. > > > > The majority of the codecs are under a completely proprietary license, > > exceptions to that rule are: > > > > * an MIT-licensed mp3 decoder > > * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream and Program Stream demuxer > > * an MPL-licensed MPEG Transport Stream muxer > > > > Neither one of these comes with a patent grant unless you get the > > official binaries from Fluendo. > > OK, there are two issues then: > > - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install proprietary > software (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under proprietary licenses)? > - Do we want codec buddy to help Fedora users install free software that > we know to be patent encumbered (e.g. codecs from Fluendo under free > licenses, dodging patent issues because they come from Fluendo)? > > I think my answer to the second question is yes, but my answer to the > first question is no. > > I'm not really interested in helping Fluendo sell proprietary software. > That seems utterly hypocritical to me. I see no harm in offering our users the choice, if there is no other legal alternative then Fluendo' codec packs are a decent option. It is not like we are defaulting to shipping them with Fedora, we are merely replacing an ugly error message which users tend to not understand with the option to: A) Pay for the required support from a company that provides a good service, uses the profits to fuel open standard development (Ogg Schrodinger) and invests heavily in developing libraries we rely on (GStreamer). B) Grant the option for people who can legally install the patent encumbered free software implementations to do so (and naturally also the option to commit a bit of civil disobience for the rest of our users). Yum mind you also installs proprietary software, should we make that work only on Fedora approved software as well? In terms of relying on proprietary solutions I am far more worried about the Online Desktop turning my desktop into MySpace+YouTube+Google GNOME as there's no Free alternative.. but that's a whole other debate. - David -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Dette er en digitalt underskrevet brevdel URL: From tcallawa at redhat.com Wed Jul 18 23:39:31 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:39:31 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 00:36 +0200, David Nielsen wrote: > Yum mind you also installs proprietary software, should we make that > work only on Fedora approved software as well? The difference here is that we're not enabling yum to point to repos of proprietary software out of the box. We'd be doing that with codec buddy, if we linked to proprietary Fluendo bits. I've got no problem with codec buddy saying: I'm sorry! You just tried to play a .WMV file. There are currently no known free software implementations for Microsoft Evil Evil Codec. ~spot From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Wed Jul 18 23:03:47 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:03:47 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 18:39 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 00:36 +0200, David Nielsen wrote: > > Yum mind you also installs proprietary software, should we make that > > work only on Fedora approved software as well? > > The difference here is that we're not enabling yum to point to repos of > proprietary software out of the box. > > We'd be doing that with codec buddy, if we linked to proprietary Fluendo > bits. I've got no problem with codec buddy saying: > > I'm sorry! You just tried to play a .WMV file. There are currently no > known free software implementations for Microsoft Evil Evil Codec. > Here's where I'm confused about codec buddy. What was described to us at the board meeting at fudcon back in the beginning of this year was this: 1. people encounter an unknown format 2. a box pops up to tell them they can go to this link to learn more about this 3. that link would be fedoraproject.org/codec_info_is_us or something like that 4. the content we would control. We could offer a link to the fluendo codecs if we wanted to - but it would not necessarily have to be the only thing. and most importantly we could tell the user why the codec they're fighting with is evil, etc, etc. When did codecbuddy change to ONLY point to fluendo and do nothing else? I'm positive there was an education component to codec buddy - but it doesn't seem like it is there now. -sv From stickster at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 03:09:42 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:09:42 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1184814582.5700.7.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 19:03 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-18 at 18:39 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 00:36 +0200, David Nielsen wrote: > > > Yum mind you also installs proprietary software, should we make that > > > work only on Fedora approved software as well? > > > > The difference here is that we're not enabling yum to point to repos of > > proprietary software out of the box. > > > > We'd be doing that with codec buddy, if we linked to proprietary Fluendo > > bits. I've got no problem with codec buddy saying: > > > > I'm sorry! You just tried to play a .WMV file. There are currently no > > known free software implementations for Microsoft Evil Evil Codec. > > > > Here's where I'm confused about codec buddy. What was described to us at > the board meeting at fudcon back in the beginning of this year was this: > > 1. people encounter an unknown format > 2. a box pops up to tell them they can go to this link to learn more > about this > 3. that link would be fedoraproject.org/codec_info_is_us or something > like that > 4. the content we would control. We could offer a link to the fluendo > codecs if we wanted to - but it would not necessarily have to be the > only thing. and most importantly we could tell the user why the codec > they're fighting with is evil, etc, etc. > > > When did codecbuddy change to ONLY point to fluendo and do nothing else? > > I'm positive there was an education component to codec buddy - but it > doesn't seem like it is there now. You're not misremembering. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From aoliva at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 03:23:24 2007 From: aoliva at redhat.com (Alexandre Oliva) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:23:24 -0300 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> (Rahul Sundaram's message of "Wed\, 18 Jul 2007 21\:16\:16 +0530") References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: On Jul 18, 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Note that Free software but patent encumbered is not equivalent to > non-free. +1 > The Fluendo codecs are non-free. Yup. Although the copyright license might make it seem like it's Free Software, the patent license that's an integral part of the fluendo plugin offer imposes restrictions on the exercises of the rights granted by the copyright license, which renders the software as distributed non-Free. https://core.fluendo.com/gstreamer/trac/browser/trunk/gst-fluendo-mp3/LICENSE this software license does not allow you to redistribute or copy complete, ready to use mp3 software decoder binaries made from the Source Code as made available by Fluendo. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} From aoliva at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 03:34:46 2007 From: aoliva at redhat.com (Alexandre Oliva) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:34:46 -0300 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: (Max Spevack's message of "Wed\, 18 Jul 2007 11\:39\:06 -0400 \(EDT\)") References: Message-ID: On Jul 18, 2007, Max Spevack wrote: > 4) To what extent is it appropriate for hooks or other "stuff that > makes it easier for someone to do non-free stuff like CodecBuddy" to > exist in Fedora? We need to decide on this from a philosophical > standpoint. The lawyers will help us with the legal standpoint. How about keeping this information not in CodecBuddy itself, but rather in xml pages in Fedora servers, but in such a way that users can easily reconfigure their CodecBuddies to pull the information from other locations as well. Then, the community that's not encumbered by US law can create information that the Fedora project itself can't recommend. Then, we could ship it with a default configuration that points at information that only explains why we can't include support for such and such formats, but that provides information about how to configure CodecBuddy to use an alternate source of CodecBuddy information that makes it easy to install the non-Free stuff, and perhaps inform the user that alternate sources of information for CodecBuddy may be available elsewhere, but that Fedora itself cannot recommend them or the software they might suggest. This will then make for a one-step education for users, after which they can make a decision as to whether to use this alternate configuration that recommends non-Free Software, or look for alternate CodecBuddy configuration files in the internet. Since CodecBuddy would be used by users as means to obtain information and software that can decode formats they don't have software to decode, having it obtain information from the internet before obtaining the software per se wouldn't be a major issue. That said, we could include the educational-only message in the CodecBuddy package itself, and use file:// URLs to make them available even when disconnected from the internet. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} From jkeating at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 12:31:39 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:31:39 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:03:47 -0400 seth vidal wrote: > 1. people encounter an unknown format > 2. a box pops up to tell them they can go to this link to learn more > about this > 3. that link would be fedoraproject.org/codec_info_is_us or something > like that > 4. the content we would control. We could offer a link to the fluendo > codecs if we wanted to - but it would not necessarily have to be the > only thing. and most importantly we could tell the user why the codec > they're fighting with is evil, etc, etc. This is exactly what I'm looking for out of codecbuddy myself, and if it's not this, and it winds up being a fluendo only thing, I think it has no place being in Fedora as an advertisement tool for fluendo. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 14:00:35 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:00:35 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> Message-ID: <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 08:31 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:03:47 -0400 > seth vidal wrote: > > > 1. people encounter an unknown format > > 2. a box pops up to tell them they can go to this link to learn more > > about this > > 3. that link would be fedoraproject.org/codec_info_is_us or something > > like that > > 4. the content we would control. We could offer a link to the fluendo > > codecs if we wanted to - but it would not necessarily have to be the > > only thing. and most importantly we could tell the user why the codec > > they're fighting with is evil, etc, etc. > > This is exactly what I'm looking for out of codecbuddy myself, and if > it's not this, and it winds up being a fluendo only thing, I think it > has no place being in Fedora as an advertisement tool for fluendo. Who has seen the code work and what it does? So far, this sounds like we're making a bunch of leaps across gaps in our knowledge. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From mmcgrath at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 14:09:59 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:09:59 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> Karsten Wade wrote: > > Who has seen the code work and what it does? So far, this sounds like > we're making a bunch of leaps across gaps in our knowledge. > > Link for the brave: https://shop.fluendo.com/ -Mike From kwade at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 14:23:15 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:23:15 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 09:09 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > Who has seen the code work and what it does? So far, this sounds like > > we're making a bunch of leaps across gaps in our knowledge. > > > > > Link for the brave: > > https://shop.fluendo.com/ Is that just supposed to scare everyone? :) If it wasn't clear, I was asking about the code in CodecBuddy, and what it does exactly, before we get $noun about what we think it might be doing. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 17:24:04 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:24:04 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 07:23 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 09:09 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > > > Who has seen the code work and what it does? So far, this sounds like > > > we're making a bunch of leaps across gaps in our knowledge. > > > > > > > > Link for the brave: > > > > https://shop.fluendo.com/ > > Is that just supposed to scare everyone? :) > > If it wasn't clear, I was asking about the code in CodecBuddy, and what > it does exactly, before we get $noun about what we think it might be > doing. And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not saying that is a bad thing. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From tcallawa at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:28:01 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:28:01 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > saying that is a bad thing. Again, shilling is not the issue here. Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the ideology of Fedora. ~spot From stickster at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 17:30:40 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:30:40 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1184866240.24625.10.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 00:34 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > Since CodecBuddy would be used by users as means to obtain information > and software that can decode formats they don't have software to > decode, having it obtain information from the internet before > obtaining the software per se wouldn't be a major issue. > > That said, we could include the educational-only message in the > CodecBuddy package itself, and use file:// URLs to make them available > even when disconnected from the internet. Cf. HAL policy, for example. Fedora contains a shipped configuration (XML, whatever) that ties a particular button to a method that displays informative information. Third-party repos ship codec-buddy-$our_name, which maybe $our_name-release requires, that overrides this policy to provide a different callback, such as calling yum. A thousand ways to skin this cat, but the essence is that third party repos should be able to provide this functionality. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 17:30:42 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:00:42 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <469F9FC2.4070803@fedoraproject.org> Paul W. Frields wrote: > > And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > saying that is a bad thing. Customized Fedora specific shilling for non-free software is pretty different from shilling for the continued development of Free software components that we inherit from upstream projects. It would be a acceptable compromise if that was the only legal solution for a very commonly desired functionality but simultaneously using morality as a argument against linking to a Free software repository simply doesn't fly. Rahul From stickster at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 17:49:01 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:49:01 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469F9FC2.4070803@fedoraproject.org> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469F9FC2.4070803@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184867341.24625.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 23:00 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Paul W. Frields wrote: > > > > > And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > > bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > > saying that is a bad thing. > > Customized Fedora specific shilling for non-free software is pretty > different from shilling for the continued development of Free software > components that we inherit from upstream projects. It would be a > acceptable compromise if that was the only legal solution for a very > commonly desired functionality but simultaneously using morality as a > argument against linking to a Free software repository simply doesn't fly. I wasn't arguing this point, I was making it. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From gdk at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 17:41:53 2007 From: gdk at redhat.com (Greg Dekoenigsberg) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:41:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: >> And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The >> bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not >> saying that is a bad thing. > > Again, shilling is not the issue here. > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > ideology of Fedora. Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 "To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked" From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 18:03:59 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:03:59 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:41 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > >> And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > >> bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > >> saying that is a bad thing. > > > > Again, shilling is not the issue here. > > > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > > ideology of Fedora. > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? It is if pushing proprietary software is required to do so. josh From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 18:05:43 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:05:43 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <604aa7910707191105i77e6b6dyc112d2a461b6a04e@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Tom spot Callaway wrote: > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > ideology of Fedora. Is the issue the selling or the proprietariness of it? We already have examples of plugins that sell things (magnatunes plugin in rhythmbox.. arguably proprietary since its NonCommercially licensed content, depends on what shade of grey you prefer with your cereal) and plugins which allow the installation of proprietary software (firefox's extensions) i don't know if there is an obvious line that gets crossed by having a technology that makes it possible to buy proprietary stuff at the users discretion. I'd be more concerned about exclusivity of providing a pre-baked vendor-list. Is there a middle ground here, where we can create an enabling technology that users can then register new vendors against but that we don't have to pre-populate the vendor list in the official fedora spins? We could easily pre-populate such a technology with our own righteous propaganda and then perhaps clue people in on how to search for additional vendors who know how to register against the system. -jef From jkeating at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:05:34 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:05:34 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070719140534.6381ee16@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:41:53 -0400 (EDT) Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > > ideology of Fedora. > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? No, not when you put it generally like that. But /much/ could fall under the very broad and generic term of 'helping desktop users'. Lets try to be a bit less melodramatic here. There is a balance to strike, and many of us feel that easily advertising for and handing out proprietary software is over that line. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tcallawa at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 19:04:36 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:04:36 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:41 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > >> And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > >> bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > >> saying that is a bad thing. > > > > Again, shilling is not the issue here. > > > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > > ideology of Fedora. > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? I would argue that we're not helping them when they end up with proprietary junk on their system. Users may not care. We care. When we start filling the gaps with proprietary glue, we start sliding down, not bothering to fix it in an open fashion. We send the message to developers that it is OK to do things in a closed manner. All in pursuit of the best operating system and platform that free software can provide. Not the best compromise that we can provide to our impatient users. ~spot From notting at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:04:49 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:04:49 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > I would argue that we're not helping them when they end up with > proprietary junk on their system. > > Users may not care. We care. See: firmware. Oh wait, we like that! Bill From tcallawa at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 19:09:53 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:09:53 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:04 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > > > I would argue that we're not helping them when they end up with > > proprietary junk on their system. > > > > Users may not care. We care. > > See: firmware. Oh wait, we like that! I don't like the fact that we have to have firmware without source. However, firmware is a far more necessary evil than enabling Windows Media file support. Firmware is also something that should've been done on the hardware in a perfect world, WMV support is a little different. And yes, I'm splitting hairs. I don't think firmware is really software, and media codecs obviously are. ~spot From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 18:11:57 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:11:57 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184868717.22811.16.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:04 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > > > I would argue that we're not helping them when they end up with > > proprietary junk on their system. > > > > Users may not care. We care. > > See: firmware. Oh wait, we like that! If you have a PCI card that has a hardware MP3 decoder that requires proprietary firmware that is freely redistributable, we'll gladly take that. josh"firmware-is-software-but-not-in-the-traditional-sense-of-software-and-i-think-you-already-know-that-so-i'll-ignore-you" From notting at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:13:41 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:13:41 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > I don't like the fact that we have to have firmware without source. > However, firmware is a far more necessary evil than enabling Windows > Media file support. How is enabling users the ability to access their own data more evil than enabling users the ability to use their own hardware? If the only legal way for a user to access their own data is via software that comes with a patent license, I don't have that big of an issue pointing to that along with whatever brainwashing/education/beethoven we want to subject them to. Bill From luis at tieguy.org Thu Jul 19 18:19:47 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:19:47 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Tom spot Callaway wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:04 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > > Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > > > > > I would argue that we're not helping them when they end up with > > > proprietary junk on their system. > > > > > > Users may not care. We care. > > > > See: firmware. Oh wait, we like that! > > I don't like the fact that we have to have firmware without source. > However, firmware is a far more necessary evil than enabling Windows > Media file support. > > Firmware is also something that should've been done on the hardware in a > perfect world, WMV support is a little different. It really isn't that different; hardware I can't boot is only minimally different from hardware I can boot but can't use with the data I need/want to access. And whether or not firmware is software or not is completely, totally irrelevant; it is modifiable and it impacts how people control and use their computers and their data. That makes it a freedom issue. You can hide it under semantic blankets if it makes you feel better, but you *have* made a strategic compromise of user freedom in order to help users. The sooner you figure out how to draw real and meaningful boundaries around that compromise instead of bullshit like 'it isn't software, so therefore it is alright', the better off we'll all be. As soon as you have *meaningful* lines instead of semantic hedges, you can actually start to answer questions about things like codecs in a meaningful way, instead of having a dramatic and surreal dance around the issues every time it comes up, as it is about to (again) around non-free web services, and already has with drivers, firmware, codecs, etc., etc. Luis From tcallawa at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 19:18:08 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:18:08 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:13 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > I don't like the fact that we have to have firmware without source. > > However, firmware is a far more necessary evil than enabling Windows > > Media file support. > > How is enabling users the ability to access their own data more evil > than enabling users the ability to use their own hardware? > > If the only legal way for a user to access their own data is via > software that comes with a patent license, I don't have that big of > an issue pointing to that along with whatever brainwashing/education/beethoven > we want to subject them to. Which other proprietary apps should we link to? Acrobat opens PDFs that evince doesn't. What about flash? I do have that big of an issue. And on top of that, we shouldn't be helping Fluendo (or anyone), profit from it. ~spot From notting at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:37:22 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:37:22 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070719183722.GA20047@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Tom spot Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: > > If the only legal way for a user to access their own data is via > > software that comes with a patent license, I don't have that big of > > an issue pointing to that along with whatever brainwashing/education/beethoven > > we want to subject them to. > > Which other proprietary apps should we link to? Acrobat opens PDFs that > evince doesn't. What about flash? It is perfectly possible to fix evince to open PDFs that it can't now. It is perfectly possible to fix your flash-clone-of-choice to display flash documents[*]. It is *not possible* to, legally, in some areas, fix open software to play certain media files. And this should be a big point in our user-reeducation program. But, either you tell your users to sod off, or you let them legally go about their business. Bill [*] Well, aside from the media codecs. Doh. From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Thu Jul 19 18:43:58 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:43:58 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:03 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:41 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > > > > > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > > >> And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > > >> bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > > >> saying that is a bad thing. > > > > > > Again, shilling is not the issue here. > > > > > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > > > ideology of Fedora. > > > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > It is if pushing proprietary software is required to do so. okay, let's calm down a bit. It is not such a dichotomy, I don't think. Fluendo is AN OPTION it is not the only option. Which is why we wanted codec buddy to work as I mentioned before. Spot, Josh, would either of you be upset if our page that explained what better codecs were available and why the bad ones were bad and what it does to our culture and software development and the fate of the world also threw out the 'but if you still want to commit this act of heinous evil, here are the options we are legally allowed to show you' -sv From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 18:49:49 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:49:49 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1184870989.22811.18.