Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

[David Zeuthen]

On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 01:19 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> It isn't that simple. Do we also want community handle on fedora or
> not? I really like redhat leadership and innovations, but I don't want
> to be a puppet either. If people from the community with specific needs
> and wants are to be accepted in fedora, it means that radical simplicity
> is not possible.

Oh nice. Now you're playing the "RH vs. community" card. Priceless. News
flash: this is _not_ about RH vs. the community. It's about realizing
that software development is _hard_. It's about realizing that throwing
options and toggles at the problem very very rarely gives you something
good. What it does give you is a lot of confused users (look around;
we're getting better but it's still really bad) including e.g. UI crap
for selecting the driver stack of the week or whatever. 

This essay is more than five years old

 http://ometer.com/free-software-ui.html

I suggest you read it. It's not completely related to this topic but if
you think about it long enough there's some glaring analogies to be
made.

       David