"What is the Fedora Project?"

[Mike McGrath]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009, Máirín Duffy wrote:

> On 10/22/2009 09:37 AM, Mike McGrath wrote:
> > I'm just going to bring up the elephant in the room, at least the one I
> > see.  Up until this discussion I was under the impression that Ubuntu and
> > us were not in direct competition.  They were catering to noobs and
> > general users, we were catering to enthusiasts and experienced users.
> > Coming out of this conversation (not just with Paul but with everyone) it
> > seems clear that Ubuntu's goals and our goals greatly overlap if not
> > completely overlap.
>
> I don't think our goals do overlap though. To us, following an
> excellent, open process of producing software is just as important as
> producing excellent, open source software. One of our goals is to be a
> model and an example of that process, and to prove it works so it may be
> taken up by other domains.
>
> I don't think they care about that at all.
>
> To us, the means are not justified by the ends - they are just as
> important. I think to Ubuntu, the ends justify the means.
>

1) New stuff breaks more often (-1 Fedora)
2) Proprietary drivers, flash, java, etc work better then their free
   software alternatives... for now. (+1 Ubuntu)

We're paving the way for all free software making all of 2) better in free
software, but we can't keep doing that without realizing the sacrifice
we're making especially in terms of usability.

> > The problem?  They are KILLING us.  I'm not talking about market share,
> > I'm talking about my recent converts from Fedora to Ubuntu.  I haven't had
> > to do a single thing to my wifes computer since I put Ubuntu on there
> > except setup my printer.  With Fedora I was on it almost daily.
>
> Did yum updates cause the breakage?
>

It was such a calamity of errors I don't even feel like writing about it.
I *HATE* Ubuntu.  So for me and her to get so frustrated for me to even
try Ubuntu gives you an idea of how poor her experience was with Fedora.
We're talking about everything from mouse failures, sound failures, videos
freezing after 15 seconds, complete lockups, etc, etc.  I opened up some
bugs for some of them but only have so many hours in my day and full time
desktop support for my wife just isn't on that list.  Imagine how
depressing it's been to realize how much of a better solution Ubuntu has
been for her.

	-Mike