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:43 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:03 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:41 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > > > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:24 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > > > >> And let's not forget that we already "shill" for other folks... The > > > >> bittorrent-gui app features a "Donate" button. Note that I am not > > > >> saying that is a bad thing. > > > > > > > > Again, shilling is not the issue here. > > > > > > > > Helping Fluendo sell proprietary software is WELL outside of the > > > > ideology of Fedora. > > > > > > Is helping desktop users outside of the ideology of Fedora? > > > > It is if pushing proprietary software is required to do so. > > okay, let's calm down a bit. It is not such a dichotomy, I don't think. Yeah, sorry. Greg's hyperbole got me all excited. > Fluendo is AN OPTION it is not the only option. Which is why we wanted > codec buddy to work as I mentioned before. > > Spot, Josh, would either of you be upset if our page that explained what > better codecs were available and why the bad ones were bad and what it > does to our culture and software development and the fate of the world > also threw out the 'but if you still want to commit this act of heinous > evil, here are the options we are legally allowed to show you' Sure. josh From gdk at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 18:37:51 2007 From: gdk at redhat.com (Greg Dekoenigsberg) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:37:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Luis Villa wrote: >> Firmware is also something that should've been done on the hardware in a >> perfect world, WMV support is a little different. > > It really isn't that different; hardware I can't boot is only > minimally different from hardware I can boot but can't use with the > data I need/want to access. > > And whether or not firmware is software or not is completely, totally > irrelevant; it is modifiable and it impacts how people control and use > their computers and their data. That makes it a freedom issue. You can > hide it under semantic blankets if it makes you feel better, but you > *have* made a strategic compromise of user freedom in order to help > users. Ayup. > The sooner you figure out how to draw real and meaningful boundaries > around that compromise instead of bullshit like 'it isn't software, so > therefore it is alright', the better off we'll all be. As soon as you > have *meaningful* lines instead of semantic hedges, you can actually > start to answer questions about things like codecs in a meaningful > way, instead of having a dramatic and surreal dance around the issues > every time it comes up, as it is about to (again) around non-free web > services, and already has with drivers, firmware, codecs, etc., etc. Ayup. So it seems to me that the die is cast for Fedora. It seems to me that we've backed ourselves into this funky "it's totally free (except where it isn't)" corner with Fedora. And if that's the case, my next question will be, "what entity will take the Fedora base and create a compelling/compromising user experience with it"? Because that way, we don't even have to bother answering questions like the proprietary codecs question. We can just proclaim, once and for all, that IN FEDORA, USERS ARE IMPORTANT, BUT SOFTWARE FREEDOM IS MORE IMPORTANT, and call it a day. And you know what? I believe that's okay. I believe that's why we built the Fedora packaging universe the way we built it. I believe that Fedora is relatively holy ground -- but I also believe that we should be encouraging the heretics. Because that allows Fedorans to focus on things like Gnash and Ogg, and actual desktop usability issues that have nothing to do with codecs, and we can work on these issues *without compromise* -- but we can encourage some other, hopefully friendly, third parties to do all the dirty stuff that we won't do with Fedora. Maybe that third party is rpmfusion. Maybe it's Red Hat working with Fluendo on a desktop product. But if it's not going to be Fedora, then let's say it's not going to be Fedora, make CodecBuddy a purely educational tool, and move on. --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 "To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked" From Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net Thu Jul 19 18:53:23 2007 From: Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net (Axel Thimm) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:53:23 +0200 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <20070719185323.GF21336@puariko.nirvana> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 04:04:43PM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > Maybe "fedora-testers" would be the better name than > "fedora-devel-users", but as I want to have "rawhide users/user to > {user,developer} talks (like "foo> We need feature bar? us> Will you > work on that foo> No, I have no skills for that ") on that list as well, > so I still prefer the "fedora-devel-users" name. Especially as that has > the "devel" in the name -- a term users often search for. The naming of fedora-devel and fedora-devel-users are scheduled to create confusion. -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 18:55:55 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:55:55 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <604aa7910707191155t12d5631fhee6dc29de09a0877@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Tom spot Callaway wrote: > Which other proprietary apps should we link to? Acrobat opens PDFs that > evince doesn't. What about flash? I think there's a significant difference between a situation like evince and acrobat, and the situation that has prompted codec buddy. Evince is a legitimate open but buggy application that can be registered against at least one mime type and attempt to access the data. The question is how do we gracefully, empathicly interact with users who run into a mime type that we as a community don't have a legitmate/legal application to present to the user that will attempt to read the data. I don't believe that just telling them, "Sorry you can't access that data with open tools," is the best answer across the board. Having a user walk away from the long term benefits of using Fedora and an open system to use a completely closed system to access what they consider to be important legacy data cannot be in the best interests of our long term goals. Whether or not I think avi data is specifically important enough to worry about is immaterial. Legacy data gets packaged in all sorts of proprietary formats, and we should be providing a migration path for as much of that data as possible that users can choose to take. -jef From tcallawa at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 19:56:11 2007 From: tcallawa at redhat.com (Tom "spot" Callaway) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:56:11 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:43 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > Spot, Josh, would either of you be upset if our page that explained what > better codecs were available and why the bad ones were bad and what it > does to our culture and software development and the fate of the world > also threw out the 'but if you still want to commit this act of heinous > evil, here are the options we are legally allowed to show you' Presuming legal signs off on it, and its on a web page, not integrated into a tool, sure. ~spot From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Thu Jul 19 19:00:10 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:00:10 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:56 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:43 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > > > Spot, Josh, would either of you be upset if our page that explained what > > better codecs were available and why the bad ones were bad and what it > > does to our culture and software development and the fate of the world > > also threw out the 'but if you still want to commit this act of heinous > > evil, here are the options we are legally allowed to show you' > > Presuming legal signs off on it, and its on a web page, not integrated > into a tool, sure. > okay - then we're getting somewhere. we have a set of reasonable requirements which help the user AND educates them about whats going on. Who is lead on codec buddy right now? -sv From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 19:20:46 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:50:46 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> References: <469E35C8.3030901@fedoraproject.org> <1184789322.4026.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184789223.3040.38.camel@dawkins> <1184799024.4026.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184798187.3040.67.camel@dawkins> <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184799828.606.189.camel@cutter> <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> seth vidal wrote: > okay - then we're getting somewhere. > > we have a set of reasonable requirements which help the user AND > educates them about whats going on. > > Who is lead on codec buddy right now? Bastien Nocera (CC'ed) was working on it. He submitted the codeina package for review. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=241387 This still leaves my original question of whether we want to be linking to a third party repository and making it easy to installing plugins from it a click through process unanswered. The consensus on that seems to be: Ask Legal first. Rahul From luis at tieguy.org Thu Jul 19 19:41:08 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:41:08 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > seth vidal wrote: > > > okay - then we're getting somewhere. > > > > we have a set of reasonable requirements which help the user AND > > educates them about whats going on. > > > > Who is lead on codec buddy right now? > > Bastien Nocera (CC'ed) was working on it. He submitted the codeina > package for review. > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=241387 > > This still leaves my original question of whether we want to be linking > to a third party repository and making it easy to installing plugins > from it a click through process unanswered. The consensus on that seems > to be: Ask Legal first. I'd strongly suggest having more detail than that in anything you propose to legal. * who will choose what that points at? * where (geography, hardware) will they be hosted, and by who? * will it be source-available-but-patent-encumbered only? or will it include no-source options? or some other line? * what type of education do you plan to do? might it admit (or not) that there is a belief or public allegation that patents are infringed? if it does not, how is the whole exercise publicly justified? I have no idea what the "right" answers to these questions are, but if you have at least *some* answer to them the conversation with legal will be smoother- if nothing else you'll have a place to start discussion and you'll show you've given some consideration to the issue. Luis (DEFINITELY NOT LEGAL) From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 20:19:11 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:49:11 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> Luis Villa wrote: > > I'd strongly suggest having more detail than that in anything you > propose to legal. > > * who will choose what that points at? > * where (geography, hardware) will they be hosted, and by who? > * will it be source-available-but-patent-encumbered only? or will it > include no-source options? or some other line? > * what type of education do you plan to do? might it admit (or not) > that there is a belief or public allegation that patents are > infringed? if it does not, how is the whole exercise publicly > justified? Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. The same website might have other repositories but those won't be enabled by default or accessed directly by us. The end user functionality looks something like this: * You click on content encoded in a format that we don't support by default * We use the hook in gstreamer to call a small GTK application that says: This content is in a restricted patent encumbered format that Fedora Project does not provide support by default. If you are in a region that enforces software patents (such as U.S) you can download or buy licensed codecs. Others users can install the free plugin. What would you like to do? A) Learn about Free and better quality alternatives - lead to a web page that explains all about Free formats such as Ogg. B) Download or buy licensed Codecs -> leads to a different section in the same page as A) that points to the Fluendo web shop. C) Install plugin support - Downloads the appropriate plugin package from the third party repository directly. If there is no net access fail gracefully after informing the user. Does this sound sane and answer all the questions necessary for legal? Rahul From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 20:47:43 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:47:43 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 01:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Luis Villa wrote: > > > > > I'd strongly suggest having more detail than that in anything you > > propose to legal. > > > > * who will choose what that points at? > > * where (geography, hardware) will they be hosted, and by who? > > * will it be source-available-but-patent-encumbered only? or will it > > include no-source options? or some other line? > > * what type of education do you plan to do? might it admit (or not) > > that there is a belief or public allegation that patents are > > infringed? if it does not, how is the whole exercise publicly > > justified? > > Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered > software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software > patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. That definition fails. And it fails completely. If it is a Third party repository, you cannot control what other software is put in it. If you _can_ control what else gets put into it, then it's not really a Third party repo. josh From rdieter at math.unl.edu Thu Jul 19 20:58:31 2007 From: rdieter at math.unl.edu (Rex Dieter) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:58:31 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469FD077.2010108@math.unl.edu> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 01:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered >> software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software >> patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. > > That definition fails. And it fails completely. If it is a Third party > repository, you cannot control what other software is put in it. > > If you _can_ control what else gets put into it, then it's not really a > Third party repo. third party in this case = not owned/controlled by Red Hat. It is/will-be run by a group of trusted fedora contributors who agree to abide by whatever rules are required. If that's not good enough, well, bummer. -- Rex From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Thu Jul 19 21:00:10 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:00:10 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FD077.2010108@math.unl.edu> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD077.2010108@math.unl.edu> Message-ID: <1184878810.606.231.camel@cutter> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 15:58 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote: > Josh Boyer wrote: > > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 01:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > >> Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered > >> software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software > >> patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. > > > > That definition fails. And it fails completely. If it is a Third party > > repository, you cannot control what other software is put in it. > > > > If you _can_ control what else gets put into it, then it's not really a > > Third party repo. > > third party in this case = not owned/controlled by Red Hat. > It is/will-be run by a group of trusted fedora contributors who agree to > abide by whatever rules are required. > > If that's not good enough, well, bummer. > I think that group of contributors need to not WORK for red hat either. -sv From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 21:03:23 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:33:23 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 01:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered >> software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software >> patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. > > That definition fails. And it fails completely. If it is a Third party > repository, you cannot control what other software is put in it. > > If you _can_ control what else gets put into it, then it's not really a > Third party repo. In practical terms, I don't need to control a repository to be aware what goes into it according to their explicitly written guidelines by Fedora contributors outside of Red Hat. It is possible that someone might sneak in a package that violates the guidelines in a official or third party repository. Either would be considered a bug and fixed. If absolute control is necessary you cannot point to a third party repository at all but that is up to Legal to decide. If that level of control is desirable, it needn't be a third party repository but a Fedora repository built and hosted in external (to Red Hat) systems in regions that don't enforce software patents by Fedora contributors. Rahul From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Thu Jul 19 21:09:38 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:09:38 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:33 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > In practical terms, I don't need to control a repository to be aware > what goes into it according to their explicitly written guidelines by > Fedora contributors outside of Red Hat. It is possible that someone > might sneak in a package that violates the guidelines in a official or > third party repository. Either would be considered a bug and fixed. If > absolute control is necessary you cannot point to a third party > repository at all but that is up to Legal to decide. > but that's just it. if someone puts that in a repository then it could be a serious poison pill. If it is enough to get red hat sued then even if it bears out that rh acted appropriately by getting the problem fixed I can relatively guarantee that will be the LAST time we ever get to try that. > If that level of control is desirable, it needn't be a third party > repository but a Fedora repository built and hosted in external (to Red > Hat) systems in regions that don't enforce software patents by Fedora > contributors. but is red hat complicit in maintaining this? Or a red hat employee? Does 'the company' know about this or is this a 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more' sort of thing? If it is the latter then I think we're at full, dead, stop w/o legal counsel. -sv From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 21:18:58 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:18:58 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> References: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, seth vidal wrote: > but that's just it. if someone puts that in a repository then it could > be a serious poison pill. If it is enough to get red hat sued then even > if it bears out that rh acted appropriately by getting the problem fixed > I can relatively guarantee that will be the LAST time we ever get to try > that. Or a related question.. do we have the ability to point into another repository of code for specific things, that we are confident aren't legally toxic....regardless of the totality of what is available there. If external repositories are essentially searchable collections of software, is it okay to instruct users how to search those external collections for very specific things? -jef From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Thu Jul 19 21:23:24 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:23:24 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 13:18 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > On 7/19/07, seth vidal wrote: > > but that's just it. if someone puts that in a repository then it could > > be a serious poison pill. If it is enough to get red hat sued then even > > if it bears out that rh acted appropriately by getting the problem fixed > > I can relatively guarantee that will be the LAST time we ever get to try > > that. > > Or a related question.. do we have the ability to point into another > repository of code for specific things, that we are confident aren't > legally toxic....regardless of the totality of what is available > there. If external repositories are essentially searchable > collections of software, is it okay to instruct users how to search > those external collections for very specific things? that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. but we can't say which repos to add and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? -sv From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 21:23:34 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:23:34 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1184880214.22811.23.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 17:09 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:33 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > In practical terms, I don't need to control a repository to be aware > > what goes into it according to their explicitly written guidelines by > > Fedora contributors outside of Red Hat. It is possible that someone > > might sneak in a package that violates the guidelines in a official or > > third party repository. Either would be considered a bug and fixed. If > > absolute control is necessary you cannot point to a third party > > repository at all but that is up to Legal to decide. > > > but that's just it. if someone puts that in a repository then it could > be a serious poison pill. If it is enough to get red hat sued then even > if it bears out that rh acted appropriately by getting the problem fixed > I can relatively guarantee that will be the LAST time we ever get to try > that. > > > > If that level of control is desirable, it needn't be a third party > > repository but a Fedora repository built and hosted in external (to Red > > Hat) systems in regions that don't enforce software patents by Fedora > > contributors. > > but is red hat complicit in maintaining this? Or a red hat employee? > Does 'the company' know about this or is this a 'wink, wink, nudge, > nudge, say no more, say no more' sort of thing? > > If it is the latter then I think we're at full, dead, stop w/o legal > counsel. +10. josh From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 21:25:29 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:55:29 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> References: <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <469FD6C9.2060905@fedoraproject.org> seth vidal wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:33 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> In practical terms, I don't need to control a repository to be aware >> what goes into it according to their explicitly written guidelines by >> Fedora contributors outside of Red Hat. It is possible that someone >> might sneak in a package that violates the guidelines in a official or >> third party repository. Either would be considered a bug and fixed. If >> absolute control is necessary you cannot point to a third party >> repository at all but that is up to Legal to decide. >> > but that's just it. if someone puts that in a repository then it could > be a serious poison pill. If it is enough to get red hat sued then even > if it bears out that rh acted appropriately by getting the problem fixed > I can relatively guarantee that will be the LAST time we ever get to try > that. Wait a minute. What exactly are we worried about? That someone will break into the repository we point to and put random unlicensed proprietary packages into it and we would be held liable for that because we pull some specific packages from the repository? >> If that level of control is desirable, it needn't be a third party >> repository but a Fedora repository built and hosted in external (to Red >> Hat) systems in regions that don't enforce software patents by Fedora >> contributors. > > but is red hat complicit in maintaining this? Or a red hat employee? > Does 'the company' know about this or is this a 'wink, wink, nudge, > nudge, say no more, say no more' sort of thing? > > If it is the latter then I think we're at full, dead, stop w/o legal > counsel. It is not a wink wink deal. Fedora Project will be explicitly pulling specific packages from the repository. IANAL but maintaining such a repository outside of regions that enforce software patents has always been legal in those regions. We have been extra cautious about linking to such repositories before it is has no before but I am hoping the MS vs AT&T gives us enough clarity that it would be considered ok now. I don't want to second guess what is acceptable or not so I would rather ask than assume now. Rahul From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 21:29:45 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:59:45 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> References: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> seth vidal wrote: > > that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. > but we can't say which repos to add > and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered > software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is region specific. If we want to maintain those packages in specific regions as part of Fedora and that is considered legally safe, we could do that instead. In fact I think that's better than a third party repository solution because we would be using the similar infrastructure and guarantee things more because we are in control. The reason why I suggested pulling packages from a third party repository just for the codec buddy case is that it would be relatively easier to get that done before Fedora 8 (I think) Rahul From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 21:31:39 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:31:39 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> References: <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <604aa7910707191431u35d3a8dfndcf22e2e3987566a@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, seth vidal wrote: > that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. > but we can't say which repos to add > and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered > software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? Can we tell someone to how to pull a legal package foo from a specific external repository even if the repository contains unmentionables? -jef"i forget which gst plugins were legally okay but technically suspect... bad or ugly..."spaleta From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Thu Jul 19 21:36:32 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:36:32 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > seth vidal wrote: > > > > > that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. > > but we can't say which repos to add > > and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered > > software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? > > They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is region > specific. If we want to maintain those packages in specific regions as > part of Fedora and that is considered legally safe, we could do that > instead. In fact I think that's better than a third party repository > solution because we would be using the similar infrastructure and > guarantee things more because we are in control. Our CVS and buildsystems are hosted in the US. Explain to me how something can be called Fedora if it's not in our CVS and built with our tools? josh From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Jul 19 21:42:31 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:12:31 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> seth vidal wrote: >> >>> that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. >>> but we can't say which repos to add >>> and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered >>> software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? >> They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is region >> specific. If we want to maintain those packages in specific regions as >> part of Fedora and that is considered legally safe, we could do that >> instead. In fact I think that's better than a third party repository >> solution because we would be using the similar infrastructure and >> guarantee things more because we are in control. > > Our CVS and buildsystems are hosted in the US. Explain to me how > something can be called Fedora if it's not in our CVS and built with our > tools? We setup systems with similar infrastructure outside of US. Since it is going to be maintained by Fedora contributors, we can call it Fedora. Rahul From poelstra at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 22:08:30 2007 From: poelstra at redhat.com (John Poelstra) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:08:30 -0700 Subject: Fedora Project Board Recap 2007-JUL-17 Message-ID: <469FE0DE.4050003@redhat.com> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-07-17 == Roll Call == Attendees Max Spevack, Seth Vidal, John Poelstra, Matt Domsch, Steve Dickson, Bill Nottingham, Jef Spaleta, Karsten Wade, and Dennis Gilmore Absent: Chris Blizzard, Chris Aillon == Summer of Content == * Fedora would like to participate and cosponsor * Put forth 3 or 4 internships * On a short time line (3 weeks)--will need to identify people in advance * http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Summer_of_Content_2007 * Karsten Wade to make it all happen == Fedora Training Program == * Online program is under design internally for Red Hat employees that package for Fedora * Will be made available publicly for everyone once completed == Virtual FUDCon == * Still would like to do it * Jef will look at feature drivers over the next few days and collaborate with Rahul * Check back in with board on Thursday to double-check on viability == Fedora Mailing List (Re)Organization == * Working out most details on fedora-advisory-board list * Renaming of mailing lists is a not a road we want to go down a. Reasons discussed on fedora-advisory-board list a. Needless hassle for little gain + loss of contributors * Use lists.fedoraproject.org alias * Keep mailing lists inside Red Hat infrastructure * Do not fix what is not broken * Fedora Infrastructure is the liaison, manages community mailing list requests == Membership to fedora-board-list == * Should previous board members remain on fedora-board-list after their term is complete? * Current members will vote on fedora-board-list to decide * Max to organize and tally the votes == GPLv3 Discussion == * Karsten will start drafting a wiki page that addresses important issues * Keep an eye on projects making license changes * Have FESCo investigate the best way to track license by package From smooge at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 22:24:01 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:24:01 -0600 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> References: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Josh Boyer wrote: > > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > >> seth vidal wrote: > >> > >>> that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. > >>> but we can't say which repos to add > >>> and if there are repos that are full of free and legally-unencumbered > >>> software then the question becomes why aren't they in fedora? > >> They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is region > >> specific. If we want to maintain those packages in specific regions as > >> part of Fedora and that is considered legally safe, we could do that > >> instead. In fact I think that's better than a third party repository > >> solution because we would be using the similar infrastructure and > >> guarantee things more because we are in control. > > > > Our CVS and buildsystems are hosted in the US. Explain to me how > > something can be called Fedora if it's not in our CVS and built with our > > tools? > > We setup systems with similar infrastructure outside of US. Since it is > going to be maintained by Fedora contributors, we can call it Fedora. > No you can't. Fedora is a sponsored project by Red Hat. Thus Red Hat could be held libel for the actions of something called Fedora that is acting under the auspices of that sponsored organization. We are back to needing legal counsel before this would be able to go any further (if at all.) -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From kwade at redhat.com Thu Jul 19 23:48:31 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:48:31 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707191155t12d5631fhee6dc29de09a0877@mail.gmail.com> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707191155t12d5631fhee6dc29de09a0877@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184888911.26011.1067.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 10:55 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > Legacy data gets > packaged in all sorts of proprietary formats, and we should be > providing a migration path for as much of that data as possible that > users can choose to take. What I want is a way (and I know we can't without the codecs) to convert files. "You are still paying your monthly fee to access that MP3. Would you like CocecBuddy to convert all your MP3s to better, smaller, and completely open forever OGG files?" - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 19 23:52:50 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:52:50 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184888911.26011.1067.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707191155t12d5631fhee6dc29de09a0877@mail.gmail.com> <1184888911.26011.1067.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <604aa7910707191652v50256b56o1827d585f0ce6021@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 10:55 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > > Legacy data gets > > packaged in all sorts of proprietary formats, and we should be > > providing a migration path for as much of that data as possible that > > users can choose to take. > > What I want is a way (and I know we can't without the codecs) to convert > files. That's sort of my point. I want to to convert people... which means converting their data... and that necessitates decoders. -jef"so how do i convert vectorworks cad drawings into blender?"spaleta From jkeating at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 00:02:19 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:02:19 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184888911.26011.1067.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <20070719083139.6b6ce2f8@ender> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719181341.GA19534@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872688.4026.72.camel@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707191155t12d5631fhee6dc29de09a0877@mail.gmail.com> <1184888911.26011.1067.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <20070719200219.44352d18@ender> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:48:31 -0700 Karsten Wade wrote: > "You are still paying your monthly fee to access that MP3. Would you > like CocecBuddy to convert all your MP3s to better, smaller, and > completely open forever OGG files?" And then we get to the problem of converting one lossy format to another, which ends up with /not/ as good of files, which is /bad/ advertising for the open codecs. But now we're off in the weeds. