early coverage of fedora 8

[Jeff Spaleta]

On 10/23/07, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:
> Note that he's complaining about the sermon that the board specifically asked
> for.

It's certainly a sermon. But I'm pretty sure including it doesn't hurt
the project in any significant way.

Oh yes, people are going to complain, but they would have anyways if
we didn't change how we handled codecs.   And we will continue to get
our asses handed to us in the multimedia area by distributions which
show less restraint as to patent encumbered material, but we would
have anyways if we didn't do anything new with regard to codecs.

We either continue to not talk about it at all, confusing some users
who expect this functionality to be there and it isn't.  Or we make
some effort to explain why this functionality isn't there and do what
we can to give users legal choices.  We reap what we sow and there is
a continuing need to cultivate users who understand the long terms
dangers that software patents represent.

I expect we'll get enough feedback in the discussion as to the text
and presentation of the sermon, so that by F9 we'll have something
that strikes the correct tone for best educational impact.

No discussion of the electronic lab or developers spin however....
that makes me sad.  I was really hoping that review writers would at
least take notice of the spins even if they don't have the training to
actually make use of them.


-jef