Maintenance? Re: Proposed changes to Fedora Legacy Project

[David Eisenstein]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> Hi
> 
> >
> > Hi Rahul, I just browsed through some fedora-devel-list posts from  
> > this month, so far all I see is two people in a thread: "RFE: Retire  
> > Fedora Core 4 only _after_ FC6 has been released." who mention that  
> > they think "legacy" has negative connotation(s).  Are there other  
> > posts I'm missing, or is that what you were referring to?
> >
> > -Jeff 
> 
> After FC6 part is not important here. Whats important is that several 
> users in the list have expressed their opinion that the term "legacy" 
> has negative canotations associated with it. I do not feel so. In fact I 
> think legacy is a perfectly suitable name for what this project stands 
> for but we can listen to the users here. If we do get more community 
> contributions and users by doing something as simple as expanding on a 
> name and lowering the barrier to entry by providing seamless transition 
> between Fedora Core and Fedora Legacy, lets shoot for it.We need all the 
> people we can get. If we have to set aside our own preferences and bend 
> a little to enable this to happen, so be it.

I'm going to step into this discussion with a point that some non-USA
folks here may not realize.  In my midwestern United States dialect, the
word "maintenance" generally has connotations that make it rather less
than glamorous.  When you hear about "building maintenance," that usually
means the custodian or janitorial staff for the building or campus.  To
me, calling our project a "Community Maintenance Project" sort of has the
connotation of "software janitor project," or "package housekeeper
project," or "security roto-rooter project."

Maintenance is also a synonym for "alimony," according to my handy-dandy
gnome-dictionary.

Nevertheless, those who participate in this project *are* maintainers.  
"Developer"  seems to be a much sexier word, but alas, our work here
really isn't software or package development.  It's software/security
maintenance, custody, or stewardship.  Maintenance just doesn't sound sexy
or alluring.  Nevertheless, there is an area of software engineering
called software maintenance, which is an important part of the software
lifecycle.  The work we do is very important.

Although the word "maintenance" does seem to have some negative conno-
tations, it's hard for me to come up with a better word that describes our
purpose and activities.  What could the spin doctors can do here?  Could
we substitute the word "stewardship" for "maintenance"?

In terms of the word "legacy:"  In my opinion, it's a fine word, and I
don't understand what objections people have to its use.

	Regards,
	David