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kwade at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 00:27:34 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:27:34 -0700 Subject: Mailing list reorganization summer 07, round 1 In-Reply-To: <20070719185323.GF21336@puariko.nirvana> References: <469A4F6C.1000709@leemhuis.info> <1184610140.9154.57.camel@localhost.localdomain> <469CCC7B.3070204@leemhuis.info> <20070719185323.GF21336@puariko.nirvana> Message-ID: <1184891254.26011.1076.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 20:53 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote: > On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 04:04:43PM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > > Maybe "fedora-testers" would be the better name than > > "fedora-devel-users", but as I want to have "rawhide users/user to > > {user,developer} talks (like "foo> We need feature bar? us> Will you > > work on that foo> No, I have no skills for that ") on that list as well, > > so I still prefer the "fedora-devel-users" name. Especially as that has > > the "devel" in the name -- a term users often search for. > > The naming of fedora-devel and fedora-devel-users are scheduled to > create confusion. Isn't this really rawhide users we're talking about? Why not just call it fedora-rawhide-users? Then let fedora-test-list be about testing stuff, like fedora-devel-list is about devel stuff, etc. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From luis at tieguy.org Fri Jul 20 00:54:24 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:54:24 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707191754g4134a814wf281047983c0bef3@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Luis Villa wrote: > > > > > I'd strongly suggest having more detail than that in anything you > > propose to legal. > > > > * who will choose what that points at? > > * where (geography, hardware) will they be hosted, and by who? > > * will it be source-available-but-patent-encumbered only? or will it > > include no-source options? or some other line? > > * what type of education do you plan to do? might it admit (or not) > > that there is a belief or public allegation that patents are > > infringed? if it does not, how is the whole exercise publicly > > justified? > > Third party repository containing only Free but patent encumbered > software hosted outside of US in a region not affected by software > patents and in resources provided external to Red Hat. The same website > might have other repositories but those won't be enabled by default or > accessed directly by us. The end user functionality looks something like > this: > > * You click on content encoded in a format that we don't support by default > > * We use the hook in gstreamer to call a small GTK application that says: > > This content is in a restricted patent encumbered format that Fedora > Project does not provide support by default. If you are in a region that > enforces software patents (such as U.S) you can download or buy licensed > codecs. Others users can install the free plugin. What would you like to do? > > A) Learn about Free and better quality alternatives - lead to a web > page that explains all about Free formats such as Ogg. > > B) Download or buy licensed Codecs -> leads to a different section in > the same page as A) that points to the Fluendo web shop. > > C) Install plugin support - Downloads the appropriate plugin package > from the third party repository directly. If there is no net access fail > gracefully after informing the user. > > Does this sound sane Sounds sane-ish... > and answer all the questions necessary for legal? > >> Luis (DEFINITELY NOT LEGAL) I have no idea, you'd have to ask legal. Some simple math: there are dozens of volunteers on this list alone, and hundreds who have thought about this problem across the various projects involved. There is exactly one lawyer at Red Hat who can answer your questions, and he's possibly the busiest person in the entire department. So it behooves you to use as much volunteer time as possible, and as little lawyer time as possible. You guys are not lawyers, but you are smart. Brainstorm, research a bit, try to cover all the bases and communicate it with both depth and succinctness. (And be prepared for the possibility of getting a flat 'no' as soon as you raise the issue, of course.) Luis From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Fri Jul 20 01:08:30 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:08:30 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:24:01 -0600 "Stephen John Smoogen" wrote: > On 7/19/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > Josh Boyer wrote: > > > On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > >> seth vidal wrote: > > >> > > >>> that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. > > >>> but we can't say which repos to add > > >>> and if there are repos that are full of free and > > >>> legally-unencumbered software then the question becomes why > > >>> aren't they in fedora? > > >> They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is > > >> region specific. If we want to maintain those packages in > > >> specific regions as part of Fedora and that is considered > > >> legally safe, we could do that instead. In fact I think that's > > >> better than a third party repository solution because we would > > >> be using the similar infrastructure and guarantee things more > > >> because we are in control. > > > > > > Our CVS and buildsystems are hosted in the US. Explain to me how > > > something can be called Fedora if it's not in our CVS and built > > > with our tools? > > > > We setup systems with similar infrastructure outside of US. Since > > it is going to be maintained by Fedora contributors, we can call it > > Fedora. > > > > No you can't. Fedora is a sponsored project by Red Hat. Thus Red Hat > could be held libel for the actions of something called Fedora that is > acting under the auspices of that sponsored organization. We are back > to needing legal counsel before this would be able to go any further > (if at all.) You can't for other reasons. Built outside of the US using the same infrastructure is possible, but in order to call a package "Fedora" we have always said it must be built from our CVS. We can't host those packages in our CVS. At any rate, get legal involved. josh From mmcgrath at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 03:30:33 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:30:33 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> Max Spevack wrote: > > 6) Acknowledge that just because something is illegal in the US, it > isn't illegal everywhere in the world. Help people use Fedora, remix > Fedora, and redistribute Fedora, in ways that are Legal for them and > acceptable to Red Hat as the legal entity that controls Fedora. > Interesting and relevant:/ "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the scary legalese dialogs you have to click through to install codecs for common multimedia formats. Quoting: 'Despite strong points that go far beyond price, Linux falls short when it comes to legally supporting file formats such as MP3, WMA/WMV and DVDs.' He talks about using Ubuntu and booting up Totem Movie Player, only to be confronted with a burst of legalese about what a hardened criminal he'll be if he uses Totem without a license. This problem is 'a deal breaker' for him."/ http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/07/19/1527247.shtml Thought I'd mention it (even though many have probably already seen it) -Mike From kwade at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 06:31:56 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:31:56 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 22:30 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving > money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the > scary legalese dialogs you have to click through Maybe a scary warning in simpletonese, like a pack of cigarettes: "If you smoke this MP3 codec, it will eat your brane and come back for dessert." -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From dgboles at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 07:41:38 2007 From: dgboles at gmail.com (David Boles) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:41:38 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> on 7/19/2007 11:31 PM, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 22:30 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > >> "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving >> money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the >> scary legalese dialogs you have to click through > > Maybe a scary warning in simpletonese, like a pack of cigarettes: "If > you smoke this MP3 codec, it will eat your brane and come back for > dessert." I have watched this thread, as well as many others like this, from the outside. As an ordinary user and not as programmer/maintainer/developer which I am not. An ordinary user point of view. Linux for a long time. Fedora since FC-2. I do understand the Fedora FOSS policy and I do agree with it. But what needs to be said, once again, by an ordinary user is this. Be careful what you offer to provide a 'lead to' or a 'go here for this'. Truly. Most, surely *not* all, of the people that want these types of codecs and plugins to play, for example, mp3 music files or DVDs movies, will be using these to listen to and play pirated (Bittorrent) music and movies. And most, again surely not all, would be more than happy to steal/violate/'call it whatever you wish' to be able to do so. Do you really want to promote that? Here I back out and put: -- David -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 187 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From david at lovesunix.net Fri Jul 20 12:15:49 2007 From: david at lovesunix.net (David Nielsen) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:15:49 +0200 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> fre, 20 07 2007 kl. 00:41 -0700, skrev David Boles: > on 7/19/2007 11:31 PM, Karsten Wade wrote: > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 22:30 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > > >> "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving > >> money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the > >> scary legalese dialogs you have to click through > > > > Maybe a scary warning in simpletonese, like a pack of cigarettes: "If > > you smoke this MP3 codec, it will eat your brane and come back for > > dessert." > > > > I have watched this thread, as well as many others like this, from the > outside. As an ordinary user and not as programmer/maintainer/developer > which I am not. An ordinary user point of view. Linux for a long time. > Fedora since FC-2. > > I do understand the Fedora FOSS policy and I do agree with it. > > But what needs to be said, once again, by an ordinary user is this. > > Be careful what you offer to provide a 'lead to' or a 'go here for this'. > Truly. Most, surely *not* all, of the people that want these types of > codecs and plugins to play, for example, mp3 music files or DVDs movies, > will be using these to listen to and play pirated (Bittorrent) music and > movies. And most, again surely not all, would be more than happy to > steal/violate/'call it whatever you wish' to be able to do so. > > Do you really want to promote that? > > Here I back out and put: > > Are you basically suggesting Fedora start becoming the thought police here. "I'm sorry sir we object morally to what _might_ be your intend as it _might_ be in violation with the law". That would just be disgustingly anti-freedom, what's next will OpenOffice be monitoring what I'm typing to ensure that I'm not making ransom notes? Should I mention that I own a skimask and a crowbar.. are you telling me the hardware store should have stopped me from buying them together out of the fear that I might be procuring them for breaking and entering rather than for the purpose of tearing down my shed? - David 'No longer 2 sheds' Nielsen -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Dette er en digitalt underskrevet brevdel URL: From sopwith at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 14:25:55 2007 From: sopwith at gmail.com (Elliot Lee) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:25:55 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: >From what I can gather, here's what's important: 1. Promoting software freedom. 2. Making life easier for the users who want to play media files. It seems to me like goal #1 requires that the default install and official Fedora links not point users at software that is not really free. Simple as that. Within the constraints of goal #1, it still may be possible to make progress towards goal #2. In particular, I would guess that there are a lot of obscure-but-free codecs out there that don't ship with Fedora but could. FLC support, anyone? And the patents on even the non-free formats are going to expire eventually. It may not be top priority, but it's not at all a loss to solve the general codec problem now, even though MP3 & DVD playback can't be addressed right now. I'm also wondering whether a separate "codec buddy" is really needed, or if a better alternative would be using rpm Provides: to indicate the MIME types that a particular package can encode/decode. E.g. 'Provides: gstreamer-decoder(video/flc)'. Then just make it easy for people to add repositories, and integrate totem with the the package management GUI for satisfying codec requirements. That way the people who want to use non-free stuff can just add a repository (like they already do) and it's not necessary to write an entirely new tool to solve the problem. Hope this helps, -- Elliot From jkeating at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 14:41:13 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:41:13 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <20070720104113.30e63123@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:25:55 -0400 "Elliot Lee" wrote: > I'm also wondering whether a separate "codec buddy" is really needed, > or if a better alternative would be using rpm Provides: to indicate > the MIME types that a particular package can encode/decode. E.g. > 'Provides: gstreamer-decoder(video/flc)'. Then just make it easy for > people to add repositories, and integrate totem with the the package > management GUI for satisfying codec requirements. That way the people > who want to use non-free stuff can just add a repository (like they > already do) and it's not necessary to write an entirely new tool to > solve the problem. The crux is that repo discovery is difficult, and while we can't legally lead them to a questionable repo, we can legally lead them to a place like Fluendo where they can legally purchase or obtain the software necessary to play their content. The question has become can we live with ourselves if we take this legal path. It's been easy for us to hide behind the legal block and punt all questions of morals. Getting all of us to agree upon something being illegal doesn't take much. Getting all of us to agree upon something being morally "OK" for the Fedora project to do is a /much/ harder task. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From smooge at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 15:40:13 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:40:13 -0600 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707200840n5314f1c1q691c2b85c2ee52f9@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, David Nielsen wrote: > fre, 20 07 2007 kl. 00:41 -0700, skrev David Boles: > > on 7/19/2007 11:31 PM, Karsten Wade wrote: > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 22:30 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > > > > >> "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving > > >> money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the > > >> scary legalese dialogs you have to click through > > > > > > Maybe a scary warning in simpletonese, like a pack of cigarettes: "If > > > you smoke this MP3 codec, it will eat your brane and come back for > > > dessert." > > > > > > > > I have watched this thread, as well as many others like this, from the > > outside. As an ordinary user and not as programmer/maintainer/developer > > which I am not. An ordinary user point of view. Linux for a long time. > > Fedora since FC-2. > > > > I do understand the Fedora FOSS policy and I do agree with it. > > > > But what needs to be said, once again, by an ordinary user is this. > > > > Be careful what you offer to provide a 'lead to' or a 'go here for this'. > > Truly. Most, surely *not* all, of the people that want these types of > > codecs and plugins to play, for example, mp3 music files or DVDs movies, > > will be using these to listen to and play pirated (Bittorrent) music and > > movies. And most, again surely not all, would be more than happy to > > steal/violate/'call it whatever you wish' to be able to do so. > > > > Do you really want to promote that? > > > > Here I back out and put: > > > > > > Are you basically suggesting Fedora start becoming the thought police > here. "I'm sorry sir we object morally to what _might_ be your intend as > it _might_ be in violation with the law". > Under some legal considerations, yes you are required to be the thought police. [Selling alcohol to someone who is obviously drunk and driving is illegal in many countries. Some have it that the penalty is the same as the drunk driving penalty: life to death. There are lots of other laws that come up with selling of narcotics etc. And the various anti-piracy groups have been pushing for similar rules depending on where you are in the world]. The legal question that comes up is how one promotes a service promoting someone to break the law. The safest route I can see is giving the user the chance to use fluendo. If that is not possible then this is the perfect place for the 'Ubuntu-style' sub-fork of Fedora to occur. Someone starts a company that takes Fedora source, and makes it Fubluna which has codecs etc included in it. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Jul 20 16:10:14 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:40:14 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> References: <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <1184878063.22811.21.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> Message-ID: <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:24:01 -0600 > "Stephen John Smoogen" wrote: > >> On 7/19/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >>> Josh Boyer wrote: >>>> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 02:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >>>>> seth vidal wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> that's the issue - we can tell them how to add repos, sure. >>>>>> but we can't say which repos to add >>>>>> and if there are repos that are full of free and >>>>>> legally-unencumbered software then the question becomes why >>>>>> aren't they in fedora? >>>>> They could be in Fedora but the legality of such software is >>>>> region specific. If we want to maintain those packages in >>>>> specific regions as part of Fedora and that is considered >>>>> legally safe, we could do that instead. In fact I think that's >>>>> better than a third party repository solution because we would >>>>> be using the similar infrastructure and guarantee things more >>>>> because we are in control. >>>> Our CVS and buildsystems are hosted in the US. Explain to me how >>>> something can be called Fedora if it's not in our CVS and built >>>> with our tools? >>> We setup systems with similar infrastructure outside of US. Since >>> it is going to be maintained by Fedora contributors, we can call it >>> Fedora. >>> >> No you can't. Fedora is a sponsored project by Red Hat. Thus Red Hat >> could be held libel for the actions of something called Fedora that is >> acting under the auspices of that sponsored organization. We are back >> to needing legal counsel before this would be able to go any further >> (if at all.) Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can we call something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a legal question and that is what I was responding to. > > You can't for other reasons. Built outside of the US using the same > infrastructure is possible, but in order to call a package "Fedora" we > have always said it must be built from our CVS. We can't host those > packages in our CVS. > > At any rate, get legal involved. If legal is fine with it then it's a matter of changing the rules so as to endorse packages from another cvs or build system which is not hard to do if we can trust the contributors involved to do a good job. Rahul From notting at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 16:28:28 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:28:28 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Rahul Sundaram (sundaram at fedoraproject.org) said: > Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can we call > something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a legal question and > that is what I was responding to. I'm fairly certain we *DON'T* want to do this, even if we do start pointing to a non-US repo. Bill From david at lovesunix.net Fri Jul 20 16:59:53 2007 From: david at lovesunix.net (David Nielsen) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:59:53 +0200 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707200840n5314f1c1q691c2b85c2ee52f9@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> <80d7e4090707200840n5314f1c1q691c2b85c2ee52f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184950793.3329.37.camel@dawkins> fre, 20 07 2007 kl. 09:40 -0600, skrev Stephen John Smoogen: > On 7/20/07, David Nielsen wrote: > > fre, 20 07 2007 kl. 00:41 -0700, skrev David Boles: > > > on 7/19/2007 11:31 PM, Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 22:30 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > > > > > > >> "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving > > > >> money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the > > > >> scary legalese dialogs you have to click through > > > > > > > > Maybe a scary warning in simpletonese, like a pack of cigarettes: "If > > > > you smoke this MP3 codec, it will eat your brane and come back for > > > > dessert." > > > > > > > > > > > > I have watched this thread, as well as many others like this, from the > > > outside. As an ordinary user and not as programmer/maintainer/developer > > > which I am not. An ordinary user point of view. Linux for a long time. > > > Fedora since FC-2. > > > > > > I do understand the Fedora FOSS policy and I do agree with it. > > > > > > But what needs to be said, once again, by an ordinary user is this. > > > > > > Be careful what you offer to provide a 'lead to' or a 'go here for this'. > > > Truly. Most, surely *not* all, of the people that want these types of > > > codecs and plugins to play, for example, mp3 music files or DVDs movies, > > > will be using these to listen to and play pirated (Bittorrent) music and > > > movies. And most, again surely not all, would be more than happy to > > > steal/violate/'call it whatever you wish' to be able to do so. > > > > > > Do you really want to promote that? > > > > > > Here I back out and put: > > > > > > > > > > Are you basically suggesting Fedora start becoming the thought police > > here. "I'm sorry sir we object morally to what _might_ be your intend as > > it _might_ be in violation with the law". > > > > Under some legal considerations, yes you are required to be the > thought police. [Selling alcohol to someone who is obviously drunk and > driving is illegal in many countries. Some have it that the penalty is > the same as the drunk driving penalty: life to death. There are lots > of other laws that come up with selling of narcotics etc. And the > various anti-piracy groups have been pushing for similar rules > depending on where you are in the world]. > > The legal question that comes up is how one promotes a service > promoting someone to break the law. The safest route I can see is > giving the user the chance to use fluendo. If that is not possible > then this is the perfect place for the 'Ubuntu-style' sub-fork of > Fedora to occur. Someone starts a company that takes Fedora source, > and makes it Fubluna which has codecs etc included in it. I hate to point out that: A) The ill intend is clear in case of selling alcohol to intoxicated people, that is not the case for codec support - the majority of people are law abiding within reason and merely want CNN.com to play video when they click on it, want their iPod to be able to play back their collection of CDs or heaven forbid want to watch a DVD. To play back YouTube videos with our free solutions (gnash, swfdec) e.g. you will also need a FLV decoder. I think it's hardly fair equate all proprietary codec use with copyright violation.. all of those are btw. fully legal where I live and I did them within the past few hours using only Free Software. Regardless the point is that the majority of use cases are not playing content obtained by your friendly neighborhood torrent tracker, we tend to ignore simply things like watching the news online or partaking in this new fangled web 2.0 - you focused net, which Havoc and friends are very keen on integrating with the desktop. We cannot with one hand be integrating technologies like this and with the other hand saying that they are evil and that we aren't going to at least attempt to support them. B) Unlike the cited scenerio, allowing people to play their data is not (counter to what the RIAA would like you to believe) endangering anyones life. C) There is no reason to proactively adopting proposed laws just because the RIAA wants you to, the requirement is following the actual law not some totalitarian wet dream of the MPAA. - David Nielsen -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Dette er en digitalt underskrevet brevdel URL: From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 17:22:36 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:22:36 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201022k30474e8ci2d0c0ecee4daa353@mail.gmail.com> On 7/19/07, David Boles wrote: > Be careful what you offer to provide a 'lead to' or a 'go here for this'. > Truly. Most, surely *not* all, of the people that want these types of > codecs and plugins to play, for example, mp3 music files or DVDs movies, > will be using these to listen to and play pirated (Bittorrent) music and > movies. And most, again surely not all, would be more than happy to > steal/violate/'call it whatever you wish' to be able to do so. > > Do you really want to promote that? Let me humbly suggest that the cat is already out of the bag on this issue. PLAYING the media isn't the problem in your argument, DOWNLOADING content is the fundamental action which potentially infringes copyright, and we very much allow that since we previously made a policy decision to allow bittorrent and other p2p networking clients into Fedora, which moots this line of argument completely. There's absolutely no rational/moral/legal basis for desiring to protect playback of material on the grounds that it might have been obtained illegally if we are including the download tools already. The only valid question here is how far are we willing to go to help users interact data housed in proprietary formats. -jef From jkeating at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 17:25:30 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:25:30 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070720132530.1a3ded51@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:28:28 -0400 Bill Nottingham wrote: > Rahul Sundaram (sundaram at fedoraproject.org) said: > > Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can > > we call something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a > > legal question and that is what I was responding to. > > I'm fairly certain we *DON'T* want to do this, even if we do start > pointing to a non-US repo. Indeed. We've been down the path of multiple SCMs and multiple build systems and multiple repos. We've all discovered that it just doesn't work well in the long run. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From smooge at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 17:33:02 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:33:02 -0600 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> References: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707201033q4ca671edscca80f8e41f857d7@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Josh Boyer wrote: > > On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:24:01 -0600 > > "Stephen John Smoogen" wrote: > > > >> No you can't. Fedora is a sponsored project by Red Hat. Thus Red Hat > >> could be held libel for the actions of something called Fedora that is > >> acting under the auspices of that sponsored organization. We are back > >> to needing legal counsel before this would be able to go any further > >> (if at all.) > > Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can we > call something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a legal > question and that is what I was responding to. > Actually it is a legal question when dealing with the 'implicit' trademark of Fedora. What constitutes what the name Fedora means and what does not. Currently what is located inside of THE CVS repository and built on THE build machines constitutes what people inside and outside of RH/Fedora as beign Fedora. Having a second set dilutes this trademark/image which has legal implications. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Jul 20 17:33:15 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:03:15 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070720132530.1a3ded51@localhost.localdomain> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <20070720132530.1a3ded51@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46A0F1DB.4080006@fedoraproject.org> Jesse Keating wrote: > On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:28:28 -0400 > Bill Nottingham wrote: > >> Rahul Sundaram (sundaram at fedoraproject.org) said: >>> Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can >>> we call something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a >>> legal question and that is what I was responding to. >> I'm fairly certain we *DON'T* want to do this, even if we do start >> pointing to a non-US repo. > > Indeed. We've been down the path of multiple SCMs and multiple build > systems and multiple repos. We've all discovered that it just doesn't > work well in the long run. If we are going to point to a non-US repo, that repository would have it's own build system and SCM managed by Fedora contributors anyway and users would be dealing with that. Question is only about how close do we want it to be associated with Fedora and messaging it as a Fedora repository vs third party repository depending on technical and legal ramifications. Rahul From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 17:36:58 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:36:58 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Bill Nottingham wrote: > I'm fairly certain we *DON'T* want to do this, even if we do start pointing > to a non-US repo. Or to generalize it. How can we acknowledge the derivative work going on outside the main cvs repository as being part of a larger body of Fedora contributor effort, but still be distinctly identifiable as derivative? I very much like the fact that Dell's firmware updater livecd is derived from Fedora. I'd like there to be a clear way for the creators of that CD to choose to express that the work was made possible in large part to the work Fedora is doing and to give credit back to the community. I would like for us to be able to clearly point to that cd as a derived work, as a secondary product of our efforts, to show off what our open infrastructure makes possible and to inspire more people to look at using our infrastructure for maximal benefit. How do we do that without letting derived works with bits outside of our cvs use the Fedora mark? -jef From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Jul 20 17:37:48 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:07:48 +0530 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707201033q4ca671edscca80f8e41f857d7@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707201033q4ca671edscca80f8e41f857d7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46A0F2EC.8080301@fedoraproject.org> Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > Actually it is a legal question when dealing with the 'implicit' > trademark of Fedora. What constitutes what the name Fedora means and > what does not. Currently what is located inside of THE CVS repository > and built on THE build machines constitutes what people inside and > outside of RH/Fedora as beign Fedora. Having a second set dilutes this > trademark/image which has legal implications. I dont know about that. Even if it has legal implications it is not something I can answer but it *is* possible to have different build systems and SCM's and still call it Fedora which is what I was pointing out. If it has legal implications, Legal would answer that and I am not going to second guess them. Rahul From smooge at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 17:57:11 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:57:11 -0600 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184950793.3329.37.camel@dawkins> References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> <80d7e4090707200840n5314f1c1q691c2b85c2ee52f9@mail.gmail.com> <1184950793.3329.37.