"What is the Fedora Project?"

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, Oct 08, 2009 at 04:51:20PM -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
> On 10/08/2009 02:54 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> >On 10/08/2009 02:38 PM, Mike McGrath wrote:
> >>I'm in the view we cannot please everyone all the time. My experiences on
> >>this earth have lead me to believe that is impossible without an infinite
> >>amount of resources. So we have to pick otherwise we have the mob rule we
> >>have now. You're right, our software isn't designed for non-technical
> >>folks. The question is, should it be?
> >>
> >>Where we're left is no hope of building a prius. The larger tires and
> >>roll cage being designed by some engineers just won't work with the
> >>smaller more gas efficient engine our other engineers are designing.
> >
> >If we focus on highly-technical users, which is a totally valid path,
> >can we achieve our goals as a project?
> 
> Great question, actually.
> 
> I don't believe we can, tbh.  Highly technical users already know
> the benefits of FOSS.  We don't really need to promote it to them,
> they already use FOSS in some manner, most likely.
> 
> We'd essentially be competing against other distros for their love.
> We need to show people that FOSS can be just as viable for them to
> use as commercial software, and to that end, we need to show that to
> less technical users, IMHO for FOSS to really become a truly viable
> choice.

Right.  The Fedora *Project* wants to concentrate on nurturing
contributors.  That does not mean the distribution we produce and tout
should be designed to preach to the choir.  Recalling the pyramid
diagram: Making a smaller pyramid base -- made up of the people we the
Project hope to interest by putting out a product every six months --
does not further our goal.  Nor does it improve our chances of
igniting people's imaginations so they want to move up the pyramid
from the base to the tip.

Paul