FC3 -> FC4 Upgrade? (was Re: reducing distribution CD count)

[seth vidal]

>I'm sure you'd think it's workable.  Let's see:
>
>- you operate one of the biggest mirrors of FC and presumably FE
>
>- even if you didn't have FE locally, you've got a *very* fat
>  network pipe at your disposal
>
>- you're the author of the tool that gives most people easy-ish access
>  to FE
>
>- you run the FE human build system

I also admin and provide the machine that is fedoraproject.org. I set up
the wiki, I wrote the scripts to provide the rss feeds of the packages
recently updated. Let's see, what else. Hmm, I host and provide the
machine that is download.fedoralegacy.org.  I do many of these things
b/c of the opportunities my employer gives me by being a reasonably
good-sized university.

What do the things I try to contribute have to do with my belief that
extras functions? You maintain libtool and a number of compiler-related
functions. Does this mean you are not to be trusted about the state of
the compilers? 

 I believe extras functions b/c they are are over 901 packages in
extras. There are a whole bunch of people packaging for it now. My role
is just to rebuild these things while we work on the build system
automation.

>That's hardly the case for the typical Fedora user.  In fact, if I
>knew there was only one person on Earth (or in the universe!) that was
>happy about the usability of the current Fedora Extras, my first guess
>would be you, and the second would probably be Bill Gates :-)

This is just bizarre.

>This is not meant as an insult or as criticism; I really appreciate
>your effort, and thank you for that.  I just don't think your
>situation is anywhere close to that of most of our user base, and as
>much as you might try to make your views impartial and unaffected by
>this, it's very likely to still be very biased.  Moving useful
>packages from Fedora Core to Fedora Extras, as it stands, is too hasty
>a step.  We should extend the Fedora Core tools such that the Fedora
>distribution (by that I wish I could mean Core + Extras) can be
>installed and used as such, no matter how fat their network pipe is.

So here's the problem, you're missing. Let's give you the example of the
user not having a fast network connection.

cases:
1. the distro is 5 isos - they spend 8 yrs downloading 5 isos to install
about 30% of the packages available on them
  - they've wasted a lot of time and probably made a number of coasters
in the process.

2. the distro is 4 isos - they spend 6 yrs download 4 isos to install
about 30% of the packages available on them. Then finding that their
FAVORITE package is not there they spend 1 yr downloading only the
packages they want from extras.

So if we're worried about users with limited bandwidth then we would
want the latter. Which means putting fewer packages in core.

3. the distro is 4 or 5 isos - the user is given the cds from a friend
with a faster network connection. The user consumes no bandwidth at all,
so far. 
   a. it's 5 isos - their FAVORITE package is there so they're done
(until they see something cool they want in extras, of course)
   b. it's 4 isos their FAVORITE package is not there - so they ask the
friend to burn them a cd of a chunk of things from extras. Heck, if the
friend is really nice s/he can get a list of what they need, run
repoclosure on it across base + extras and then run createrepo on the cd
before handing it over. Then s/he knows that the user has all they need.
The user pops in the cd, runs and adds a repo to their yum.repos.d and
they're cooking with gas.

4. the distro is 4 or 5 isos - the user is given the cds but not from a
friend and has no other way than a 28.8K modem to download the rest.
  a. the distro is 4 isos - they don't have their FAVORITE package but
then again they don't have the ability to play ascii art video files
either. They don't have lots of things. I'm sorry, but hey, maybe
someone wants to make isos of Extras like the user with the friend in
the case above.
  b. the distro is 5 isos - they have their FAVORITE package, but they
still can't play ascii art video files. So maybe someone volunteering to
look at isos of extras is the right solution.

hey, wait a second. You're a programmer aren't you? would you like to
contribute to fedora extras? I bet you could come up with a way to make
isos from Fedora Extras!

That's fantastic, thanks for volunteering instead of just being another
complaining voice w/o a solution.

-sv