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707201057t416f287m403a6702b2f01b4@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, David Nielsen wrote: > > > Are you basically suggesting Fedora start becoming the thought police > > > here. "I'm sorry sir we object morally to what _might_ be your intend as > > > it _might_ be in violation with the law". > > > > > > > Under some legal considerations, yes you are required to be the > > thought police. [Selling alcohol to someone who is obviously drunk and > > driving is illegal in many countries. Some have it that the penalty is > > the same as the drunk driving penalty: life to death. There are lots > > of other laws that come up with selling of narcotics etc. And the > > various anti-piracy groups have been pushing for similar rules > > depending on where you are in the world]. > > > > The legal question that comes up is how one promotes a service > > promoting someone to break the law. The safest route I can see is > > giving the user the chance to use fluendo. If that is not possible > > then this is the perfect place for the 'Ubuntu-style' sub-fork of > > Fedora to occur. Someone starts a company that takes Fedora source, > > and makes it Fubluna which has codecs etc included in it. > > I hate to point out that: > > A) The ill intend is clear in case of selling alcohol to intoxicated > people, that is not the case for codec support - the majority of people > are law abiding within reason and merely want CNN.com to play video when > they click on it, want their iPod to be able to play back their > collection of CDs or heaven forbid want to watch a DVD. To play back To be honest myself.. I was answering what I thought was your intent of your first email's hyperbole with my own... I forgot that you have a tendency to rise to the bait, chomp on, and try to pull the fishermans boat under. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From a.badger at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 18:05:10 2007 From: a.badger at gmail.com (Toshio Kuratomi) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:05:10 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <46A02C59.2050201@redhat.com> <1184913116.26011.1120.camel@erato.phig.org> <46A06732.6020406@gmail.com> <1184933749.3329.14.camel@dawkins> Message-ID: <1184954710.30158.83.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 10:25 -0400, Elliot Lee wrote: > >From what I can gather, here's what's important: > 1. Promoting software freedom. > 2. Making life easier for the users who want to play media files. > > It seems to me like goal #1 requires that the default install and > official Fedora links not point users at software that is not really > free. Simple as that. > Depending on your definition of free... -1) Non-libre, non-gratis, software. 0) Non-patent-encumbered, non-free software but free-as-in-beer software 1) Patent-encumbered-in-the-US free software. 2) Patent-encumbered-in-the-US non-free software that has a license granting use of the patent. 3) Patent-encumbered-in-the-US free software with the patent licensed for use of a binary build of the software. #-1 is not in any repo I'm aware of us thinking of linking to but it could exist in a repository we don't control. #0 is not mentioned in this thread but is a part of third party repos we may be contemplating linking to. #1 includes mplayer, xine w/DVD support, etc. #2 includes the Fluendo WMV codec plugin for gstreamer. #3 includes the Fluendo mp3 codec plugin for gstreamer. If there were no legal issues, I'd like Fedora to be able to distribute, automatically install, point to, or otherwise make as easy as possible for users to get #1 and #3. So the open-ended question posed to legal would be: how can we help end-users get #1 and #3. #0 and #2 are proprietary software and are philosophically against the Fedora mission of providing a complete OS built on free software. I think this is the basis of Max's original question of larger strategy. Does the Board and the people who make up the Project *desire* to make end-user's lives better WRT patent-encumbered free software or do we lump patent-encumbered free software in the same category as non-free? So my personal open-ended question for legal would be: How can we help users get #1 and #3? Targeted questions would be: * Can we point users at a repository we don't control that has #1, #3, and possibly things less legal (Since we don't control it)? * Can we point users to a specific package of #1 or #3 in another repository? * Can we download and attempt to install the package for the user in either of the above cases? -Toshio -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From jaboutboul at speakeasy.net Fri Jul 20 17:55:32 2007 From: jaboutboul at speakeasy.net (Jack Aboutboul) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:55:32 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184853635.26011.968.camel@erato.phig.org> <469F70B7.6020003@redhat.com> <1184854995.26011.997.camel@erato.phig.org> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 14:37 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote: > And you know what? I believe that's okay. I believe that's why we built > the Fedora packaging universe the way we built it. I believe that Fedora > is relatively holy ground -- but I also believe that we should be > encouraging the heretics. Because that allows Fedorans to focus on things > like Gnash and Ogg, and actual desktop usability issues that have nothing > to do with codecs, and we can work on these issues *without compromise* -- > but we can encourage some other, hopefully friendly, third parties to do > all the dirty stuff that we won't do with Fedora. Maybe that third party > is rpmfusion. Maybe it's Red Hat working with Fluendo on a desktop > product. But if it's not going to be Fedora, then let's say it's not > going to be Fedora, make CodecBuddy a purely educational tool, and move > on. Umm, here might be the dumb idea of the day, why don't we speak to thomas about creating a respin with the codecs under the auspices of fluendo and lets see how popular that becomes. Let fluendo take control of it, there is really minimal work they need to do. Let fluendo Release it as a one-off special edition or whatever. Further, we just watch and see what the feedback on that is and maybe from there we can move in the right direction. Maybe we are wrong and people really don't care about that shit. Everyone I know who does just gets its from rpm.someserverinfrance.org and most people are accustomed to that by now, so maybe we are arguing about something which is not even an issue? We won't ever know unless we try and water those seeds and judge by useful, meaningful community feedback. Jack From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 19:15:59 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:15:59 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Jack Aboutboul wrote: > Umm, here might be the dumb idea of the day, why don't we speak to > thomas about creating a respin with the codecs under the auspices of > fluendo and lets see how popular that becomes. Let fluendo take control > of it, there is really minimal work they need to do. Let fluendo > Release it as a one-off special edition or whatever. So fluendo would obviously have to rebrand this not to use the Fedora brand at all. If they go ahead and do this, which i think is a perfectly fine idea, I'd still like there to be a bridge to show this is associated with a larger fedora community effort, even though its not a fedora official spin. Is there any way we could establish a new mark that signifies fedora derived for experiments like this to use that doesn't cause trademark law problems for the official fedora mark? -jef From jkeating at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 19:24:04 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:24:04 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184865844.24625.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:15:59 -0800 "Jeff Spaleta" wrote: > Is there any way we could establish a new mark that signifies fedora > derived for experiments like this to use that doesn't cause trademark > law problems for the official fedora mark? Haven't we been trying to get to this for a /long/ time? A multi-tier branding guideline, Fedora, Based on Fedora, Has a couple Fedora packages in it or something to that effect. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 19:30:11 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:30:11 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > Haven't we been trying to get to this for a /long/ time? A multi-tier > branding guideline, Fedora, Based on Fedora, Has a couple Fedora > packages in it > > or something to that effect. I'm sure we all want it... but i don't personally have a summary of all the ideas that have come before and been slapped down by legal. I'd like to be told how to do it in a legal way, instead of just continuing to guess and coming up with approaches that don't pass legal muster. -jef"knock knock.... ....who's there? legally naive approach to tiered branding #245 .... legally naive approach to tiered branding #245 who? knock knock... ....who's there? legally naive approach to tiered branding #246 .... legally naive approach to tiered branding #246 who? knock knock...."spaleta From jaboutboul at speakeasy.net Fri Jul 20 17:55:23 2007 From: jaboutboul at speakeasy.net (Jack Aboutboul) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:55:23 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707191754g4134a814wf281047983c0bef3@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191754g4134a814wf281047983c0bef3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1184954123.23666.101.camel@deepfort> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 20:54 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > Some simple math: there are dozens of volunteers on this list alone, > and hundreds who have thought about this problem across the various > projects involved. There is exactly one lawyer at Red Hat who can > answer your questions, and he's possibly the busiest person in the > entire department. So it behooves you to use as much volunteer time as > possible, and as little lawyer time as possible. You guys are not > lawyers, but you are smart. Brainstorm, research a bit, try to cover > all the bases and communicate it with both depth and succinctness. Personally, I think this is a bad idea, because no matter what any one of us comes up with, and it could take countless hours of work, could essentially amount to nothing in the end based on what the legal truth is. Instead of leaving chickens to peck around in the dust and not know what we are doing, we just need to ask counsel and get an answer--point blank. It's not that I think you're wrong Luis, your intentions are in the right place. But I feel like we would waste so much time and energy looking this up and possibly come up with the wrong outcome. Jack From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Fri Jul 20 19:42:50 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:42:50 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <46A0F1DB.4080006@fedoraproject.org> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <1184879378.606.235.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <20070720132530.1a3ded51@localhost.localdomain> <46A0F1DB.4080006@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1184960570.3735.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 23:03 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Jesse Keating wrote: > > On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:28:28 -0400 > > Bill Nottingham wrote: > > > >> Rahul Sundaram (sundaram at fedoraproject.org) said: > >>> Sure. We are going to ask legal anyway but the question is how can > >>> we call something Fedora if it's not in our CVS which is not a > >>> legal question and that is what I was responding to. > >> I'm fairly certain we *DON'T* want to do this, even if we do start > >> pointing to a non-US repo. > > > > Indeed. We've been down the path of multiple SCMs and multiple build > > systems and multiple repos. We've all discovered that it just doesn't > > work well in the long run. > > If we are going to point to a non-US repo, that repository would have > it's own build system and SCM managed by Fedora contributors anyway and > users would be dealing with that. Question is only about how close do we > want it to be associated with Fedora and messaging it as a Fedora > repository vs third party repository depending on technical and legal > ramifications. Yes, that is the question. And we've discussed that in the Secondary arch stuff already. It has to be built from our CVS to be considered as a "Fedora" project. If we're going to re-evaluate that for this new topic, fine. But I want a consistent policy across all of it. josh From mmcgrath at redhat.com Fri Jul 20 20:12:31 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:12:31 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1184954123.23666.101.camel@deepfort> References: <1184869681.4026.61.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184868239.22811.12.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <1184870638.606.219.camel@cutter> <1184874971.4026.74.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871611.606.223.camel@cutter> <469FB98E.3080709@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191241yefe4092kdcdd2004e26b5700@mail.gmail.com> <469FC73F.9010900@fedoraproject.org> <2cb10c440707191754g4134a814wf281047983c0bef3@mail.gmail.com> <1184954123.23666.101.camel@deepfort> Message-ID: <46A1172F.3030902@redhat.com> Jack Aboutboul wrote: > Personally, I think this is a bad idea, because no matter what any one > of us comes up with, and it could take countless hours of work, could > essentially amount to nothing in the end based on what the legal truth > is. > > Instead of leaving chickens to peck around in the dust and not know what > we are doing, we just need to ask counsel and get an answer--point > blank. > Ask what exactly? We need to ask a very specific question / set of questions for this to get the thumbs up or down from legal. And we need to be careful about exactly what those questions are. -Mike From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 20:30:17 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:30:17 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1184871876.4026.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201330m70d86c4ct88de47b76df38c11@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > On 7/20/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > > Haven't we been trying to get to this for a /long/ time? A multi-tier > > branding guideline, Fedora, Based on Fedora, Has a couple Fedora > > packages in it > > > > or something to that effect. > > I'm sure we all want it... but i don't personally have a summary of > all the ideas that have come before and been slapped down by legal. Replying to myself. If I lived in a world where my will was undifferentiated from the rule of law I would decree that a new category of contribution be created named "Fedora Community Derived" with accompanied with the necessary textual and iconic marks. I would decree that these marks be essentially free for every sentient creature in the known multiverse to use in relation to legally valid collections of open/free/proprietary software, which make use of fedora tools or content in its creation. I would further mandate that a description of the intent of these marks be writ in the Fedora wiki. Such a description would indicate that the sole intent of the mark was to allow projects to self-identify that they users of open technology found inside the fedora space. Such a description of intent would also clearly state that Fedora as a project takes no responsibility for the contents of the distributions which use the Fedora Community Derived marks. But since I'm not the recognized ruler of the world...yet, such a decree would be a little premature. There's also the nagging problem that I'm not a trademark expert so I don't know if the creation of such a mark would fly. It would pretty much be absolutely unenforcible as a mark in any legal proceedings. But that's not really that important. What matters is that we'd have to be sure that the creation of a secondary mark like this would NOT endanger the official Fedora marks in any way what-so-ever. Of course if the lawyers preferred, we could probably just have a mark titled 'Community Derived' and leave Fedora out of the mark completely. What matters is that WE get to define at the outset the intent and scope of the mark. It doesn't have to have the word Fedora in it to mean what we need it to mean. We can mark official Fedora spins with this additional mark as yet another "community derived" distribution among many. So Fedora 8 would be marked as a "community derived" spin as well as being marked as Fedora. Just as Dell's livecd would be marked as a 'community derived" spin as well as using Dell's marks. And so on and so on. If we timed it correctly, we could have a dozen or so distributions start using the additional mark at the same time... adding weight to the purpose of it. -jef"i have a distinct urge to kick a puppy"spaleta From jspaleta at gmail.com Fri Jul 20 20:58:33 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:58:33 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707201330m70d86c4ct88de47b76df38c11@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> <604aa7910707201330m70d86c4ct88de47b76df38c11@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707201358t1128951u31679c6febf70bab@mail.gmail.com> On 7/20/07, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > So Fedora 8 would be marked as a "community derived" spin as well as > being marked as Fedora. Just as Dell's livecd would be marked as a > 'community derived" spin as well as using Dell's marks. And so on and > so on. If we timed it correctly, we could have a dozen or so > distributions start using the additional mark at the same time... > adding weight to the purpose of it. Let me add that you would be allowed to only use the mark in a co-branding situation. There has to be another mark, a primary mark, by which your software collection can be commonly known as. This should help prevent confusion between official Fedora crap and derived crap. So I could I could use revisor and make a distribution and call it the Livestock Insemination Operating System (LIOS), a Fedora Community Derivative. Where its clear that the primary mark is the leading mark and the community derived mark is more in the spirit of an accreditation or certification mark. -jef From mmcgrath at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 20:02:08 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:02:08 -0500 Subject: Target market? Message-ID: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> One, simple question that may not have an answer. What is our target market supposed to be? -Mike From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Mon Jul 23 20:06:32 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:06:32 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 15:02 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > What is our target market supposed to be? > according to the docs, etc I've seen in the past: - hobbyist/expert/early adopter The only problem with that is that we seem to always be writing software and encouraged to direct our efforts to people who do not fall in that group. We're encouraged to write for ma and pa kettle and auntie 'em. That's been the biggest confusion I've had over the years. It's not impossible to work for both groups - but I hate being told we are supposed to work for group 1 and then told to write for group 2. -sv From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Mon Jul 23 20:09:50 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:09:50 -0500 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070723150950.16172934@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:02:08 -0500 Mike McGrath wrote: > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > What is our target market supposed to be? Earth. josh From kwade at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 21:11:08 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:11:08 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 09:36 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > I would like for us to be able to clearly point to that cd > as a derived work, as a secondary product of our efforts, to show off > what our open infrastructure makes possible and to inspire more people > to look at using our infrastructure for maximal benefit. How do we do > that without letting derived works with bits outside of our cvs use > the Fedora mark? Does it matter, if we allow usage of the Fedora mark for some specific set of "OK stuff", if it is called "Fedora" or "based on Fedora"? IMO but IANAL, it's the same thing for brand dilution -- if the based on Foo is evil, and Foo allows the evil to use the Foo mark, then Foo gets the Evil Eye, too. So, for the below, I'm going to say "call it Fedora" and that could be mean plain old Fedora or a "$VERBed on Fedora" we derive from the inevitable bike shed discussion. Now, based on that and current rules, why cannot we encourage Dell to use the Fedora mark? Is it the existence of non-free software on their CD? Let's think through some ways this could be done, swiping a style from Toshio ... help fix my thinking: -1: Based on Fedora with non-free, patent-encumbered-in-the-US (peitUS) software can be called "Fedora" 0 : Based on Fedora with non-free maybe-peitUS but distributable can be called "Fedora" 1 : Based on Fedora with free but peitUS can be called "Fedora" 2 : Based on Fedora with free and maybe-peitUS but distributable can be called "Fedora" 3 : Based on Fedora with free and not peitUS can be called "Fedora" We have 3 currently. We know that -1 is already disallowed by the standing trademark guidelines, right? Some people argue we have 0 with firmware. What we are discussing here is, what do we want to do with 1 and 2. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From wwoods at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 21:38:08 2007 From: wwoods at redhat.com (Will Woods) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:38:08 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1185226688.3128.40.camel@metroid.rdu.redhat.com> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 16:06 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 15:02 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > > > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > > > according to the docs, etc I've seen in the past: > - hobbyist/expert/early adopter > > The only problem with that is that we seem to always be writing software > and encouraged to direct our efforts to people who do not fall in that > group. We're encouraged to write for ma and pa kettle and auntie 'em. > > That's been the biggest confusion I've had over the years. > > It's not impossible to work for both groups - but I hate being told we > are supposed to work for group 1 and then told to write for group 2. So, this is just my personal opinion as A Dude Who Has Used Linux For A While, but I always feel like we should be doing this in stages. Stage 1: Make developers / maintainers / experts happy. Stage 2: Use the combined power of thousands of aforementioned developers / maintainers to make the distro awesome for Early Adopters and other tech-savvy types. Stage 3: With the greater numbers provided by Early Adopters, further polish the distro to the point where it's usable by the Whole Wide World. Furthermore, I feel like Fedora is stuck trying to get to stage 2. I think we know how to make (most) developers happy - so why aren't Early Adopters choosing Fedora? They used to choose RHL a few years ago. Why not now? One answer could be that we are short on Experts in certain fields that are important to Early Adopters. User Interface (including Web design) and Interoperability with Other OSes (coughwindowscough) are two important things that come to mind. So. Obviously we should keep in mind that someday we want to go to Stage 3 and Total World Domination, but without a massive infusion of manpower and mindshare we just can't get there. And unless something magical happens, we aren't going to gain manpower or mindshare except by starting with Early Adopters. So, in short: I'd say our target market is the enthusiast/early adopter. Not *experts* - people who have used Linux before - but people who have *heard of* Linux and want an alternative to Windows. There's where the next generation of developers will come from. Think back to when you first installed Linux - undoubtedly most of us were the resident Computer Tinkerer of our various social groups then, dissatisfied with what we had and willing to learn something new. And now here we are. So, In my opinion, those are the people we want. We can worry about the Mass Market once those people are happy. Now we just need to figure out how to make them happy. There's my two centibucks, anyway. -w -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From caillon at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 21:37:24 2007 From: caillon at redhat.com (Christopher Aillon) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:37:24 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070723150950.16172934@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070723150950.16172934@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> Message-ID: <46A51F94.70609@redhat.com> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:02:08 -0500 > Mike McGrath wrote: > >> One, simple question that may not have an answer. >> >> >> What is our target market supposed to be? > > Earth. I have no problems with beings from other planets using our software. From kwade at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 21:57:23 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:57:23 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <469FD19B.4060502@fedoraproject.org> <604aa7910707191418p2ec4ac09n707ba321122eb036@mail.gmail.com> <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1185227843.17380.515.camel@erato.phig.org> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 14:11 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > -1: Based on Fedora with non-free, patent-encumbered-in-the-US (peitUS) > software can be called "Fedora" > 0 : Based on Fedora with non-free maybe-peitUS but distributable can be > called "Fedora" > 1 : Based on Fedora with free but peitUS can be called "Fedora" > 2 : Based on Fedora with free and maybe-peitUS but distributable can be > called "Fedora" > 3 : Based on Fedora with free and not peitUS can be called "Fedora" > > We have 3 currently. We know that -1 is already disallowed by the > standing trademark guidelines, right? Some people argue we have 0 with > firmware. What we are discussing here is, what do we want to do with 1 > and 2. Sorry, that was close but missed a level 4, which is where we are really at. 4 : Based on Fedora with free and not peitUS and in Fedora SCM can be called "Fedora" Fedora trademark guidelines -- only 4 allowed. Fedora spirit so far -- 3 and 4 allowed. Questions are about 1 and 2. We're sure we don't want 0 by itself, although we accept 0 (Fluendo) along with $something. We know -1 is not going to be called Fedora, at least in this decade. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From smooge at gmail.com Mon Jul 23 22:25:25 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:25:25 -0600 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707231525r56b03d38qcbfeb96a2becfbef@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 15:02 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > > > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > > > according to the docs, etc I've seen in the past: > - hobbyist/expert/early adopter > > The only problem with that is that we seem to always be writing software > and encouraged to direct our efforts to people who do not fall in that > group. We're encouraged to write for ma and pa kettle and auntie 'em. > > That's been the biggest confusion I've had over the years. > > It's not impossible to work for both groups - but I hate being told we > are supposed to work for group 1 and then told to write for group 2. Well writing for group 1 is pretty much pull a new rabbit trick out of your hat every 6 months that is completely different from what you had before. I can see that working for focused projects: mugshot, sugar, etc.. but for an entire OS that pretty much becomes a hard thing. To use a broken analogy from Geoffrey Moore, a market is usually split between 1-2 gorillas, 1-2 chimps, and a lot of monkeys. The gorilla's take most of the bananas, and the monkeys take the bananas that the gorillas cant reach or the ones that they can get off the floor quickly. The chimp while always trying to get the most bananas has to fight an 800 lb gorilla or try to catch the small monkeys. The moral was that you do not want to be the Chimp because you are always having to work twice as hard for 1/10th as much. This to me looks like what we are stuck about looking for markets. We want to be the gorilla, but the Apple and Microsoft gorillas have their bananas pretty strongly grabbed. And there have been a lot of small monkeys that have taken our old bananas away. The way to get out of this fix is usually to redefine the market and become either the gorilla or the monkey of this market. Apple did it by saying it is the personal music/movie market. It has the style to accomplish this and does it well. Red Hat proper has defined itself as being the 'boss' in the Linux (and shrinking Unix) markets. Ubuntu has done the same in defining itself as the 'Apple' of the Linux market. Rpath in some ways has taken the role of being the monkey of the market in that it wants to supply lots of people with ways to get small bananas that the big guys don't want. We (Fedora) can continue to try and play catchup or we can redefine what our market is.. If we are going for the early adopters.. we need to go for the early adopters in one field.. focus on that market and grow from there.. If we are going to focus on the desktop crowd, then really focus it: make it so people can do what they want on a desktop with some amount of ease. [Music, movies, mugshot, etc] If we are going to be a monkey, focus on allowing people to make their distro of the day and how to keep it up... what processes are hindering this (CLA?, culture?, no clue?) And the Earth is a way too big project for any group of people to do. I mean I want an OS thats going to get security and backported for 4-7 years... but thats not Fedora (or at least the Fedora as it is now). -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Mon Jul 23 22:49:38 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:49:38 -0500 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A51F94.70609@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070723150950.16172934@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <46A51F94.70609@redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070723174938.06ca6bec@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:37:24 -0400 Christopher Aillon wrote: > Josh Boyer wrote: > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:02:08 -0500 > > Mike McGrath wrote: > > > >> One, simple question that may not have an answer. > >> > >> > >> What is our target market supposed to be? > > > > Earth. > > I have no problems with beings from other planets using our software. Nor do I. We just don't target them. Have to draw the line somewhere I'd say :) josh From luis at tieguy.org Mon Jul 23 22:51:26 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:51:26 -0400 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> (Apologies for the lag, life has been a little crazy of late; I've been trying to escape from the computer when not actually needing to be in front of it :) On 7/6/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Sun, 2007-07-01 at 16:19 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > on the plus side: > > * it is now rawhide everywhere, so people can find information about it. Yay! > > > > on the negative side: > > * AFAICT, still no information about why people should actually use > > rawhide, or how they might use it. So the naming work is for naught. > > > > on the very negative side: > > * I tried to edit a bug today to make it more useful by correcting the > > out of date information in it. I'm now told that to make the bug more > > useful, I have to create a gpg key and sign the CLA. > > This was all on the Wiki? Because there aren't any such requirements on > bugzilla.redhat.com. I was told in IRC that my Fedora account (non-bugzilla) needed a particular group, which appeared to be confirmed by: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/#head-69a2fdca9900f61c9b53d353b2bc5b09d58fdf70 At that point I decided I'd make a bigger impact discussing the problem here than ignoring the problem, registering, and fixing only the one bug. > > Needless to say, the bug is still useless and will remain that way for > > the foreseeable future. > > > > Generally, I'm just shocked that Fedora seems to attach so little > > significance to an area where we should be kicking the crap out of > > proprietary operating systems, and where volunteers should be making > > it substantially more cost-effective to produce software. > > Sorry, which is the area with little significance attached? QA, really. The CLA is just one symptom of that; the lack of information about rawhide; the poor treatment of updates-testing users (things broken for many days, which discourages people from using updates-testing at all); the lack of usable definitions for severity/priority all jump out. > We have an ongoing problem with barriers to entry for Fedora. Legacy > stuff + legal bits + lack of resources to fix stuff (compared to other > perceived priorities). As a tie-guy-to-be, I thought you'd understand > the murky waters around e.g. the CLA ... why it has to be, why it's hard > to find good ways to sign it, etc. I really mostly wasn't thinking about the CLA at all, except inasmuch as I can't see any sane way why it should be required for QA work, since nothing I do in QA can possibly be copyrightable. But yes, in my copious spare time I'm trying to figure out how the CLA can be simplified and applied to fewer things. :) > Fortunately, we do have this that I worked out with Mark Webbink: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KarstenWade/Drafts/CLAAcceptanceHierarchies > > Bottom line -- GPG signing required for work that goes directly into a > package we ship. So, going onto the Wiki can be done with a > click-through CLA. Which is why we are waiting for the next Moin > release to implement ... any day now ... Hrm. Mind if I talk to Mark about slotting Bugzilla into that somewhere? (ideally 'none', but perhaps in the wiki level.) Luis From jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org Mon Jul 23 22:58:02 2007 From: jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org (Josh Boyer) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:58:02 -0500 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185226688.3128.40.camel@metroid.rdu.