Fedora's way forward

[Jesse Keating]

On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 13:30 -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Correct. And right now, their path of least resistance is Windows or a Mac.

And this hasn't changed in a long time.

> >               We're trying to make it so that FOSS is that
> > path, but if !FOSS becomes an easier path, thats where users will go,
> > and we've lost the battle.  I'm surprised that you of all people don't
> > see this.
> 
> What I see is that !FOSS is already the easier path.  We can't change that
> by refusing to support MP3. All we can do with that choice is make the road to 
> open source unattractive because *it doesn't meet their needs*.

We make FOSS the easier path by improving the software built around FOSS
technology, not by compromising our integrity by stooping to the
non-free market place.  Total global domination isn't our goal, and if
it is your goal for a distro, perhaps you need to find a new distro.
Our goal is the promotion of FOSS and FOSS technologies though a damned
fine distribution built from FOSS.

> Trying to tell them "well, you shouldn't want what you want" is just nuts.  
> It's denial.  They'll write us off as kooks, and with good reason.

No, we say Here, look at this better technology and software.  Isn't
this nice to use?  It's already installed and ready for use.

Ever wonder how MSFT won the last browser war?  IE was pre-installed,
path of least resistance.  It wasn't BETTER than Netscape (at the time),
but it was far easier to use.  Same with their media players.  THIS is a
page we can take out of their book, make our software that is
preinstalled a nicer avenue and an easier avenue.

And by-gum, if a user has to go install an mp3 plugin from somewhere !
Fedora, well thats not the end of the world.  I do recall having to do
that with Windows not too long ago.  Ditto DVD playback.

-- 
Jesse Keating RHCE      (geek.j2solutions.net)
Fedora Legacy Team      (www.fedoralegacy.org)
GPG Public Key          (geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/attachments/20060328/c4c74bf4/attachment.sig>