[Fwd: Wikipidia - Goodbye Red Hat and Fedora]

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Mon, 2008-10-13 at 17:42 -0300, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2008-10-12 at 16:48 -0300, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> > > Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 16:53 -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> > > > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> > > > > > On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 12:38 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> > > > > >> Dmitry Butskoy wrote:
> > > > > >> > Itamar - IspBrasil wrote:
> > > > > [snip]
> > > > > >> The fact that they switched to CentOS is *good* for Fedora.
> > > > > > I can not disagree more - To me, it's yet another evidence of Fedora
> > > > > > being on the loose.
> > > > > 
> > > > > You're going to have to expound on that. I do not see Centos in any
> > > > > way as in competition with Fedora.
> > > 
> > > > EPEL drains away resources from Fedora.

> > > > >  Centos is something everyone should be proud of.
> 
> > > > Well, to me CentOS is as important as any other arbitrary Linux distro.
> > > > I am glad they are around, but not more and not less.
> 
> > > It is around becase RHEL is popular, and open source.
> 
> > And non-free
> 
> It /is/ free... you pay for support only.
Wrong. RHEL is opensource, but it is not free. You can't get RHEL
binaries anywhere.

> 
> >              - If it was free, the CentOS folks could start directly
> > contribute to Fedora
> 
> No...
Why not? CentOS would go out of business, because RH binaries could be
used instead => their resources would be freed.

> > > > > >> CentOS's goals are better oriented to the needs of someone 
> > > > > >> that wants to deploy a system and run it for years. Fedora is
> > > > > >> good for people who want to get the latest technologies from
> > > > > >> upstream as soon as they're stable enough to integrate into a
> > > > > >> running system.
> 
> > > > > > Right. But why can't Fedora do better?
> 
> Define "better"... "Good Fedora" is bleeding edge, not fully stabilized
> software, experimental stuff that may pan out (or it might not, being
> replaced by something else), changing APIs (literally and sysadmin-wise),
> fast turnaround.
Yes, this is what it is supposed to be. Unfortunately this doesn't
apply. 

Current Fedora isn't much more than a single-user desktop-focused RH
development/rawhide snapshot.

> > > > > >                                        I feel Fedora could do better.
> 
> > > > > Sure. With more devs, servers, time, etc.
> 
> > > > ... less bureaucracy, less committees/less chiefs/more Indians,
> > > > different people, different strategies.
> 
> > > Show how!
> 
> > Ease reviews, bodhi, packagedb, koji, bugzilla, track, re-consider FTBS,
> > work-flow, trademark policy. 
> 
> Definite proposals that can be discussed?
> 
> What does "trademark policy" have to do with anything, BTW?
A lot.

> > E.g. right now, the tools being in use are a heterogenious mixture of
> > separate tools,
> 
> Unix...
My point is: Lack of integration and them being over-loaded with
features.

> >                 are often broken,
> 
> Fixing hands are presumably wellcome...
Well, ...

> >                                   are far from easy to use
> 
> Concrete proposals on what to change how?
Many, many tiny details. In fact, there are tons of usability issues
with all of them.

One pretty obvious example: bugzilla. 
IMO, it has never been less usable than it is now. It isn't possible
anymore to reopen bugs, automatic CC:-adding when commenting to BZs,
many lists are hidden in dropdowns, tags have changes (assignee), FTBS
activities have rendered bugzilla "unsearchable", flagged review stuff,
etc.

> >                                                            and aim at
> > implementing a highly bureaucratic process/work-flow.
> 
> Again, proposals, please?
E.g.: Work-flow: branch fc11 early (discussed and shot down last week).

