FC4 state of affairs and FC5

[Gilboa Davara]

Hello all,

I've been lurking this list for quite some time now, waiting for a good
reason to post... 
Seems that I found one.

Let me first point out that this is not a rant; I understand that the
Fedora Core is supplied "as is" and that the FC development team isn't
working *for me*. In short, they don't owe me anything.
Plus, being a Linux developer myself, I can appreciate the *perceived*
(in my eyes) lack of interest in dealing with (what-seems-to-be-in-my-
eyes) bugs, when the FC5 development is at full swing.

I'm not trying to start a flame war; I am trying to understand the
direction in which the Fedora Core foundation is heading, and make my
own decisions as a result. (Roll back machines to FC3, keep others at
FC2/3, switch to another distro, etc)

Three months ago FC4 was released; as expected, being bleeding edge FC4
was buggy as hell (compared to FC2/FC3). However, living on the bleeding
edge comes at a price, and I'm willing to pay it.

Like any good user, I did my best to report what-ever bugs I saw:
Some of them were fix promptly:

Missing KDE screensavers: 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161312

LVM2 boot problems: 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=164250

But others were not:
gpilotd segfaults:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=156646
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160926

Python gtksourceview:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=162403
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161223

GDB segfaults when debugging libraries:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=161401

Thus far, nothing new. FC4 has known bugs that are being (slowly?)
addressed. 

However, here comes my problem:
FC5 is 6 months (at least) away.
The lvm2 problem was only fixed in -updates; it still plagues new
installations. (I saw a couple of threads about it in fedoraforum.) The
fix did not go downstream to a new ISO images.
FC4 users cannot use their Palm and a full fix is no where to be seen.
GDB is effectively dead when debugging libraries.
And python python-gtksourceview, while fixed in rawhide, will not making
it (at least to my knowledge) into FC4.

My question is simple:
Is it the view of the FC foundation, that the FC4 bug-fixing is taking
second seat to the FC5 development?
Is it acceptable, again, in the FC foundation's eyes, that up until the
release of the FC5, people will not be able to sync with their Palm or
have dead installations on their hands (lvm problem)
I may be wrong here, isn't the lvm problem big enough to require ISO
remaster?
Isn't the Palm problem serious enough to warrant a switch to an older
pilotd (and gnome-pilot)?
Am I the only to feel that these problems are critical?

Again let me stress, that being free-riding user (Sadly enough, I've yet
to pitch in and find some why to contribute to FC) I'm in no position to
rant about the stability of FC4.
However, being someone with vested interest in the FC project, I'm very
interested in the view of the FC project about the above.

Thanks,
Gilboa Davara.