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185221192.2408.37.camel@cutter> <1185226688.3128.40.camel@metroid.rdu.redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070723175802.545e161e@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:38:08 -0400 Will Woods wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 16:06 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 15:02 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > > > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > > > > > > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > > > > > > according to the docs, etc I've seen in the past: > > - hobbyist/expert/early adopter > > > > The only problem with that is that we seem to always be writing > > software and encouraged to direct our efforts to people who do not > > fall in that group. We're encouraged to write for ma and pa kettle > > and auntie 'em. > > > > That's been the biggest confusion I've had over the years. > > > > It's not impossible to work for both groups - but I hate being told > > we are supposed to work for group 1 and then told to write for > > group 2. > > So, this is just my personal opinion as A Dude Who Has Used Linux For > A While, but I always feel like we should be doing this in stages. > > > Stage 1: Make developers / maintainers / experts happy. > > Stage 2: Use the combined power of thousands of aforementioned > developers / maintainers to make the distro awesome for Early Adopters > and other tech-savvy types. > > Stage 3: With the greater numbers provided by Early Adopters, further > polish the distro to the point where it's usable by the Whole Wide > World. I think this is slightly flawed. Stage 1 is not a one time thing. It's a constant on-going cycle. If it wasn't, there would never be anything new. Which means you can reasonably attain stage 2. But since the people in stage 1 are by then off developing new stuff to make them happy, the people from stage 2 are constantly resetting making it hard to get to stage 3. Where the _cool_ part happens, is when people from stages 2 and 3 (to a lesser degree) start contributing to stage 1 itself. Maybe we should start focusing on providing an easy way for people to get from stage 2 to stage 1. /me stops rambling and goes on vacation josh From kwade at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 23:24:49 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:24:49 -0700 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707201358t1128951u31679c6febf70bab@mail.gmail.com> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070719180449.GA19362@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1184872193.4026.70.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> <604aa7910707201330m70d86c4ct88de47b76df38c11@mail.gmail.com> <604aa7910707201358t1128951u31679c6febf70bab@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185233089.17380.528.camel@erato.phig.org> On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 12:58 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > So I could I could use revisor and make a distribution and call it > the Livestock Insemination Operating System (LIOS), a Fedora Community > Derivative. > Where its clear that the primary mark is the leading mark and the > community derived mark is more in the spirit of an accreditation or > certification mark. This is therefore a different discussion, but closely related to, the "what will we allow in Fedora proper" question. Can we define a set of criteria whereby "Foo, a Fedora Community Derivative" is possible? How different is that criteria from what goes into what we mark as "Fedora"? - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From caillon at redhat.com Mon Jul 23 23:47:43 2007 From: caillon at redhat.com (Christopher Aillon) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:47:43 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070723174938.06ca6bec@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070723150950.16172934@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <46A51F94.70609@redhat.com> <20070723174938.06ca6bec@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> Message-ID: <46A53E1F.8070608@redhat.com> Josh Boyer wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:37:24 -0400 > Christopher Aillon wrote: > >> Josh Boyer wrote: >> > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:02:08 -0500 >> > Mike McGrath wrote: >> > >> >> One, simple question that may not have an answer. >> >> >> >> >> >> What is our target market supposed to be? >> > >> > Earth. >> >> I have no problems with beings from other planets using our software. > > Nor do I. We just don't target them. Have to draw the line somewhere > I'd say :) Careful. They're listening! :-p From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 01:10:35 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:10:35 -0700 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185239435.17380.552.camel@erato.phig.org> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 18:51 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > (Apologies for the lag, life has been a little crazy of late; I've > been trying to escape from the computer when not actually needing to > be in front of it :) Let me know how that works out. ;-) (Myself, I just combine - right now I'm making plum jam, cooking dinner for the family, cleaning the kitchen, making a blessed cup of coffee, and my mind is thinking and writing.) > I was told in IRC that my Fedora account (non-bugzilla) needed a > particular group, which appeared to be confirmed by: > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/#head-69a2fdca9900f61c9b53d353b2bc5b09d58fdf70 On the face of it, it seems broken to require anything more than a plain ol' bugzilla account to file and comment on bugs, and close any you filed. I insist on the need for the account so there is a way to contact a reporter - email address thereby being the sole requirement. > QA, really. The CLA is just one symptom of that; the lack of > information about rawhide; the poor treatment of updates-testing users > (things broken for many days, which discourages people from using > updates-testing at all); the lack of usable definitions for > severity/priority all jump out. Is there a list like this on the Wiki? Somewhere we can prioritize and account for shortfall. > I really mostly wasn't thinking about the CLA at all, except inasmuch > as I can't see any sane way why it should be required for QA work, > since nothing I do in QA can possibly be copyrightable. But yes, in my > copious spare time I'm trying to figure out how the CLA can be > simplified and applied to fewer things. :) Not to sure about that. QA folks, for example, write content to Docs/Beats, and that becomes the release notes. What about email posting? I may be crazy, but I like the idea that what I am writing here can be picked up by someone and written into Fedora Weekly News without worrying about redistribution rights. > > Fortunately, we do have this that I worked out with Mark Webbink: > > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KarstenWade/Drafts/CLAAcceptanceHierarchies > > > > Bottom line -- GPG signing required for work that goes directly into a > > package we ship. So, going onto the Wiki can be done with a > > click-through CLA. Which is why we are waiting for the next Moin > > release to implement ... any day now ... > > Hrm. Mind if I talk to Mark about slotting Bugzilla into that > somewhere? (ideally 'none', but perhaps in the wiki level.) Go right ahead ... but ... I almost added bugzilla to the top category, and didn't for a couple of reasons. One is the mixed-use bugzilla we have -- I'm not sure if one can give a general account that would have the permissions we want for Fedora bugs. Cf. to anyone being able to file bugs against Red Hat products. We can't force a click-through CLA for Fedora in front of someone who is filing bugs for Red Hat products. So how to gather bugzilla into the click-through category like the Wiki? There is a bit of specter at bugzilla.redhat.com that makes this hard to figure out. Maybe we can put a portal/wrapper at bugs.fedoraproject.org that says i) bugs filed through this wrapper are covered by ii) this click-through CLA. Or like the WikiLicense[1] that is on every edit, reminding the contributor of the CLA. Again, if there is value and reason, which is still a moot point ... Somewhere in here we might find it is more valuable to have a stand-alone Fedora bug tracking because of these kind of community issues. - Karsten [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/WikiLicense -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From luis at tieguy.org Tue Jul 24 01:19:22 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:19:22 -0400 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <1185239435.17380.552.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> <1185239435.17380.552.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707231819j69d3c134i7e464e504419b33@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 18:51 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > (Apologies for the lag, life has been a little crazy of late; I've > > been trying to escape from the computer when not actually needing to > > be in front of it :) > > Let me know how that works out. ;-) > > (Myself, I just combine - right now I'm making plum jam, cooking dinner > for the family, cleaning the kitchen, making a blessed cup of coffee, > and my mind is thinking and writing.) > > > I was told in IRC that my Fedora account (non-bugzilla) needed a > > particular group, which appeared to be confirmed by: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/#head-69a2fdca9900f61c9b53d353b2bc5b09d58fdf70 > > On the face of it, it seems broken to require anything more than a plain > ol' bugzilla account to file and comment on bugs, and close any you > filed. I insist on the need for the account so there is a way to > contact a reporter - email address thereby being the sole requirement. I want to do more than that; I want to help triage and organize bugs. But apparently that requires a fedora account. More generally, the wiki implies that any contribution (even bug filing) requires a Fedora account. > > QA, really. The CLA is just one symptom of that; the lack of > > information about rawhide; the poor treatment of updates-testing users > > (things broken for many days, which discourages people from using > > updates-testing at all); the lack of usable definitions for > > severity/priority all jump out. > > Is there a list like this on the Wiki? Somewhere we can prioritize and > account for shortfall. I don't believe so. I'm not into creating pages on wikis when no one seems to acknowledge > > I really mostly wasn't thinking about the CLA at all, except inasmuch > > as I can't see any sane way why it should be required for QA work, > > since nothing I do in QA can possibly be copyrightable. But yes, in my > > copious spare time I'm trying to figure out how the CLA can be > > simplified and applied to fewer things. :) > > Not to sure about that. QA folks, for example, write content to > Docs/Beats, and that becomes the release notes. Optimize for the common case, not the edge case. > What about email posting? I may be crazy, but I like the idea that what > I am writing here can be picked up by someone and written into Fedora > Weekly News without worrying about redistribution rights. That's quite distinct from bug work. > I almost added bugzilla to the top category, and didn't for a couple of > reasons. One is the mixed-use bugzilla we have -- I'm not sure if one > can give a general account that would have the permissions we want for > Fedora bugs. Cf. to anyone being able to file bugs against Red Hat > products. We can't force a click-through CLA for Fedora in front of > someone who is filing bugs for Red Hat products. So how to gather > bugzilla into the click-through category like the Wiki? Well, so... (1) if that division can't be made in bugzilla, then you're right there is a problem with not having the CLA for bugzilla permissions. (2) if that is the case, you might as well give up on having an active bug community. I'll go ahead and stop ranting about QA, since it is a lost cause. > Somewhere in here we might find it is more valuable to have a > stand-alone Fedora bug tracking because of these kind of community > issues. Amen. Luis From luis at tieguy.org Tue Jul 24 01:20:18 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:20:18 -0400 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707231819j69d3c134i7e464e504419b33@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> <1185239435.17380.552.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231819j69d3c134i7e464e504419b33@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707231820k4915874bob9d65ec7e28b20b3@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, Luis Villa wrote: > On 7/23/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 18:51 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > (Apologies for the lag, life has been a little crazy of late; I've > > > been trying to escape from the computer when not actually needing to > > > be in front of it :) > > > > Let me know how that works out. ;-) > > > > (Myself, I just combine - right now I'm making plum jam, cooking dinner > > for the family, cleaning the kitchen, making a blessed cup of coffee, > > and my mind is thinking and writing.) > > > > > I was told in IRC that my Fedora account (non-bugzilla) needed a > > > particular group, which appeared to be confirmed by: > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/#head-69a2fdca9900f61c9b53d353b2bc5b09d58fdf70 > > > > On the face of it, it seems broken to require anything more than a plain > > ol' bugzilla account to file and comment on bugs, and close any you > > filed. I insist on the need for the account so there is a way to > > contact a reporter - email address thereby being the sole requirement. > > I want to do more than that; I want to help triage and organize bugs. > But apparently that requires a fedora account. > > More generally, the wiki implies that any contribution (even bug > filing) requires a Fedora account. > > > > QA, really. The CLA is just one symptom of that; the lack of > > > information about rawhide; the poor treatment of updates-testing users > > > (things broken for many days, which discourages people from using > > > updates-testing at all); the lack of usable definitions for > > > severity/priority all jump out. > > > > Is there a list like this on the Wiki? Somewhere we can prioritize and > > account for shortfall. > > I don't believe so. I'm not into creating pages on wikis when no one > seems to acknowledge Oops. '...when no one seems to acknowledge there is a problem which needs to be documentated in the wiki.' Luis From a.badger at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 01:53:41 2007 From: a.badger at gmail.com (Toshio Kuratomi) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:53:41 -0700 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707231819j69d3c134i7e464e504419b33@mail.gmail.com> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <2cb10c440707011319h57891a43xfa8e500eae6a6158@mail.gmail.com> <1183741262.3540.39.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231551o643517c1p418aa6d2acb01b20@mail.gmail.com> <1185239435.17380.552.camel@erato.phig.org> <2cb10c440707231819j69d3c134i7e464e504419b33@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185242024.4709.58.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 21:19 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > On 7/23/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 18:51 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > I was told in IRC that my Fedora account (non-bugzilla) needed a > > > particular group, which appeared to be confirmed by: > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/#head-69a2fdca9900f61c9b53d353b2bc5b09d58fdf70 > > > > On the face of it, it seems broken to require anything more than a plain > > ol' bugzilla account to file and comment on bugs, and close any you > > filed. I insist on the need for the account so there is a way to > > contact a reporter - email address thereby being the sole requirement. > > I want to do more than that; I want to help triage and organize bugs. > But apparently that requires a fedora account. > > More generally, the wiki implies that any contribution (even bug > filing) requires a Fedora account. I'm not the author of that wiki page but I think it is a bit broken. * To file, comment, and close bugs that you open only requires a bugzilla account. * To triage, organize, close dupes and have other advanced permissions on bugs that you don't own means you need to have a Fedora Account with the fedorabugs group attached. * IIRC, membership in fedorabugs was brought up in a FESCo meeting with the eventual understanding that one did not need to file the CLA in order to be in fedorabugs. So all you need to do triage should be a fedora account with fedorabugs. So we need to have a page that better explains what to do to be able to triage bugs. Something like, "talk to any of these five people to have yourself added to fedorabugs. Doing x or y beforehand will let them know you'll do a good job if you aren't already known in the Fedora Community. Go to town." It could be the QA page but if Will has a reason to require the CLA for some of the projects mentioned on that page, then it needs to be clear that there are two different roles being asked for with two different sets of requirements. -Toshio -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From notting at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 02:10:46 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:10:46 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> (warning: some of you have seen this rant before) Mike McGrath (mmcgrath at redhat.com) said: > What is our target market supposed to be? We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those lines. So, we muddle along. Since no one has a plan or a target market, we implement whatever features the developers happen to think of, or random features vaguely relating to future enterprise development. Or we just incorporate the latest upstream. Since no one has a plan, and we don't target any market, we never have dedicated resources to do large amounts of cross distro work. So, we continue to have things like system-config-network and NetworkManager working in direct conflict for going on how many releases now? Since no one has a plan, and we don't target any market, we just continue to ship the same-old same-old distribution. Development tools? Gotta have those, they were there before? Two or three desktops? Well, wouldn't want to lose any users. And we need all the servers too. Whatever you can say about Ubuntu, they had a coherent, directed, plan, and they executed. We have no user-visible plan, and I think it shows. But does Fedora have any goals? Maybe we want to trumpet the customizability of Fedora, and focus on highlighting user-contributed spins. If so, we should be focusing all our efforts on creating web frontends, getting storage together, writing bits for people to rate these spins, etc. Maybe we want to investigate the online, connected destkop, and the possible creation and use of open service frameworks. Then we should start heavily investigating in infrastructure to host these apps and people's data. We should start working on rolling out open-source backed versions of popular online services (mail, chat, flickr, blog, etc), and working heavily with legal to enter this space with a *truly* open policy about how the user owns their own data, how to truly not be evil, etc. Maybe we want to trumpet Fedora'a ability to be ported to seconday arches and portions of the embedded market. Then we need to heavily invest in storage for contributed ports, cross-compiling support for all of our software, and so on. Maybe we just want to expand the reach of Fedora and drive more users to the Fedora userbase. Then we need to start investing heavily in targeting large markets, figuring out what they need, and implementing that. It means investing heavily in selecting true best-of-breed apps for a coherent user experience - no more shipping two desktops, 20 servers, and a gigabyte of development libraries. It could be installers that run from Windows. It could be tools that take the user's profile data from their Windows install, for use on the LiveCD. It could be fixing all our software to use NetworkManager, and partnering even more with Fluendo for codec deployment. It involves partnering with various organizations, including RH, to provide support, because you're not going to get mass market usage without *SOMEONE* providing backend support for it. And there's plenty more that people have suggested we should be doing. Overthrowing the music industry. Showcasing content production for graphic artists. Just running rock-solid servers. Right now we don't have any overriding set of goals. So we never really say 'no, that isn't what we want Fedora to do' to anything that fits our simple 'uses open source, isn't completely targeted to obsolete things' mantra, and we attempt to do all of these things... which means we'll probably fail at all of them. Bill From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 02:30:22 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:30:22 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:10 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > (warning: some of you have seen this rant before) > > Mike McGrath (mmcgrath at redhat.com) said: > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that > we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those > lines. > > So, we muddle along. Since no one has a plan or a target market, we > implement whatever features the developers happen to think of, or random > features vaguely relating to future enterprise development. Or we just > incorporate the latest upstream. So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do for F9 and F10. how does that sound? -sv From luis at tieguy.org Tue Jul 24 02:37:40 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:37:40 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:10 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > > (warning: some of you have seen this rant before) > > > > Mike McGrath (mmcgrath at redhat.com) said: > > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > > > We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that > > we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those > > lines. > > > > So, we muddle along. Since no one has a plan or a target market, we > > implement whatever features the developers happen to think of, or random > > features vaguely relating to future enterprise development. Or we just > > incorporate the latest upstream. > > > > So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused > on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to > delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do > for F9 and F10. I'd suggest there are two different levels here: * what target market/vision does fedora have? these are big, permanent things, not things that can be 'done' in any given release. * then there are specific things done to implement the vision in any given release. Luis From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 02:46:45 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:46:45 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070723224645.1e856cba@ender> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:10:46 -0400 Bill Nottingham wrote: > But does Fedora have any goals? Snipping out a lot of interesting points. Why can't we do all of them? Probably because we don't have any clear leaders for any of that. We're getting to the point where we might have clear(ish) leaders for a given Feature or two, but nothing beyond that. With our new ability to cut the distro up in many ways, you'd think it would be easy for a clear leader that wanted to do $Foo with Fedora to drive a cut of the package set specifically designed and configured to do $Foo, and reach out to the audience for $Foo. I tried to do that a little bit with F7, but due to A) it being really new, and B) breaking the world for the merger things didn't shake out well, and what we wound up with was another release that looked just like the one before. Now there isn't that much incentive to put a lot of effort into being able to customize spins more than just "what packages are in it" because we aren't doing anything like that ourselves. I tried to kickstart the 'Desktop' spin, but that was a lot like the LiveCD and that's OK, no biggie. Some of these markets aren't really the right place for a traditional installer of choose your own adventure. They're more like the Live installer where you get what you get and you'll like it (and you can customize if you want with a gui tool after the fact). So, if there is /anybody/ in the 'verse that wants to pursue one of the aforementioned targets, or one we haven't talked about yet, by all means throw up a feature to do a cut of Fedora for that market. Deliver it via traditional install media, via Live media, via something we haven't thought of yet, or all of the above. Figure out what you would like to change or reconfigure for this target, and help us define a way to commonly make these changes across our various outputs so that the next target can use it too. We seem to have a lot of sous chefs which are busy doing what they know, but no executive chefs with a grand vision of what will be on tomorrow's menus. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 03:00:04 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:00:04 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:37 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused > > on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to > > delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do > > for F9 and F10. > > I'd suggest there are two different levels here: > * what target market/vision does fedora have? these are big, permanent > things, not things that can be 'done' in any given release. that's the set of things we have to choose from. something like: - desktop - online-service-interface - server - portable-devices - choose-your-own-adventure once you select which of those you want then it breaks down with - desktop - updating/installation tool - pkg based - user peripheral interfaces - specialized user hardware - network setup - ... - portable-devices - archs - memory size - required features - optional features - plugin infrastructure - update mechanism - image based - ... so we have to choose a couple of things we want to focus on (maybe even one) and then break down the things to go from there. -sv From luis at tieguy.org Tue Jul 24 03:06:52 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:06:52 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:37 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused > > > on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to > > > delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do > > > for F9 and F10. > > > > I'd suggest there are two different levels here: > > * what target market/vision does fedora have? these are big, permanent > > things, not things that can be 'done' in any given release. > > that's the set of things we have to choose from. something like: > - desktop > - online-service-interface > - server > - portable-devices > - choose-your-own-adventure My personal two cents is that the best place to be is to be the choose-your-own-adventure platform- a robust and easy place to start a desktop, online-service, server, portable device, etc. Leave building the specialized tools to specialists, and (when appropriate) suck them back into the distro if/when it doesn't conflict with flexibility. Luis From matt at domsch.com Tue Jul 24 03:17:00 2007 From: matt at domsch.com (Matt Domsch) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:17:00 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <20070724031700.GA32524@domsch.com> On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 02:11:08PM -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > -1: Based on Fedora with non-free, patent-encumbered-in-the-US (peitUS) > software can be called "Fedora" > 0 : Based on Fedora with non-free maybe-peitUS but distributable can be > called "Fedora" > 1 : Based on Fedora with free but peitUS can be called "Fedora" > 2 : Based on Fedora with free and maybe-peitUS but distributable can be > called "Fedora" > 3 : Based on Fedora with free and not peitUS can be called "Fedora" > > We have 3 currently. We know that -1 is already disallowed by the > standing trademark guidelines, right? Some people argue we have 0 with > firmware. What we are discussing here is, what do we want to do with 1 > and 2. Re 0: binary blogs of firmware falls under non-free distributable; as for peitUS, honestly, that burden is carried by the firmware authors. I expect if those authors were proven in court that the firmware infringed a third party patent, they'd have to do something to remove/avoid the infringement, and we'd have to follow suit. We need to be careful about all three pillars of "IP Law": * Copyright. We do a great job here requiring copyright licenses that follow the Free Software / OSI guidelines. * Patents. Here we have avoided peitUS software unless we also have a very clear distributable patent license, or if there are no known / claimed infringements. (yes, we know MP3 and other codecs are patented in the USA, and sometimes elsewhere too). It would be fantastic to be able to let people in geographies not bound by USA Patent law be able to use components that are legal _for them_ to use even though they're not legal for people _in the USA_. * Trademarks. Only a few pieces of software have active trademark policies which we need to be careful around; I'd much rather Fedora work with those trademark owners rather than spin our own derivatives of them and change the names. So the above 'is this allowed' choice list really is a multi-dimensional matrix; the trickiest part is geographical based in part on where Fedora legally resides, and in part where the _user_ legally resides. Then there's Fedora's own trademark policies, which are even more strict, and, IMHO, are presently a barrier to derived distributions or custom use spins (such as the Dell Firmware Updates LiveCD, though that's just one example). The fedora-logos package has 112 separate files, and the list of packages that require system-logos is at least: compiz-0.3.6-8.fc7 rhgb-0.17.6-1.fc7 grub-0.97-13 gdm-2.18.2-1.fc7 firstboot-1.4.35-1.fc7 redhat-artwork-7.0.0-11.fc7 anaconda-11.2.0.66-1 gnome-session-2.18.3-1.fc7 gnome-screensaver-2.18.2-2.fc7 meaning, fedora-logos can't just be removed (-fedora-logos in your %packages list in a kickstart file), but must be *replaced* with something, if you want your result to run Gnome or boot from a hard disk (grub). Maybe we could fix those packages to not rpm Require: system-logos? I know the upstream projects don't Require: system-logos, as they're used on a wide variety of distros (e.g. compiz, grub, gdm aren't Fedora-unique). -Matt From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 03:23:01 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:23:01 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:06 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:37 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > > So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused > > > > on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to > > > > delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do > > > > for F9 and F10. > > > > > > I'd suggest there are two different levels here: > > > * what target market/vision does fedora have? these are big, permanent > > > things, not things that can be 'done' in any given release. > > > > that's the set of things we have to choose from. something like: > > - desktop > > - online-service-interface > > - server > > - portable-devices > > - choose-your-own-adventure > > My personal two cents is that the best place to be is to be the > choose-your-own-adventure platform- a robust and easy place to start a > desktop, online-service, server, portable device, etc. Leave building > the specialized tools to specialists, and (when appropriate) suck them > back into the distro if/when it doesn't conflict with flexibility. > see, I would think that choose-your-own-adventure is what we have and what we're focused on now. The tools in F7 were good but not great and not very obvious, but we've been working on improving just that set of tools. The web-visor work and the decisions about what the standard inputs are and standard outputs are for our toolchain make the choose-your-own-adventure distro even more real. but you haven't been talking about that - you've been talking about spit and polish which sounds more like integration - choose-your-own-adventure and integration seem fairly antithetical unless you have N teams for each adventure type doing the integration. is that what you were thinking? -sv From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 03:28:07 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:28:07 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070724031700.GA32524@domsch.com> References: <1184880204.606.237.camel@cutter> <469FD7C9.70401@fedoraproject.org> <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> <20070724031700.GA32524@domsch.com> Message-ID: <20070723232807.0dfe07b5@ender> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:17:00 -0500 Matt Domsch wrote: > meaning, fedora-logos can't just be removed (-fedora-logos in your > %packages list in a kickstart file), but must be *replaced* with > something, if you want your result to run Gnome or boot from a hard > disk (grub). Maybe we could fix those packages to not rpm > Require: system-logos? I know the upstream projects don't Require: > system-logos, as they're used on a wide variety of distros (e.g. > compiz, grub, gdm aren't Fedora-unique). If you don't have fedora-logos installed, these things won't show a graphic as they are configured when built for Fedora IIRC. That's why you'd replace it with a system-logos or your own logo pack that provides system-logos so that you can easily (or at least this was the idea) re-brand the bits for your own needs. We need some people policing this, as I've seen our logo wind up in other packages like httpd and revisor, and I don't think it's all that easy to drop in replace fedora-logos these days to re-brand. