Desktop Proposal

[Máirín Duffy]

On 10/12/2009 07:03 PM, Mike McGrath wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, inode0 wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Mike McGrath<mmcgrath at redhat.com>  wrote:
>>> So lets leave the other missions in place, as suggested in the paper, and
>>> just add one?  Is there anyone else on the list that thinks trying to
>>> build a usable, general purpose desktop is not worth being a mission of
>>> the Fedora Project?
>>
>> Here is what I believe is Red Hat's mission statement: "To be the
>> catalyst in communities of customers, contributors, and partners
>> creating better technology the open source way."
>>
>> They don't think that an enterprise server operating system is worth mentioning?
>>
>> Details like this are a trap and should be avoided.
>>
> The management at Red hat don't let the engineers do whatever they want
> all willy nilly.  As such they don't have as many issues figuring out what
> they showed up to do that day.  Trap or not, it's guidance.

Vision statement, mission statement, strategery, yadda yadda -

I think John's point is more, mission is *why* you want to do it. But a 
general purpose desktop is *what* you want to do. E.g., if our mission 
is to create free code and content, we would do it using the vehicle of 
creating a general purpose desktop. But our goal in life isn't to build 
desktops, it's to create free code and content. There's other *things* 
we could *do* to accomplish that mission, it's just the desktop is one 
of the vehicles in which we chose to do it.

> Anyway, I'll get back to creating free code and content, whatever the hell
> that is.

I think you've done a great job trying to document some of the ideas 
floating in this uber thread and coming up with a tangible proposal to 
move forward. I hope you continue in the discussion. :(

~m