Do we need split media CDs for F12?

[Jeroen van Meeuwen]

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:37:41 -0700, Jesse Keating <jkeating at redhat.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 03:30 -0500, King InuYasha wrote:
>> A script that takes the DVD image to produce the CD versions would
>> basically
>> require extracting the whole DVD image and then generating new ISOs from
>> that tree. Maybe mirrors could do it if you want to save space on the
>> main
>> server or whatever.
> 
> That only serves to complicate matters for the users.  Good chunks of
> our users have a hard enough time figuring out what to download, how to
> burn it, and how to install it.  Adding in some weird script to take a
> DVD.iso file and split it into many smaller files isn't going to help
> matters, and certainly doesn't improve things for anaconda/qa/releng.
> 

This to me sounds like there's two separate problems;

1) Users might not know what to download

2) We might put resources into something that isn't used as much as we
would have hoped.

I'm not sure whether one single solution is appropriate for both problems.

I'm also not sure the numbers that Matt has are reflecting the actual
foot-print of users that require CD media, as our numbers show things
differently[1]. Regrettably, we have no numbers on the Jigdo releases. I
know Matt's numbers are accurate, but put in context, isn't this only
redirect links such as
http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Fedora/iso/disc1.iso
like shown on http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora/ ? Are we not missing out
on *a lot* of downloading users that navigate to their mirror of preference
directly?

For Fedora Unity, this is considered a service to those in the community
that need it. It's most definitely not considered the most efficient
balance between corporate resource investments and user satisfaction.
Whether it be 3 or a million smiles we get in return for doing split media,
I don't care.

Split media will continue to exist anyway; I release split dual-layer DVD
images with the Everything Spin. Whether as such Fedora Unity is putting
the pressure on the people that would rather drop the split media, I don't
know. All I'm saying is that if the Fedora Project won't, we will. We've
been down that path before and we all know it's pretty painless[2].

If the Fedora Project considers to no longer release split CD media, would
the Fedora Project then also consider allowing Fedora Unity (members) to
continue servicing those that request or even require split CD media? If
that is too much to ask from a anaconda/qa/releng perspective, would the
Fedora Project maybe consider finally allowing those from Fedora Unity that
do it anyway, to do it *via* the Fedora Project?

Kind regards,

Jeroen van Meeuwen
-kanarip

[1] http://spinner.fedoraunity.org:6969

[2] If not, please show me where it isn't.