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From luis at tieguy.org Tue Jul 24 03:34:47 2007 From: luis at tieguy.org (Luis Villa) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:06 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 22:37 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > > > > So let's decide, then. Let's put the set of things we could be focused > > > > > on up. If we have 10 things we can focus on then we have 5 points to > > > > > delegate to each. We count them all up - the top 5 things are ALL we do > > > > > for F9 and F10. > > > > > > > > I'd suggest there are two different levels here: > > > > * what target market/vision does fedora have? these are big, permanent > > > > things, not things that can be 'done' in any given release. > > > > > > that's the set of things we have to choose from. something like: > > > - desktop > > > - online-service-interface > > > - server > > > - portable-devices > > > - choose-your-own-adventure > > > > My personal two cents is that the best place to be is to be the > > choose-your-own-adventure platform- a robust and easy place to start a > > desktop, online-service, server, portable device, etc. Leave building > > the specialized tools to specialists, and (when appropriate) suck them > > back into the distro if/when it doesn't conflict with flexibility. > > > > see, I would think that choose-your-own-adventure is what we have and > what we're focused on now. The tools in F7 were good but not great and > not very obvious, but we've been working on improving just that set of > tools. The web-visor work and the decisions about what the standard > inputs are and standard outputs are for our toolchain make the > choose-your-own-adventure distro even more real. > > but you haven't been talking about that - you've been talking about spit > and polish which sounds more like integration - > choose-your-own-adventure and integration seem fairly antithetical > unless you have N teams for each adventure type doing the integration. Not necessarily antithetical. After all, anyone who uses the thing as a base for their distro is going to want the base to be solid and well-integrated. Taking that route probably would mean that desktop polish is a lower priority than polishing the tools for making derivatives, though. Also, polishing the user experience is generally not in conflict with doing other things, whereas stripping the core down to something that would fit on a mobile device would likely conflict with being a good server :) (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish upstream where possible.) Luis From mmcgrath at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 03:37:31 2007 From: mmcgrath at redhat.com (Mike McGrath) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:37:31 -0500 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <46A573FB.2030001@redhat.com> Bill Nottingham wrote: > (warning: some of you have seen this rant before) > > Mike McGrath (mmcgrath at redhat.com) said: > >> What is our target market supposed to be? >> > > We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that > we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those > lines. > > I'm glad I'm not alone in my thinking. We've done a lot of great things with Fedora the organization recently but the actual operating system feels... without direction. > Whatever you can say about Ubuntu, they had a coherent, directed, plan, > and they executed. We have no user-visible plan, and I think it shows. > > That they do, I regularly see "What Ubuntu has to do to take on Microsoft" which, in their fanboys eyes means they've already conquered the Linux world. Whereas with Fedora we end up implementing a lot of new great technologies (virtualization immediately comes to mind) but who did we implement it for, and for what purpose? (answer intentionally left blank) > But does Fedora have any goals? > And here lies "The Fedora Dilemma". We have all of the pieces we need to be *the* great Linux distribution. But there are some problems. 1) A truly great desktop cannot exist without support and a longer life cycle and maybe support. Therefore Fedora is not a great desktop. 2) Open source values has ensured that we will not be touching the multimedia market (directly) any time in the next many years. 3) The fast moving pace of Fedora has ensured that our developers are busy doing great and interesting work and ignoring things like system-config-network vs NetworkManager. This makes for a less pleasant experience for our users... but do we care? If we're a desktop OS we do. if we are a development platform, we do not. (below is a little Q and A with myself) So what do we do? Our current skill set seems to lend itself to the Desktop / Online Desktop environment. Do we quietly hope people respin Fedora with multimedia bits and that those become popular? Yes, though we cannot talk about them, link to them or acknowledge their existence in any way. We also can't talk about them. Or link to them. Or acknowledge their existence in any way. Or talk about them. Is popularity not a value of Fedora? I think it is, which may be at odds with being bleeding edge. How do we come up with a unified strategy for Fedora? We do it here. FESCo is finding its new place in the Fedora world and I personally think a lot of time could be spent on getting things like system-config-network vs NetworkManager figured out. Meanwhile those on the FAB (which includes Fesco) need to duke it out until we can come up with something that we can put on a webpage in a few words and have people know why were here. While Fedora has always been made by those doing the work, but we need something more than that now our landscape has change and we haven't. -Mike From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 03:37:37 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:37:37 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707232037y733c9bcbg3faf2a48ed1632ef@mail.gmail.com> Hi, On 7/23/07, Bill Nottingham wrote: > We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that > we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those > lines. Let's make one, and start the conversation here :) > But does Fedora have any goals? > > Maybe we want to trumpet the customizability of Fedora, and focus on > highlighting user-contributed spins. If so, we should be focusing all our > efforts on creating web frontends, getting storage together, writing bits > for people to rate these spins, etc. We should do that. > Maybe we want to investigate the online, connected destkop, and the possible > creation and use of open service frameworks. Then we should start heavily > investigating in infrastructure to host these apps and people's data. We > should start working on rolling out open-source backed versions of popular > online services (mail, chat, flickr, blog, etc), and working heavily with > legal to enter this space with a *truly* open policy about how the user owns > their own data, how to truly not be evil, etc. We should also do this. > Maybe we want to trumpet Fedora'a ability to be ported to seconday arches > and portions of the embedded market. Then we need to heavily invest in > storage for contributed ports, cross-compiling support for all of our > software, and so on. > > Maybe we just want to expand the reach of Fedora and drive more users to > the Fedora userbase. Then we need to start investing heavily in targeting large > markets, figuring out what they need, and implementing that. It means > investing heavily in selecting true best-of-breed apps for a coherent user > experience - no more shipping two desktops, 20 servers, and a gigabyte of > development libraries. It could be installers that run from Windows. It > could be tools that take the user's profile data from their Windows install, > for use on the LiveCD. It could be fixing all our software to use > NetworkManager, and partnering even more with Fluendo for codec deployment. > It involves partnering with various organizations, including RH, to provide > support, because you're not going to get mass market usage without *SOMEONE* > providing backend support for it. We would be competing directly against Ubuntu here, which is probably pointless. I feel that if we can make a more persuasive point, we might reach a critical mass where doing the above might make more sense. > And there's plenty more that people have suggested we should be doing. > Overthrowing the music industry. Showcasing content production for graphic > artists. Just running rock-solid servers. All of these are possible. So this is something I've been wanting to focus on doing in the fall. Let me start by naming a few orthogonal goals. * A solid server platform - Something you can install on any vanilla x86 box and run most any server app with no trouble, virtualization, java middleware stacks, mysql, fileserving, you name it. * A easy to use desktop platform - It has all the latest widgets and doodads that make you say wow, this fits my thoroughly modern lifestyle. *An Online desktop - It connects you to other people, or sources of information on anything and everything * A customizable flexible system - You can disect it, clone it, improve it, copy it, share it, remix it, merge it, break it, fix it, what ever you do, don't ignore it. And just one contradictory goal, for the time being * An embedded desktop - Designed to run in a small footprint, based on robust architecture. Finally, a few parallel goals * Gnome - bunch of little men marching across your system * KDE - abuse of a certain prefixable letter * Browser wars * Development tools * Fancy effects, such as Compiz and Metisse * A console like interface I have a design in mind for, but no working prototype yet. I've organized these to show how compatible some of these goals are with other goals. Basically, orthogonal goals, when defined properly, without getting out of hand work together on different parts of the system. Any single one of them could fail, and things might not work as nicely, but it's not as bad as when *all* of the parallel goals fail, or any of the contradictory goals interfere. So let's throw them all together. Let's say we have a rock solid core system, which includes only base elements. There's no GUI yet, but it never crashes. It's got an amazing unit test, it runs all hardware, it manages firmware, it actually includes things as complex as NetworkManager, pulseaudio, and other desktop tools. Lying along side it, we have tools to set up most database, email, web, or java servers, plus anything else we want to support. But since you can remix the distro, they are part of a separate component that can be remixed automatically. Those are three orthogonal goals. We can add on two more simply by saying they are addons. The online desktop is a bunch of tools that simply aggregate information. They are not directly integrated into any desktop, as there is no desktop yet. The desktop is it's own core module that focuses as much as possible on just integrating into the distro, but at the same time saving the user the mental overload involved in actually managing a full fledged unix system. Finally, since these are orthogonal, the server end, the online desktop end, and the remixing end can all have a gui section that's designed to integrate into *a* GUI, but not any gui in particular. I feel like we have enough freedesktop.org standards to work with in those regards. These can be a central set of goals, with one group overseeing the integration of all these pieces. This doesn't have to always be every last piece must be as new upstream as possible, hacked together into one explosive device. Any unit can decide to wait one release cycle to stabilize upstream, even if another area doesn't. I have this funny feeling that if the core kernel stays at the save version from one release to another, just updating GNOME will make everyone go "wow, this is new". Likewise, when every distro is crashing on the latest version of GNOME that should never have seen the light of day, this won't be an issue, since hey, we got Py3k, PHP 7, Apache 3, JBoss 6, not to mention, it's remixable. So when GNOME makes a point release, respinning the distro for an interim release shouldn't be hard to do either. (And apparently Luis just said the same thing in fewer words....) So bottom line is, if I were to talk about cohesive goals, I would start with this. Get a proof of concept out for Fedora 9, and then try to spam the media with it as much as possible. Or am I wrong? -Yaakov From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 03:38:33 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:38:33 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 "Luis Villa" wrote: > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > upstream where possible.) There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From matt at domsch.com Tue Jul 24 03:40:41 2007 From: matt at domsch.com (Matt Domsch) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:40:41 -0500 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070723232807.0dfe07b5@ender> References: <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> <20070724031700.GA32524@domsch.com> <20070723232807.0dfe07b5@ender> Message-ID: <20070724034040.GB32524@domsch.com> On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 11:28:07PM -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:17:00 -0500 > Matt Domsch wrote: > > > meaning, fedora-logos can't just be removed (-fedora-logos in your > > %packages list in a kickstart file), but must be *replaced* with > > something, if you want your result to run Gnome or boot from a hard > > disk (grub). Maybe we could fix those packages to not rpm > > Require: system-logos? I know the upstream projects don't Require: > > system-logos, as they're used on a wide variety of distros (e.g. > > compiz, grub, gdm aren't Fedora-unique). > > If you don't have fedora-logos installed, these things won't show a > graphic as they are configured when built for Fedora IIRC. That's why > you'd replace it with a system-logos or your own logo pack that > provides system-logos so that you can easily (or at least this was the > idea) re-brand the bits for your own needs. (for the hypothetical and generic "I"). I don't want to re-brand. :-) I want something quick and simple. At the moment, I'm required to re-brand in order to publish it to a web site for someone else to download. jeremy's quite useful comment over here: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/07/16/21242.aspx#comments is accurate, but I've got to remove and add a replacement system-logos package, which is more work. (As an aside, the CentOS folks don't require you to change the software if you don't want to. You do wind up with their logo in a few places, but at least you didn't have to spin the package before sharing your work with your friends. http://centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=49) I'd love the behavior to be runtime-driven rather than buildtime driven - e.g. if there's a logo in a certain directory at runtime, use that, else use something else or nothing... From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 03:41:14 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:41:14 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> hi again, On 7/23/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > -- > Jesse Keating Would it make more sense to have the main set of fedora devs to forget completely about doing the desktop, and have a spin off group doing that for them? From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 03:46:50 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:46:50 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:41 -0400, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > hi again, > > On 7/23/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > > > -- > > Jesse Keating > > Would it make more sense to have the main set of fedora devs to forget > completely about doing the desktop, and have a spin off group doing > that for them? 2 things: 1. if you have a driver - jump in 2. at some level we need red hat's internal desktop team to play along, too. -sv From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 03:48:59 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:48:59 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185248939.2408.82.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:34 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > Not necessarily antithetical. After all, anyone who uses the thing as > a base for their distro is going to want the base to be solid and > well-integrated. Taking that route probably would mean that desktop > polish is a lower priority than polishing the tools for making > derivatives, though. yes. the big-meeting-of-people-related-to-repositories+distro-making that we had last week was more or less about this subject. we have some great tools, now we need to tie them together. Here's the gist of what we came up with EVERY TOOL WE MAKE MUST TAKE AS INPUT: kickstart.cfg yum repos EVERY TOOL WE MAKE MUST EVENTUALLY OUTPUT: - distro + cds - livecd - xen/kvm images so we go up from there: web interface -> database database holds links to yum repos and the information to produce something like a kickstart.cfg database -> distro-spin service which produces whatever the user asked for ditto with the gui interface. This is what revisor does right now - ultimately all locally. > Also, polishing the user experience is generally not in conflict with > doing other things, whereas stripping the core down to something that > would fit on a mobile device would likely conflict with being a good > server :) right - the integration of the package sets are a whole other issue. > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > upstream where possible.) I don't know where that group sits, actually. -sv From notting at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 04:06:11 2007 From: notting at redhat.com (Bill Nottingham) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:06:11 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Luis Villa (luis at tieguy.org) said: >> but you haven't been talking about that - you've been talking about spit >> and polish which sounds more like integration - >> choose-your-own-adventure and integration seem fairly antithetical >> unless you have N teams for each adventure type doing the integration. > > Not necessarily antithetical. After all, anyone who uses the thing as > a base for their distro is going to want the base to be solid and > well-integrated. Taking that route probably would mean that desktop > polish is a lower priority than polishing the tools for making > derivatives, though. Sure, but right now the base is GNOME, KDE, XFCE, development, eclipse, etc., plus a server core. That's a *lot* of polish to be doing, unless you shrink the base. Also, it's entirely possible that you're polishing in different ways if you're doing the choose-your-own-adventure core (do you want firefox? epiphany+webkit? konq on GNOME?) vs a tightly coupled desktop. See the recent OnlyShowIn thread for examples. I suspect this is the path of least resistance, though - we're already doing it in one way or another now, and it doesn't require Fedora to scare up more resources. That being said, it's unlikely this is the way to drastic world domination, or attacking other operating system's buzz factor - after all, what end user wants to *build their own OS*? They just want something that works that lets them do what they want. Bill From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 04:10:37 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:10:37 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 00:06 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: > Luis Villa (luis at tieguy.org) said: > >> but you haven't been talking about that - you've been talking about spit > >> and polish which sounds more like integration - > >> choose-your-own-adventure and integration seem fairly antithetical > >> unless you have N teams for each adventure type doing the integration. > > > > Not necessarily antithetical. After all, anyone who uses the thing as > > a base for their distro is going to want the base to be solid and > > well-integrated. Taking that route probably would mean that desktop > > polish is a lower priority than polishing the tools for making > > derivatives, though. > > Sure, but right now the base is GNOME, KDE, XFCE, development, eclipse, > etc., plus a server core. That's a *lot* of polish to be doing, unless > you shrink the base. Also, it's entirely possible that you're polishing > in different ways if you're doing the choose-your-own-adventure core > (do you want firefox? epiphany+webkit? konq on GNOME?) vs a tightly > coupled desktop. See the recent OnlyShowIn thread for examples. > > I suspect this is the path of least resistance, though - we're already > doing it in one way or another now, and it doesn't require Fedora to > scare up more resources. > > That being said, it's unlikely this is the way to drastic world > domination, or attacking other operating system's buzz factor - after > all, what end user wants to *build their own OS*? They just want > something that works that lets them do what they want. > I'll suggest a path of pain here but I'll mention it anyway. This is why we need to be able to do branches of packages in more than just 'release' ways. Arguably fedora gnome desktop would be: fedora base repo fedora desktop repo fedora gnome repo + kickstart.cfg to combine them fedora base repo is an obvious set fedora desktop repo is pkgrel+1 with fixes for desktop that are desktop specific fedora gnome repo is gnome-specific fixes in pkgrel+1 it's an infinite branch set - but then if we spin from there then test1 is: base repo works test2 is: base repo + additional repos work test3 is: spit polish, confirm final for fedora base final for fedora gnome desktop does this make updates an absolute BITCH? yes, yes it does. b/c it means the maintainer of, firefox, for example might have to maintain different branches for fedora and fedora-gnome-desktop. world-of-unfun but for integration purposes may be the only option. -sv From jspaleta at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 04:25:26 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:25:26 -0800 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > world-of-unfun but for integration purposes may be the only option. Thank you for making my eyes bleed. I don't know how on earth I'd be able to keep up with multiple branches of a package for the same fedora 'release'? And I fear for the sanity of any maintainer who has to deal with bug reports from people who dipped into the infinite branch space sporadically ending up with a patch work of packages. -jef"pretty sure i lived through this sort of madness before as a Ximian desktop over RHL user."spaleta From msaksena at marvell.com Tue Jul 24 04:27:12 2007 From: msaksena at marvell.com (Manas Saksena) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:27:12 -0700 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185248939.2408.82.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com><20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com><1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter><2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com><1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter><2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com><1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter><2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <1185248939.2408.82.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <46A57FA0.7070206@marvell.com> seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:34 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: > > Not necessarily antithetical. After all, anyone who uses the thing as > > a base for their distro is going to want the base to be solid and > > well-integrated. Taking that route probably would mean that desktop > > polish is a lower priority than polishing the tools for making > > derivatives, though. > > yes. the big-meeting-of-people-related-to-repositories+distro-making > that we had last week was more or less about this subject. > > we have some great tools, now we need to tie them together. > > Here's the gist of what we came up with > > EVERY TOOL WE MAKE MUST TAKE AS INPUT: > kickstart.cfg > yum repos > > EVERY TOOL WE MAKE MUST EVENTUALLY OUTPUT: > - distro + cds > - livecd > - xen/kvm images While all of this is great, I am hoping that Fedora developers will see a value in making it easier for downstream developers to customize Fedora in whatever way they deem fit. The Fedora-ARM effort is based on that premise. The goal there is to use it build arbitrary custom distributions for devices -- handhelds, wireless access points, routers, NAS boxes, digital cameras, TVs, set-top-boxes, and so on. The demands from the Fedora developers are very simple: -- Allow support for ARM in the Fedora base. The Fedora-ARM distro will thus be the "meta-distro" -- which is essentially the package repo that is in-sync with the primary architectures. The only thing that is needed is for maintainers to not sit on patches that make things work on ARM. -- Allow for cloning of the sources, making local changes, and easily maintaining the local changes. Essentially migrate from CVS to a distributed SCM and set it up in a way that allows this to happen. (Yes, like rpath). -- Allow tools like rpm, yum, mock, pilgrim, koji to evolve that can support the needs of the downstream developers. For e.g., if some one adds patches to support cross-compilation, there is no reason to reject them on the grounds that it is not needed for Fedora as such. -- Create a first class package repository/distribution that is: -- closely synchronized with upstream -- makes for a pleasing developer desktop -- as a whole, a collection that works well together -- etc. -- Allow the downstream developers to push patches up (when Fedora specific; e.g., spec file changes) if those changes are broadly useful to multiple downstream use-cases. -- Make it easy to replace any Fedora trademarks in the derivative distros. This is not asking much from Fedora -- much of this is already in place. And, if you can do this and serve the needs of the embedded devices, you would have also enabled derivative distros that create any of the other "polished" end-user distros -- whether it is a traditional desktop, a server, an online desktop or whatever. Regards, Manas From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 04:28:10 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:28:10 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 20:25 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > > world-of-unfun but for integration purposes may be the only option. > > Thank you for making my eyes bleed. I don't know how on earth I'd be > able to keep up with multiple branches of a package for the same > fedora 'release'? And I fear for the sanity of any maintainer who has > to deal with bug reports from people who dipped into the infinite > branch space sporadically ending up with a patch work of packages. > Then, as Bill just said we have to make some difficult decisions. Does integrated mean epiphany/gnome/abiword/gnumeric? or do we go with: firefox/openoffice/gnome? if we want a desktop that looks like we meant all the pieces to fit together we cannot have the hodgepodge we have right now. -sv From jspaleta at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 04:46:16 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:46:16 -0800 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <1185233089.17380.528.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1184801971.4026.50.camel@localhost.localdomain> <2cb10c440707191119x32b4634bvd138a296b4ad97f4@mail.gmail.com> <1184954132.23666.102.camel@deepfort> <604aa7910707201215t684a90e9y426e5c01028e2c4f@mail.gmail.com> <20070720152404.63e0b3ac@localhost.localdomain> <604aa7910707201230w823e7aen1acb0cd0f814b302@mail.gmail.com> <604aa7910707201330m70d86c4ct88de47b76df38c11@mail.gmail.com> <604aa7910707201358t1128951u31679c6febf70bab@mail.gmail.com> <1185233089.17380.528.