"What is the Fedora Project?"

[Máirín Duffy]

On 10/21/2009 05:04 PM, Seth Vidal wrote:
> Why not? If you change to whatever the latest group of users wants then
> you're not leading, you're following.

I messaged Seth on IRC for a bit more clarification on this tonight and
ended up having an enlightening discussion which I then continued with
Adam Jackson and Luke Macken on my bus ride home. :)

So here is one idea I have to throw out there, in some part informed by
those discussion. This is just a strawman! I'm not making any grand
proclamations. But I'd love to hear what you think with that in mind,
because I'd like us to make some forward progress from this thread (and
I really, really need a target user so I can get my job done! ;-) )

Fedora is two things.

1) Fedora is a community that builds software, a set of projects on
fedorahosted.org, a set of spins on spins.fedoraproject.org - it's
basically a development platform for creating free & open source
software and applying free & open source software towards solving
specific problems.

2) Fedora is a desktop distribution.

Specifically focusing on #2, I would like to suggest that the target
user for Fedora the desktop distribution is a person of RHCT or
equivalent technical skill who would like to check their webmail in a
browser.

Points:

- What is meant by 'RHCT or equivalent' is that this is a person who
does not need to have 'using a mouse,' 'drag and drop', 'browser tabs',
and 'right click menus' explained to them. He/she gets it. This is a
person who feels comfortable installing their computer on their own,
burning DVDs, and if pointed to instructions, is comfortable opening up
a terminal and running commands or installing non-packaged software as
instructed (to work around issues, e.g., adding extra yum repos or
installing non-free video card drivers from a tarball if provided some
direction.)

- What is not meant by RHCT or equivalent: the person does not
necessarily have to be a Fedora user. He or she could have the
equivalent level of comfort with Windows or OS X never having touched a
Linux distro, or Fedora specifically. If this person is a Windows user,
they're a power user and maybe comfortable with installing some of the
tweak UI bits for that, or in OS X are comfortable working in the
terminal or have ports configured.

So the story I would like to design to, from the Fedora website to
running the desktop is:

I am a person who is comfortable with computers. I hear about Fedora. I
go to the Fedora website. The Fedora website appeals to me and convinces
me that it's something worth trying. I find a download of Fedora that
will work for me quickly and without stress. I am able to download that
file and manipulate it in a way that it is install media I can insert
into my machine in 10 minutes or less. I am able to successfully run the
installer on my first attempt and progress through the questions it asks
me in 5 minutes or less. I expect to have a running system in 15 minutes
or less. I expect it to boot without errors or crashes on the first
attempt, and I expect to be in a running browser in less than 3 minutes
from a fresh boot.

Okay, fire away!

/me ducks and covers.

~m