> > >  Telling everybody here how awful things are going isn't helping
> > > an iota. Everything has its limits, and for every desirable quality (newest
> > > shiny toys, support for the newest fad in hardware in software) there is a
> > > cost (can't be supported in the long range, fast turnaround, set procedures
> > > to handle a huge stream of new stuff)
> > > 
> > > > >  But baring a sudden increase
> > > > > in those, I would much prefer to see Fedora focus on dev and testing,
> > > > > let other distros pretty things up.
> > > 
> > > > ACK. Unfortunately, Fedora is drifting away from this group towards
> > > > single-user desktops (e.g. OLPC).
> > > 
> > > Then work towards drifting the opposite direction...
> 
> > One reason why I am agitating ...
> 
> "Agitating" doesn't help much.
Of cause it does. It help making people aware about problems.

> > > Fedora (or any other large group of people) will move where the majority
> > > wants to go... 
> 
> > Well, deployment of an OS to servers, will always be a "minority use
> > case" and will always collide somewhere with mere desktop oriented
> > developments.
> 
> So?
Examples: NetworkManager, PulseAudio, setroubleshoot, SELinux-policies,
PackageKit, defaults ...

> > > > > Why would they, after often suggesting that Fedora _not_ be used on
> > > > > production servers, use Fedora on their production servers?
> 
> > > > Depends on how they mean it:
> > > > - if they are referring to "long term maintained/everlasting support"
> > > > servers, they are right.
> 
> > > "Servers" are "long-time maintained" by definition...
> 
> > To me, "server" is a "use-case of an OS" and is not at all connected to
> > running the same OS for many years. 
> 
> That is "testing an OS with server workload", something different entirely.
Just because some piece of hardware is labeled "server" or caged into a
rack, doesn't make it a "server".

A server is a use-case of software, the hardware doesn't actually
matter.

> > Yes, no doubt, running the same OS on a larger number of machines for a
> > longer time helps maintenance, but I do not see how this is connected to
> > a particular machine serving as "clients" or "servers".
> > 
> > Yes, no doubt, there are use-cases where "long-term API" stability is
> > important, but this applies to client use-cases as well as to server
> > use-cases.
> 
> Those /are/ the "server" use cases you want so badly!
NO! I am talking about file-, yp/ldap-, nfs-, print-, streaming-, audio
(mpd etc.)-, video-, VCS (CVS, svn, git, etc.)-, http-, SQL (postgres,
mysql, etc.)- servers and similar.

> > Finally, yes, no doubt, Fedora is not the "shoe that fits all sizes" nor
> > are CentOS or RHEL, but ... this doesn't mean that Fedora may not be
> > applicable to server scenarios.
> > 
> > > > - if they mean it as "Fedora is technically too unstable",
> > > 
> > > Because there is no "long term maintenance"...
> 
> > Again, I don't see how "lack of stability" and "no long term
> > maintenance" are linked together at all, nor how server and client
> > use-cases matter.
> 
> Again: "stability" is /not/ "when run on 10 thousand machines only one
> crashes a day", it is "runs for thousands of days before crashing", and
> /that/ is as un-Fedora as it gets.
Again: server is a use-case of SW. Like on desktops, I can live with
rebooting once a week due to kernel updates and don't need 1000hrs of
uptimes nor do I have 1000s of users nor machines.


> > What matters in use-cases of short lived-distros such as Fedora is:
> > Upgrades "must simply work" and (admin-) personnel must be able to
> > handle them in a particular scenario.
> 
> Sure. Test upgrading for a few months until everything is A-OK,
No, rolling release, respun distros. 


> > Lack of stability,
> 
> Design objective.
No, mismanagement, lack of QA

> >                                              ... tools
> 
> Huh?
koji, bodhi, bugzilla, packagedb ...

One detail: The amount of administration emails I am receiving from
koji, bodhi, packagedb: Often, several 1000s per month.

> > The lack of people to me is not a cause, it's a consequence of mistakes
> > in Fedora's history.
> 
> Is there /really/ a lack of people?
Yes, all over the place.

Examples:
* reviews
* Fedora infrastructure "wining" on "lack of people"
* Fedora infrastructure "signing" issues.

>  Are any statistics of contributors (and
> contributions) at hand?
None that I am aware about. 

Ralf