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <604aa7910707232146s768bef14n6a0f44e26e255ed8@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > This is therefore a different discussion, but closely related to, the > "what will we allow in Fedora proper" question. > > Can we define a set of criteria whereby "Foo, a Fedora Community > Derivative" is possible? I really really want to. My desire for this is so strong in fact that I have unconsciously warped space-time so that a way to achieve this goal has been spontaneous created such that it appears as if the criteria to achieve this has always existed. We just have to help the lawyers see that my will is supreme and they just need to accept it. > How different is that criteria from what goes > into what we mark as "Fedora"? I want a mark, that implies nothing more and nothing less than "Contains material derived from Fedora Community" I absolutely do not care if the mark is enforceable or policable in any way. I don't want lawyers to care about it at all, beyond feeling comfortable that it is different enough from the official Fedora marks that the official Fedora mark is not diluted by the existence of the unpoliced use of new mark. I want such a mark to be available for use by anyone who feels they can legitimately claim that the work to which it is attached is part of an ecosystem of community effort touched in some way by the work going on In the Fedora community. If we can't actually say "derived from the Fedora community" and keep the lawyers happy, then we can just say "Community derived" and co-brand all the official Fedora spins together whichever derivative spins will be a part of the launch of the new mark. I want something instantly distinguishable that says, these distributions and projects are related as peers in the same, larger space of community contribution. -jef"maybe i should say distilled instead of derived... Moonshine is distilled afterall"spaleta From jspaleta at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 04:50:48 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:50:48 -0800 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <604aa7910707232150m6b3a0f73w7e0a1688b62584af@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > if we want a desktop that looks like we meant all the pieces to fit > together we cannot have the hodgepodge we have right now. So what your saying is.. integration specialists who feel they are most heavily influenced by the Cubism movement... need not apply? -jef"i need to clean some toilets"spaleta From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Tue Jul 24 04:56:08 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:56:08 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <604aa7910707232150m6b3a0f73w7e0a1688b62584af@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232150m6b3a0f73w7e0a1688b62584af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185252969.2408.96.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 20:50 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: > On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: > > if we want a desktop that looks like we meant all the pieces to fit > > together we cannot have the hodgepodge we have right now. > > > So what your saying is.. integration specialists who feel they are > most heavily influenced by the Cubism movement... need not apply? no - I mean bill is right. If we want polish we have to make choices. -sv From sankarshan.mukhopadhyay at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 05:12:45 2007 From: sankarshan.mukhopadhyay at gmail.com (Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:42:45 +0530 Subject: rawhide and Fedora QA [was Re: why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM] In-Reply-To: <466BCC09.2060105@leemhuis.info> References: <2cb10c440706092047w49a778aey301775e9800a8ea1@mail.gmail.com> <466BCC09.2060105@leemhuis.info> Message-ID: <46A58A4D.8060604@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Testing is afaik the page, but I'm not > sure if there isn't a better page either. Can a http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Rawhide be redirected to: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Testing#head-94da45d93ab6931382ab22801ff86e9543d8c0f7 thus solving one aspect of the issue ? > - better documentation for running rawhide What could be the content of such documentation (given that the above redirect request would enable folks to setup the development repositories on their stable installations) ? > - make it *easy* for people to update from the last test release to > final and tell people that that's possible; then maybe more people would > run test releases This "might" be helpful - -- You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGpYpMXQZpNTcrCzMRArFTAJ9LS3RhnYrTz+Y9fYoX4Ogpc4ib3ACfYR/Q KKg50jiKZwlsDNn+t/Xq6Ns= =jVjm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 11:24:51 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:24:51 -0400 Subject: The Multimedia Question In-Reply-To: <20070724034040.GB32524@domsch.com> References: <1184880992.22811.26.camel@weaponx.rchland.ibm.com> <469FDAC7.4000808@fedoraproject.org> <80d7e4090707191524n4da8dd48x31b535ce4354a3d6@mail.gmail.com> <20070719200830.55009009@vader.jdub.homelinux.org> <46A0DE66.90807@fedoraproject.org> <20070720162828.GC26910@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <604aa7910707201036j6abd9cb9gfd024e42f5c30bd0@mail.gmail.com> <1185225068.17380.491.camel@erato.phig.org> <20070724031700.GA32524@domsch.com> <20070723232807.0dfe07b5@ender> <20070724034040.GB32524@domsch.com> Message-ID: <20070724072451.0c746b61@ender> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:40:41 -0500 Matt Domsch wrote: > (for the hypothetical and generic "I"). > > I don't want to re-brand. :-) I want something quick and simple. At > the moment, I'm required to re-brand in order to publish it to a web > site for someone else to download. jeremy's quite useful comment > over here: > http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/07/16/21242.aspx#comments > is accurate, but I've got to remove and add a replacement system-logos > package, which is more work. (As an aside, the CentOS folks don't > require you to change the software if you don't want to. You do wind > up with their logo in a few places, but at least you didn't have to > spin the package before sharing your work with your friends. > http://centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=49) > > > I'd love the behavior to be runtime-driven rather than buildtime > driven - e.g. if there's a logo in a certain directory at runtime, use > that, else use something else or nothing.. Yes it would be useful to be able to pull system-logos and have generic logos take it's place. How that would be handled with rpm deps... not sure. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 11:26:41 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:26:41 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:46:50 -0400 seth vidal wrote: > 2. at some level we need red hat's internal desktop team to play > along, too. That's really who I hoped would be the driver, and would get people interested in helping out that aren't just "Red Hat's internal desktop team". -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 14:10:53 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:10:53 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> Hi, On 7/24/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:46:50 -0400 > seth vidal wrote: > > > 2. at some level we need red hat's internal desktop team to play > > along, too. > > That's really who I hoped would be the driver, and would get people > interested in helping out that aren't just "Red Hat's internal desktop > team". I would love to volunteer. Technically I'm on the inside, but I would still love to be involved. Yaakov From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 14:21:00 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:21:00 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070724102100.1e80cbc7@localhost.localdomain> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:10:53 -0400 "Yaakov Nemoy" wrote: > I would love to volunteer. Technically I'm on the inside, but I would > still love to be involved. We need more than 'involved'. We need a leader for it. -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 14:51:26 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:51:26 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724102100.1e80cbc7@localhost.localdomain> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> <20070724102100.1e80cbc7@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707240751u5b58a2d8yeab3d28b4386b7f4@mail.gmail.com> Hi, On 7/24/07, Jesse Keating wrote: > On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:10:53 -0400 > "Yaakov Nemoy" wrote: > > > I would love to volunteer. Technically I'm on the inside, but I would > > still love to be involved. > > We need more than 'involved'. We need a leader for it. I would say yes, but I'm still new to the Fedora world (which might be a good thing, but few people here know me still). From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Tue Jul 24 14:56:39 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:26:39 +0530 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707240751u5b58a2d8yeab3d28b4386b7f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> <20070724102100.1e80cbc7@localhost.localdomain> <7f692fec0707240751u5b58a2d8yeab3d28b4386b7f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46A61327.1060702@fedoraproject.org> Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > Hi, > > On 7/24/07, Jesse Keating wrote: >> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:10:53 -0400 >> "Yaakov Nemoy" wrote: >> >> > I would love to volunteer. Technically I'm on the inside, but I would >> > still love to be involved. >> >> We need more than 'involved'. We need a leader for it. > > I would say yes, but I'm still new to the Fedora world (which might be > a good thing, but few people here know me still). So why don't you introduce yourself? Rahul From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Tue Jul 24 15:27:01 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:27:01 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A61327.1060702@fedoraproject.org> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <7f692fec0707232041r2e4684eeued2e9e95ab155cdd@mail.gmail.com> <1185248810.2408.78.camel@cutter> <20070724072641.45298b4e@ender> <7f692fec0707240710m6f4a9b11q31159f48ffd97013@mail.gmail.com> <20070724102100.1e80cbc7@localhost.localdomain> <7f692fec0707240751u5b58a2d8yeab3d28b4386b7f4@mail.gmail.com> <46A61327.1060702@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707240827q5a95c38el9575989066efbb72@mail.gmail.com> Hi, On 7/24/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > So why don't you introduce yourself? > > Rahul Sure, I'm Yaakov Nemoy; I've been using computers since I was 8 or 9, and was introduced to Debian at 17. I'm 23 now, and about to go back to school to get a degree in Germanics and Linguistics. I've always been fascinated by cool desktop ideas, and watching how people interact with technology. Over the past couple of years, I've been making a list of ideas I would love to see implemented in the computer world, many of them based off watching my non technical friends getting frustrated with their computers, or not being able to find every feature available to them. My work history is pretty short. I've been working with Red Hat on an internship for the past two months, spent six months working in a office supplies store, working as a print broker, worked for six months in Germany, for Krones AG bug fixing and extending their internal web applications, and before that I was in school. For anyone that's interested, I'm the oldest of 8 children, left-handed, and a 10th generation first born male. Everyone calls me "Yankee". I enjoy mountain biking, and flying kites when it's windy. Dinosaurs knocking tall buildings over are pretty cool. For the sake of honesty, I used Fedora for two months, and then had to switch back to Debian. And now back to work. Cheers, Yaakov From jrb at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 16:06:23 2007 From: jrb at redhat.com (Jonathan Blandford) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:06:23 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> Message-ID: <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > upstream where possible.) > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to make Fedora a desktop. Thanks, -Jonathan From jkeating at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 16:38:01 2007 From: jkeating at redhat.com (Jesse Keating) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:38:01 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <20070724123801.572dd261@localhost.localdomain> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:06:23 -0400 Jonathan Blandford wrote: > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > make Fedora a desktop. So what are those changes, and why can't they be made in Fedora general? -- Jesse Keating Release Engineer: Fedora -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Tue Jul 24 16:42:39 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:12:39 +0530 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46A62BFF.1080703@fedoraproject.org> Jonathan Blandford wrote: > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > make Fedora a desktop. IMO, that is indeed the only way for us to go. If we aren't going to increase the amount of time we provide updates for any release, servers wouldn't be a appropriate target market for the most part. Desktop is what most end users are going to use Fedora for and this is indeed where our focus should be. We should also continue expanding on the goal of being a good upstream for other folks who are basing their efforts on Fedora, be it RHEL, OLPC or Fedora on ARM devices. Rahul From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 17:35:58 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:35:58 -0700 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1185298558.17380.575.camel@erato.phig.org> On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 15:02 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > What is our target market supposed to be? So, the discussion has been interesting so far ... One question I have in mind is, can we really decide this, on this list, for all of contributors? My suggestion is: * Bring this discussion to a list of suggestions; write Wiki content that explains how they potentially interact. * Create a poll using the FAS voting mechanism; arrange a vote for "What kind of Linux is Fedora?" * Start with the top choice as the one to implement, work down the stack of choices-by-vote and see if the 2 to 3 other top vote receivers can be folded into the main choice in a sane way. Before we do that, maybe we need a few weeks of active discussion on the various lists, on planet.fp.o, etc. Then we open the polling. All along the way, there has to be an agreement that if an impossible combination is voted in, we'll have to seek the next-down-the-list compromise. Otherwise, to be honest, wtf are we to decide what Fedora's target market and raison d'?tre should be? I feel qualified to debate and recommend, I feel qualified to sway other's opinions, but I'm just not sure any of us are qualified to decide for the entire distro. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From katzj at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 17:57:18 2007 From: katzj at redhat.com (Jeremy Katz) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:57:18 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185298558.17380.575.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185298558.17380.575.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1185299838.7093.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 10:35 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > * Create a poll using the FAS voting mechanism; arrange a vote for "What > kind of Linux is Fedora?" The problem is that this ends up being a self-selected set of people and isn't necessarily going to help if the idea is to determine what the target market of Fedora _should_ be as opposed to what the target market is today. Jeremy From kwade at redhat.com Tue Jul 24 18:09:03 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:09:03 -0700 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185299838.7093.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185298558.17380.575.camel@erato.phig.org> <1185299838.7093.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1185300543.17380.585.camel@erato.phig.org> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 13:57 -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote: > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 10:35 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > > * Create a poll using the FAS voting mechanism; arrange a vote for "What > > kind of Linux is Fedora?" > > The problem is that this ends up being a self-selected set of people Who does? This list certainly is. So is the set of all contributors in FAS. > and > isn't necessarily going to help if the idea is to determine what the > target market of Fedora _should_ be as opposed to what the target market > is today. Oh, I see, it was because I used 'is'. Since we are talking about where to go from here, I definitely mean the future and not a reiteration of where we are right now. "What kind of Linux should Fedora become? Below are a list of suggestions ..." Besides, a poll is a poll. It doesn't have to be touted as a vote that decides all things. It is just a much more accurate way than, "I think this and, hey guess what, so do most people on the mailing list." - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From smooge at gmail.com Wed Jul 25 06:52:57 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:52:57 -0600 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707242352x9f94591r4def9cf0f11c79fd@mail.gmail.com> On 7/23/07, Bill Nottingham wrote: > (warning: some of you have seen this rant before) > Well, yes... but keep saying it as it speaks to the core about Red Hat/Fedora relationships etc. > Mike McGrath (mmcgrath at redhat.com) said: > > What is our target market supposed to be? > > We don't have one! Seriously, I have yet to see anything that shows that > we have a coherent market, a plan for attack, or *anything* along those > lines. > > So, we muddle along. Since no one has a plan or a target market, we > implement whatever features the developers happen to think of, or random > features vaguely relating to future enterprise development. Or we just > incorporate the latest upstream. > > Since no one has a plan, and we don't target any market, we never have > dedicated resources to do large amounts of cross distro work. So, we continue > to have things like system-config-network and NetworkManager working in > direct conflict for going on how many releases now? > > Since no one has a plan, and we don't target any market, we just continue > to ship the same-old same-old distribution. Development tools? Gotta have > those, they were there before? Two or three desktops? Well, wouldn't want > to lose any users. And we need all the servers too. > > Whatever you can say about Ubuntu, they had a coherent, directed, plan, > and they executed. We have no user-visible plan, and I think it shows. > For me the lack of Red Hat leadership has been a long problem. It comes across as "we want this to be community driven." but that ends up with a problem whenever some internal issue crosses it. Most of this comes from the Red Hat people really trying to be nice guys all the time, and not tick off anyone.. but it comes across as hidden agendas and other issues. At this point, I think we will be stumbling through F8 and probably F9 unless some people stand up and make some decisions that are going to tick off people... or we decide that we are just focusing on becoming the Debian of the RH world... and helping others build their Ubuntus off of it. > > Right now we don't have any overriding set of goals. So we never really > say 'no, that isn't what we want Fedora to do' to anything that fits our > simple 'uses open source, isn't completely targeted to obsolete things' > mantra, and we attempt to do all of these things... which means we'll > probably fail at all of them. > Yes. We can't do everything, but we dont seem to want to say no. Burnout city. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Wed Jul 25 07:00:10 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707242352x9f94591r4def9cf0f11c79fd@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <80d7e4090707242352x9f94591r4def9cf0f11c79fd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185346810.2408.219.camel@cutter> On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 00:52 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > For me the lack of Red Hat leadership has been a long problem. It > comes across as "we want this to be community driven." but that ends > up with a problem whenever some internal issue crosses it. Most of > this comes from the Red Hat people really trying to be nice guys all > the time, and not tick off anyone.. but it comes across as hidden > agendas and other issues. > > At this point, I think we will be stumbling through F8 and probably F9 > unless some people stand up and make some decisions that are going to > tick off people... or we decide that we are just focusing on becoming > the Debian of the RH world... and helping others build their Ubuntus > off of it. this is the heart of the issue. It's been suggested that Fedora should act more like ubuntu in various ways. But ubuntu is only like that b/c canonical the company has said it will be like that. where do we draw the line around what is fedora? Does fedora include all the packagers, contributors, translators and people working on infrastructure? Does fedora include all of the above and all the folks who work for red hat and whose software end up in fedora? Are the people developing libvirt, for example, are they fedora developers or red hat developers? Where we draw that line determines where our technical direction comes from. Where our direction comes from should decide what our target market needs to be and needs to be communicating and acquiring goals from the user base of fedora. -sv From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Wed Jul 25 07:06:46 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:06:46 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:06 -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > > upstream where possible.) > > > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > make Fedora a desktop. > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented initiative based around fedora, for that matter? -sv From smooge at gmail.com Wed Jul 25 07:23:18 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:23:18 -0600 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707250023j6c602ee7oa0bbeb28563c9e31@mail.gmail.com> On 7/25/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:06 -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > > > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > > > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > > > upstream where possible.) > > > > > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > > make Fedora a desktop. > > > > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that > leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented > initiative based around fedora, for that matter? > To be honest... I think that we have to say that this is one of the hard decisions that we need to make, have a group cry, wear sackcloth, and move on about. Be it desktop, server, distro-builder, or child training system... the core mission of Fedora should be about that, and every other market is left up to SIG's to get. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From smooge at gmail.com Wed Jul 25 07:29:42 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:29:42 -0600 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185346810.2408.219.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <80d7e4090707242352x9f94591r4def9cf0f11c79fd@mail.gmail.com> <1185346810.2408.219.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707250029t6816736du155278d6f8590747@mail.gmail.com> Shouldnt we both be in bed right now? On 7/25/07, seth vidal wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 00:52 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > > > For me the lack of Red Hat leadership has been a long problem. It > > comes across as "we want this to be community driven." but that ends > > up with a problem whenever some internal issue crosses it. Most of > > this comes from the Red Hat people really trying to be nice guys all > > the time, and not tick off anyone.. but it comes across as hidden > > agendas and other issues. > > > > At this point, I think we will be stumbling through F8 and probably F9 > > unless some people stand up and make some decisions that are going to > > tick off people... or we decide that we are just focusing on becoming > > the Debian of the RH world... and helping others build their Ubuntus > > off of it. > > this is the heart of the issue. It's been suggested that Fedora should > act more like ubuntu in various ways. But ubuntu is only like that b/c > canonical the company has said it will be like that. > The counter point to that would be that Fedora is that way because either Red Hat has said it will be like that, or has not said enough. > where do we draw the line around what is fedora? Does fedora include all > the packagers, contributors, translators and people working on > infrastructure? Does fedora include all of the above and all the folks > who work for red hat and whose software end up in fedora? Are the people > developing libvirt, for example, are they fedora developers or red hat > developers? Where we draw that line determines where our technical > direction comes from. Where our direction comes from should decide what > our target market needs to be and needs to be communicating and > acquiring goals from the user base of fedora. > Yes, I think these are some really hard questions that need to be answered. There are days where I think that the Fedora Core should just have been just enough to spin other groups and everything else was a SIG. kernel+glibc+bash+python+gcc+revisor If the Gnome people want a shiney clean desktop they build a SIG and push it so that their defined desktop is ready for a spin within 2 weeks of X fedora core is done. etc. Well I am off to bed now. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From rc040203 at freenet.de Wed Jul 25 07:49:59 2007 From: rc040203 at freenet.de (Ralf Corsepius) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:49:59 +0200 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <20070724021046.GA6813@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <1185349800.20980.136.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 03:06 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:06 -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > > > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > > > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > > > upstream where possible.) > > > > > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > > make Fedora a desktop. > > > > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that > leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented > initiative based around fedora, for that matter? I am quite irritated whenever reading about "servers" vs. "desktop" vs. ... IMO, servers, desktops etc. are "just setups" of one an the same modular basis. They don't necessarily collide. If they do, to me this means deficiencies of the setup tools and/or packaging. Ralf From smooge at gmail.com Wed Jul 25 08:02:48 2007 From: smooge at gmail.com (Stephen John Smoogen) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:02:48 -0600 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185349800.20980.136.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> <1185349800.20980.136.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> Message-ID: <80d7e4090707250102l2714ab5v9b15ad2ec942da3@mail.gmail.com> On 7/25/07, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 03:06 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:06 -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote: > > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > > > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > > > > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > > > > > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > > > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > > > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > > > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > > > > upstream where possible.) > > > > > > > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > > > > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > > > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > > > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > > > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > > > make Fedora a desktop. > > > > > > > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that > > leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented > > initiative based around fedora, for that matter? > I am quite irritated whenever reading about "servers" vs. "desktop" > vs. ... > > IMO, servers, desktops etc. are "just setups" of one an the same modular > basis. They don't necessarily collide. > > If they do, to me this means deficiencies of the setup tools and/or > packaging. > THe collision is about resources of who si going to focus on what. The terms are used because for the most part, people rolling out large number of servers use different timeframes for technology renewal than people rolling out desktops. I have a good number of servers that are still running RHEL-3 and will probably be running them til 2009 or so. My clients want desktops with newer stuff and so RHEL-5 is already cramped for rollout. The conflict is that server software wants a lot of long term support, and desktop support doesnt. WIth a limited number of engineering resources.. you have a conflict. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" From kwade at redhat.com Wed Jul 25 08:20:33 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:20:33 -0700 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707250023j6c602ee7oa0bbeb28563c9e31@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185244222.2408.53.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> <80d7e4090707250023j6c602ee7oa0bbeb28563c9e31@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185351633.17380.707.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 01:23 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > On 7/25/07, seth vidal wrote: > > > > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that > > leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented > > initiative based around fedora, for that matter? > > > > To be honest... I think that we have to say that this is one of the > hard decisions that we need to make, have a group cry, wear sackcloth, > and move on about. Be it desktop, server, distro-builder, or child > training system... the core mission of Fedora should be about that, > and every other market is left up to SIG's to get. How about something sequential? Like this: 1. People are interested in making Fedora respinable; after all, while you are building a distro, why not make the tools that build the distro available for anyone to copy and use; carry metaphor down to GUI app to build personal versions of Fedora. These folks are the initial SIG. 2. Changes are made, in packages management through to release engineering; a peripheral discussion becomes core to the mission. 3. Each success gives us a new set to build the next idea on. So, we don't settle on one reason for existence that lasts forever. We settle for "organic growth", with a different kind of fruit we are harvesting every few releases. For example, I would say we have moved the changes to the build system to the core and it is time to pick a new windmill to tilt at. My vote is probably going to be for the desktop/user interface windmill next. FWIW, I think Fedora is already a rock solid server, and it's always going to get that attention from the RHEL side. The question is, what do the rest of us think want to focus our attention on. What special-interest do we raise to the forefront? - Karsten -- Karsten Wade, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From rc040203 at freenet.de Wed Jul 25 08:48:33 2007 From: rc040203 at freenet.de (Ralf Corsepius) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:48:33 +0200 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <80d7e4090707250102l2714ab5v9b15ad2ec942da3@mail.gmail.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070723233833.26364b89@ender> <1185293183.2781.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185347206.2408.222.camel@cutter> <1185349800.20980.136.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> <80d7e4090707250102l2714ab5v9b15ad2ec942da3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185353314.20980.148.