Fedora and RedHat's autism toward personal users

[Stephen C. Tweedie]

Hi,

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 21:24, Derek P. Moore wrote:
> > But you can only run one web server or mail server at once (at least on
> > the standard ports), and it makes sense to limit the number of this type
> > of packages.
> 
> I would say that the web servers (and mail servers) are largely personal (or
> religious) choices.  There are numerous quality web servers in existence: 
> Apache, Cadium, thttpd, AOLserver, Boa, etc.  While I'm an Apache man myself,
> I'd have to say I don't have any particularly solid reasons for using Apache
> over any of the other servers (other than I learned Apache first).

Have a look at 

http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/terminology.html

Fedora Core is the core distribution, the one that the Severn test
releases are examples of, the core of the O/S that Red Hat is assembling
and over which Red Hat maintains editorial control.

But Fedora Alternatives is defined on the same page --- that is intended
to become exactly the place where all those alternative web servers can
be developed and maintained by the community in a way that drops in
cleanly into a Fedora Core system.

Fedora *Core* is not going to support a dozen different web servers
itself, but if there are developers willing to maintain the packages,
we've got a place planned for them within the overall Fedora project and
they are welcome there.  There is no intention to limit the number of
each type of package in Fedora Alternatives.  It just needs developers
willing to maintain the packages to an appropriate standard.

> Anyways, I just don't see how the web browsers situation is any
> different from the web servers situations (or how the mail clients
> situation is any different from the mail servers situation [I
> definately think Fedora should provide at least Sendmail, Postfix, and
> qmail {hotmail.com wouldn't use qmail if it wasn't good for
> something}]).

Right, it's the same situation, same answer --- Fedora Core won't
provide all the choices, but Fedora Alternatives will be able to if they
fit the guidelines and if people contribute and maintain the packages.

Cheers,
 Stephen