Who Fedora isn't for (Was: Re: OpenOffice 3.1)

[James Hubbard]

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Rahul Sundaram
<sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On 05/13/2009 06:34 PM, James Hubbard wrote:
>
>> Until someone steps up and answers Adam's question about Fedora's
>> targeted user, this debate will continue.  I've not seen anyone do
>> that yet. The section "Is Fedora for me" on the overview page is the
>> closest thing that I've seen.  I don't believe that Aunt Flo meets the
>> criteria.
>
> No. It doesn't unless someone is willing to sit through and help setup
> her system in a controlled manner and willing to upgrade every year
> atleast. Let's be clear. Lifecycle is a small part of the equation.
> Fedora doesn't deal with proprietary software or patent encumbered
> codecs and hence unlikely to be useful on its own for new users without
> some assistance.
>
> If we need to be explicit about this on our overview page, I can do that.

Commentary about proprietary software probably isn't needed.
Proprietary software will come with guidelines for OS support.
Technically savvy Fedora users can figure it out if they're able to
run it on their systems.  Since Fedora does ship multimedia capable
software, it would probably be a good idea to provide some statement
about proprietary/patent encumbered codecs.

I think being explicit in target user expectations is a good idea.  It
seems like bike shedding, but it comes up enough that it's probably a
good idea.