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 02:02 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > On 7/25/07, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > > On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 03:06 -0400, seth vidal wrote: > > > On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:06 -0400, Jonathan Blandford wrote: > > > > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:38 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote: > > > > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:34:47 -0400 > > > > > "Luis Villa" wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > (Of course, another option is that my desire for a polished desktop > > > > > > experience may be best met by someone doing a polished desktop spin of > > > > > > Fedora rather than by having Fedora work on desktop polish at all, and > > > > > > that Fedora should merely enable that and work to get fixes/polish > > > > > > upstream where possible.) > > > > > > > > > > There really isn't a reason why enterprising folks couldn't make a High > > > > > Polish Desktop spin of Fedora, or help rel-eng to make it. It just > > > > > needs somebody to drive it. I couldn't successfully drive a Desktop > > > > > spin for F7, maybe somebody who understands the target better can. > > > > > > > > That's what we try to do right now. I am pretty much coming to the > > > > conclusion that "High Polish" can't really be done as an add-on. You > > > > need the ability to make the whole distro change (eg, what ubuntu does > > > > to debian). If we want Fedora to be a competitive desktop, we need to > > > > make Fedora a desktop. > > > > > > > > > > So if we take this out to it's next obvious conclusion: where does that > > > leave the upstream consumer of Fedora: RHEL? Or any server-oriented > > > initiative based around fedora, for that matter? > > I am quite irritated whenever reading about "servers" vs. "desktop" > > vs. ... > > > > IMO, servers, desktops etc. are "just setups" of one an the same modular > > basis. They don't necessarily collide. > > > > If they do, to me this means deficiencies of the setup tools and/or > > packaging. > > > > THe collision is about resources of who si going to focus on what. IMO, the "who" and the tools they are using are the key > The > terms are used because for the most part, people rolling out large > number of servers use different timeframes for technology renewal than > people rolling out desktops. I have a good number of servers that are > still running RHEL-3 and will probably be running them til 2009 or so. > My clients want desktops with newer stuff and so RHEL-5 is already > cramped for rollout. The conflict is that server software wants a lot > of long term support, and desktop support doesnt. FWIW: My primary focus/usage is "application development", so neither "bleeding edge, eye-candy-ladden desktops" nor "stone-age technology based servers" (hyperboles intented) are much of interest. I need a compromise between "stable desktop" and "a new, but not bleeding edge devel-infrastructure" (exactly what Fedora had provided so far). Both are reasons, why most Fedora competitors are widely non-interesting to me. > WIth a limited > number of engineering resources.. you have a conflict. Well, IMO wrt. FE, a lot of these conflicts (and the work-load you complained about on a parallel thread) are home-made. It's lack of efficiency being caused by lack of simplicity of the infrastructure being used (bodhi, koji, cvs, acls, distribution packaging (CD/DVDs) ). As I see it, RH should focus their forces on improving this infrastructure to give interested contributors room to step in. Ralf From Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net Wed Jul 25 11:21:48 2007 From: Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net (Axel Thimm) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:21:48 +0200 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> Message-ID: <20070725112148.GB28312@puariko.nirvana> On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 03:02:08PM -0500, Mike McGrath wrote: > One, simple question that may not have an answer. > > > What is our target market supposed to be? You probably need to answer first what the purpose of Fedora is and then you'll find the target audience. There are two major stakeholders, Red Hat and the community. Red Hat wants to have a Linux distribution that * acts a healthy upstream project for RHEL, therefore * matures technology fast enough * sets "Linux standards" * educates users to be able to seaminglessly transition to a RHEL model once their need is there * has a large market share in the distribution jungle, therefore * needs to cater for non-direct target audiences like multimedia or non-technical pros. * has many developers, not only RH paid, but also streams in man power from the community * doesn't cut a market share out of RHEL and thus hurts RH business The community is interested in * a vivid Linux distribution that they may substantially shape * usually latest technology * stablity, but not as important as latest and greatest * plethora of choices (e.g. many packages) This symbiosis leads to a very mixed target audience from technology experts testing beta upstream software to multimedia fans and granpa George writing his emails. It's probably easier to define what the traget groups are not: these are the ones reserved for RHEL, e.g. business customers and long time support seeking groups (e.g. stable APIs/ABIs over many years). But even these are indirectly targeted since Fedora as an upstream for RHEL would never create an uncomfortable situation for the RHEL target groups. So at the end you'll find that everyone has become part of Fedora's target group in one way or another. The reverse question is: Why are you asking this? Probably in order to decide something according to the target audience. In which case none of the above is helpful. -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From riel at redhat.com Thu Jul 26 16:45:53 2007 From: riel at redhat.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:45:53 -0400 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <1185252969.2408.96.camel@cutter> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <2cb10c440707231937o192b9ba1k29f1c3ee3369cfe1@mail.gmail.com> <1185246005.2408.58.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232006l1f8d74a9pb2c096a3b3eea769@mail.gmail.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232150m6b3a0f73w7e0a1688b62584af@mail.gmail.com> <1185252969.2408.96.camel@cutter> Message-ID: <46A8CFC1.2010505@redhat.com> seth vidal wrote: > On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 20:50 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote: >> On 7/23/07, seth vidal wrote: >>> if we want a desktop that looks like we meant all the pieces to fit >>> together we cannot have the hodgepodge we have right now. >> >> So what your saying is.. integration specialists who feel they are >> most heavily influenced by the Cubism movement... need not apply? > > no - I mean bill is right. If we want polish we have to make choices. "This configuration is polished." Others may work, but won't have had the same focus. -- Politics is the struggle between those who want to make their country the best in the world, and those who believe it already is. Each group calls the other unpatriotic. From jspaleta at gmail.com Thu Jul 26 19:32:11 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:32:11 -0800 Subject: Target market? In-Reply-To: <46A8CFC1.2010505@redhat.com> References: <46A50940.5030209@redhat.com> <1185247381.2408.65.camel@cutter> <2cb10c440707232034g75c1d9dai89a98b03cef80712@mail.gmail.com> <20070724040611.GA7494@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <1185250237.2408.87.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232125x21a13a55jebe215afd980d209@mail.gmail.com> <1185251290.2408.90.camel@cutter> <604aa7910707232150m6b3a0f73w7e0a1688b62584af@mail.gmail.com> <1185252969.2408.96.camel@cutter> <46A8CFC1.2010505@redhat.com> Message-ID: <604aa7910707261232l7e8d26c7gddf09c4ba059c803@mail.gmail.com> On 7/26/07, Rik van Riel wrote: > seth vidal wrote: > > no - I mean bill is right. If we want polish we have to make choices. > > "This configuration is polished." > > Others may work, but won't have had the same focus. To put a finer point on what I think Seth means by choices. We will need to identify areas where we allow ourselves to take a step or two away from the "upstream upstream upstream" mantra. We we'll also have to agree that the integration work in those areas may require patching individual components in such a way will detriment non-focused usage cases. We have to be OKAY with these high level policy realities. Beyond that....the harder question really becomes one of resources... who exactly drives a particular focus area and how are they accountable to make sure focus is actually occuring. I've no problem with supporting someone who makes a good case that, they can lead a focus area and that work will actually get done. But I'm not going to throw support behind someone who talks big but can't deliver. It does this project no good to say we are going to focus on something and then have that focus linger with no direction. We must have strong leads, and we must be okay with stepping back after a period of time and being honest about when things haven't worked out and we need to let another idea blossom. And the hard reality, that we really would like to avoid discussing, is for areas that see a significant amount of investment of Red Hat engineering resources, then Red Hat needs to internally decide to assign resources to drive that focus area in Fedora or we are going to have significant problems moving forward when an externally led effort comes into disagreement with internal Red Hat engineering groupthink. For things which Red Hat doesn't have a palatable engineering investment in, then there is opportunity for external leads. We can't hide from the fact that in certain areas of development, how Red Hat tasks their employee's time impacts Fedora in a significant and impossible to ignore way. Instead of fighting that reality, we need to help Red Hat as an entity, understand that there is a need to orient resource management to leverage potential external community interest in situations where Red Hat's engineering time is already significantly impacting the possible directions Fedora can go. Or to put an even finer point on it. If we want to focus on Gnome integration in a serious way, and push things significantly beyond the "upstream mantra" then Red Hat we'll need to decide how to re-arrange resources to lead a Fedora effort by communicating a compelling vision.. a vision which incorporates a range of opportunities for external community members to get involved beyond bug reporting. For KDE however, with the Red Hat internal investment may not be significant, a community lead has the freedom of movement to build a "new" team around there own compelling vision, without the complication of decision-making that could run counter to Red Hat's vested interest in the space. To make a more general statement about the topic of this thread. I feel the areas of focus which will be successful will be the areas of focus that have a strong development lead who can communicate a compelling vision for involvement. We can talk for days on end about what we'd like to see others produce for us, but unless there is an identified lead who is listening to the feedback in such discussions... such discussion isn't particularly fruitful. It simply does not matter if 70% of us want one thing or another to be a focus.... unless we are willing to do the work. I'll tell you right now, as much as I'd love to see a more polished desktop.. I'm not leading that effort... I'm not going to be contributing significant development manpower to build those integration bits.. so I'm going to keep my mouth shut until there is a clear leader in the space and I will support them in the ways that I can come hell or high water. -jef"The question isn't what do we want to see Fedora become. The question is what are we, each individually, willing to do to push Fedora into becoming something more than it is."spaleta From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Sat Jul 28 03:48:00 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:48:00 -0400 Subject: Fedora Social Contract Message-ID: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> Hey guys, I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? I feel like Fedora might be suffering some funny growing pains, after being let loose into the wilds of the open source world, ala Fedora 7, and it would be great to have a project to get some clear idea what we want to do in the future. I wrote alot more about it on my blog, including some ideas as to what to put on one. You can find it here http://loupgaroublond.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-is-community.html Cheers, Yaakov From tchung at fedoraproject.org Sat Jul 28 07:29:15 2007 From: tchung at fedoraproject.org (Thomas Chung) Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:29:15 -0700 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <369bce3b0707280029u7b027bb2h1059588653614b0f@mail.gmail.com> On 7/27/07, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > Hey guys, > > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? It sounds a lot like Fedora CMC[1] (Community Marketing Contacts) which later it became Fedora Ambassadors Project[2]. :) [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-October/msg00099.html [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors Regards, -- Thomas Chung http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasChung From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Sat Jul 28 13:29:47 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:29:47 -0400 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <369bce3b0707280029u7b027bb2h1059588653614b0f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <369bce3b0707280029u7b027bb2h1059588653614b0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707280629u1ba4d4f2g3fc383d8bc75bd7a@mail.gmail.com> On 7/28/07, Thomas Chung wrote: > On 7/27/07, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > Hey guys, > > > > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier > > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. > > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? > > It sounds a lot like Fedora CMC[1] (Community Marketing Contacts) > which later it became Fedora Ambassadors Project[2]. :) > > [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-October/msg00099.html > [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors You think so? The Ambassador program sounds more like a marketing piece to me. Having a Social Contract would definitely something worth marketing, but a "Social Contract" in english has some certain connotations that I intend; namely, they are a set of conventions and rules everyone upholds to maintain social order. -Yaakov From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Sat Jul 28 13:36:59 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:06:59 +0530 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > Hey guys, > > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? Can you explain shortly what the end goal is? I don't see how it will change any growth pains. Rahul From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Mon Jul 30 14:28:57 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:28:57 -0400 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> On 7/28/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > Hey guys, > > > > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier > > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. > > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? > > Can you explain shortly what the end goal is? I don't see how it will > change any growth pains. > > Rahul I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red Hat. Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling interest in. Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro, and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I can join the community to help out. If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red Hat? What sets Fedora apart from Red Hat. What is the 'community' that these Red Hat engineers are talking about? These are the growing pains I refer to. There are many other of course, but I can't solve them all :P A social contract would be a document that we are all bound to. It would define this community in no uncertain terms. It might be a while before it's accepted widely, but it could go a long way to help people understand the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat better. From skvidal at linux.duke.edu Mon Jul 30 14:27:37 2007 From: skvidal at linux.duke.edu (seth vidal) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:27:37 -0400 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1185805657.12224.5.camel@cutter> On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 10:28 -0400, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > On 7/28/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > > Hey guys, > > > > > > I've been doing a little bit of pondering over some of the crazier > > > discussions and events this week, and I came up with a Funny Idea. > > > How do you feel about the idea of a Fedora Social Contract? > > > > Can you explain shortly what the end goal is? I don't see how it will > > change any growth pains. > > > > Rahul > > I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this > theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red > Hat. Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling > interest in. Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro, > and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I > can join the community to help out. If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what > guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red > Hat? What sets Fedora apart from Red Hat. What is the 'community' > that these Red Hat engineers are talking about? These are the growing > pains I refer to. There are many other of course, but I can't solve > them all :P > there is no difference b/t being a community member and a red hat employee. I started working for rh back in june and for the first little while my rh account wasn't setup. Do you know what changed in what I could do with fedora and how I accessed data in the fedora project? Nothing. Zero. I don't need the vpn now - I only use it to access my red hat account email and the intranet - which has NOTHING to do with fedora at all. A lot of the problem is not that there is some sort of separation b/t what fedora and red hat is. The problem is the perception and the social contract you're describing doesn't impact that perception - it just creates some fake-legalese that we have to step around and undoubtedly some stickler for the letter of the document will attempt to trot out and hold our feet to some theoretical flame. No, a social contract like you describe is just silly. -sv From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Mon Jul 30 14:39:51 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:09:51 +0530 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46ADF837.80209@fedoraproject.org> Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this > theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red > Hat. Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling > interest in. Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro, > and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I > can join the community to help out. If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what > guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red > Hat? Why do you need that guarantee? If you want to exclude Red Hat from benefiting in anyway at all then your contributions has to be restricted to prevent Red Hat from using it and such a contribution is obviously non-free and won't be included in Fedora either. A open "community" benefit is also inclusive of Red Hat. Any contribution under a open license that you contribute can be taken in by anyone including commercial vendors. If you contribute to any Free and open source software, Red Hat might be benefiting from it and any contributions that Red Hat makes benefits everyone including the competition. This is by design. A social contract isn't going to change any of this. Our objectives (and guarantees) are clearly described in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Objectives. Rahul From Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net Mon Jul 30 15:19:05 2007 From: Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net (Axel Thimm) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:19:05 +0200 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070730151905.GA31664@puariko.nirvana> On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 10:28:57AM -0400, Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what guarantee is there that I'm really > helping the community, and not Red Hat? You're helping both, that's the idea behind Fedora. It's a fruitful symbiosis of community and business interests. Even if you split up some items that are more valuable to RH vs community, as long as both parties have a benefit increasing Fedora's value for the other party just ensures that there is even more investment done in total. Sure, there will always be priorities and maybe even conflicting goals (like community wanting multimedia vs RH wanting to not get into US patent courts), but that's true of every healthy partnership. -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bob at bobjensen.com Mon Jul 30 14:54:51 2007 From: bob at bobjensen.com (Robert 'Bob' Jensen) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:54:51 -0500 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46ADFBBB.5040100@bobjensen.com> Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this > theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red > Hat. Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling > interest in. Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro, > and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I > can join the community to help out. If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what > guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red > Hat? What sets Fedora apart from Red Hat. What is the 'community' > that these Red Hat engineers are talking about? These are the growing > pains I refer to. There are many other of course, but I can't solve > them all :P > > A social contract would be a document that we are all bound to. It > would define this community in no uncertain terms. It might be a > while before it's accepted widely, but it could go a long way to help > people understand the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat better. > How our contributions are used is not an issue for most. I would hope that most of us do what we do for Linux as a whole, good for Fedora, Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu and so on. I know I would not want limits on my contributions that would prevent other distros from using them, improving them or even profiting from them provided they follow the license. Fedora just happens to be my distro of choice and the avenue I choose for being a part of the greater Linux community. -- Robert 'Bob' Jensen * * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BobJensen gpg fingerprint: F9F4 7243 4243 0043 2C45 97AF E8A4 C3AE 42EB 0BC6 Fedora Unity Project * bob at bobjensen.com * http://fedoraunity.org/ From poelstra at redhat.com Mon Jul 30 16:22:56 2007 From: poelstra at redhat.com (John Poelstra) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:22:56 -0700 Subject: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-24 Message-ID: <46AE1060.2030101@redhat.com> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-07-24 == Roll Call == Attendees: Seth Vidal, John Poelstra, Karsten Wade, Matt Domsch, Chris Aillon, Jef Spaleta, Bill Nottingham, and Dennis Gilmore Regrets: Steve Dickson, Chris Blizzard, Max Spevack == Multimedia Discussion == * Request from Jack Aboutboul to discuss non-free codecs being included as presently being discussed on fedora-advisory list. * Not discussed. Decision: best to continue discussion on fedora-advisory list for the time being == Strictifying fedora-board-list == * Majority of present board members voted to limit list membership to present board members and specially appointed people. * Max needs to adjust list after return from vacation == Freeze for F8 Test1 == * Simple reminder to board * Freeze is today (2007-07-24) * F8 Test 1 Release is slated for next thursday * Need to notify mirrors * Matt will follow up with Jesse and notify mirrors == Virtual FUDCon Update == * Jef will start thread on fedora-advisory list and then start creating a wiki page with a schedule * Looking at a block of time (2 or three hours) each day from 2007-aug-03 to 2007-aug-07 * Have presentations by feature owners * Could we pull together resources for an Asterisk server? * Karsten will scope out resources needed * Dennis will help set things up once scoped out by Karsten * If Asterisk doesn't work we need to have a fall back plan like a regular conference system == Update on Feature Process == * John reported that so far things seem to be going well * First round of approvals last week * Seems to have helped to create lines of communication between related features == Targeted Audience Discussion == * Topic sparked by thread on fedora-advisory-list * If Fedora can do a better job of defining its market then marketing can be better targeted * Raises question about how good Fedora's marketing is? * Is planet.fedoraproject.org marketing? * How could Fedora Marketing be improved? * What we can advertise as "exciting and new in Fedora 8" and how can we go about doing that? * Observations from Chris Aillon's GUADEC experiences * Contrast between Fedora CD artwork and Ubuntu's very distinct * Firefox being used as a platform * Online desktop very well received * Backing from Gnome Foundation * Verbal backing from some of the other distros * Might be an area Fedora should consider targeting * ACTION: invite Havoc to a future meeting * Every application needs to be more "on-line aware" * Ubuntu seems to be doing a good job focusing developers on specific initiatives From loupgaroublond at gmail.com Mon Jul 30 16:26:37 2007 From: loupgaroublond at gmail.com (Yaakov Nemoy) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:26:37 -0400 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <46ADF837.80209@fedoraproject.org> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> <46ADF837.80209@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <7f692fec0707300926t2a7c6205n2bcfe63f8161351f@mail.gmail.com> On 7/30/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > > > > I'm still a little new to the Fedora world, but I keep seeing this > > theme of Fedora used to be Red Hat, and controlled entirely by Red > > Hat. Now it's a community effort that Red Hat has a controlling > > interest in. Red Hat certainly wants this to be a community distro, > > and just five minutes of browsing shows me about 20 different ways I > > can join the community to help out. If i'm Joe Skeptic though, what > > guarantee is there that I'm really helping the community, and not Red > > Hat? > > Why do you need that guarantee? If you want to exclude Red Hat from > benefiting in anyway at all then your contributions has to be restricted > to prevent Red Hat from using it and such a contribution is obviously > non-free and won't be included in Fedora either. Perhaps I'm being misunderstood here. I'm not looking to restrict Red Hat from benefiting, and I'm suprised that was inferred from my comments, since it certainly wouldn't make any sense to say that about the company that pays my paycheck. > A open "community" benefit is also inclusive of Red Hat. Any > contribution under a open license that you contribute can be taken in by > anyone including commercial vendors. If you contribute to any Free and > open source software, Red Hat might be benefiting from it and any > contributions that Red Hat makes benefits everyone including the > competition. This is by design. A social contract isn't going to change > any of this. > > Our objectives (and guarantees) are clearly described in > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Objectives. > > Rahul The Guarantee is a specification of "What is the Fedora Community". Granted it's easy to do Fedora work without having to utilise any Red Hat resources at all, as several people have pointed out to me, but that says nothing other than "Fedora isn't Red Hat." But what is Fedora? Those objectives certainly do go a long way to defining it; somehow I haven't seen that page before. If I were to write a Social Contract, having read them, I might just rip them off wholesale, since they are very good. :) I still believe it would be a nice to have document that describes a community, especially, as I have stated in my blog post, a defining document for an open community. In response to Axel's comments, this applies as well. Red Hat certainly would benefit from such an open community, just as they have done so far within the open community that Fedora is. There certainly is debate on details. It won't ever go away, nor do I want it to, nor do I want a document prevent such a conversation. To sum it up, we all know Fedora is Free and Open, and a Community, let's be able to say so in one more way. I hope this clears up what I'm trying to say :) Yaakov From fedora at leemhuis.info Mon Jul 30 16:39:33 2007 From: fedora at leemhuis.info (Thorsten Leemhuis) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:39:33 +0200 Subject: thx John (was: Re: Fedora Board Recap 2007-JUL-24) In-Reply-To: <46AE1060.2030101@redhat.com> References: <46AE1060.2030101@redhat.com> Message-ID: <46AE1445.5090302@leemhuis.info> On 30.07.2007 18:22, John Poelstra wrote: > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2007-07-24 > [...] John, just wanted to say thanks for your work on the meeting summaries -- they are great and I really appreciate them. C thl From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Mon Jul 30 16:59:45 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:29:45 +0530 Subject: Fedora Social Contract In-Reply-To: <7f692fec0707300926t2a7c6205n2bcfe63f8161351f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7f692fec0707272048id5add73mb9fce0ca46e2946c@mail.gmail.com> <46AB467B.7020406@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300728idc11acbwb13f01bfe160ded8@mail.gmail.com> <46ADF837.80209@fedoraproject.org> <7f692fec0707300926t2a7c6205n2bcfe63f8161351f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46AE1901.3020505@fedoraproject.org> Yaakov Nemoy wrote: > > Perhaps I'm being misunderstood here. I'm not looking to restrict Red > Hat from benefiting, and I'm suprised that was inferred from my > comments, since it certainly wouldn't make any sense to say that about > the company that pays my paycheck. If any potential contributor wants any kind of guarantee that Red Hat should not benefit from their contributions, they should not contribute under any open license at all. The point is that if you contribute to Fedora or any Free software project for that matter, the community and Red Hat as a part of it might be benefit from it. This benefit goes both way and is a major part of the Fedora Project and Linux. The guarantee from Fedora Project is that your contributions will be always Free and open to everyone in the community and not just Red Hat and I believe this is a sensible understanding that you can convey to any skeptic. > Those objectives certainly do go a long way to defining it; somehow I > haven't seen that page before. If I were to write a Social Contract, > having read them, I might just rip them off wholesale, since they are > very good. :) I think the list of objectives which is referred to from the about page already serves the purpose you outline very well. In other words, do you see a need for a social contract that is different from what is described in the list of objectives? Rahul From jspaleta at gmail.com Mon Jul 30 22:50:54 2007 From: jspaleta at gmail.com (Jeff Spaleta) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:50:54 -0800 Subject: Interested in holding a session at Virtual FudCon? Message-ID: <604aa7910707301550q16e8d67wb1a3718ef837713d@mail.gmail.com> I am putting a draft together for the Online UnFudcon aka (Virtual Fudcon) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JefSpaleta/VirtualFudCon I've already contacted many of the F8 Feature drivers concerning presenting something and the draft includes those items for which there was interest in holding a presentation. If you are part of a fedora subproject that would like to hold a session as part of this virtual conference, please email me and edit the draft page adding your session topic accordingly. If you are looking to make a presentation, please be aware that call-in audio may not be available if you are outside of the US. I'll update the draft page with more information concerning the audio capabilities as I know more, along with information concerning where to send pdf's of your presentation for central retrieval by other participants. Being a virtual conference, we have some flexibility in terms of timing.. but I'm trying to prevent scheduling of multiple 'presentations' which could make use of call-in audio support which we may have limited use of. If you want time set aside from the block of hours listed there, let me know and I'll see if we can arrange something. -jef