Why Fedora ?

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 28 October 2005 11:57, Mike McCarty wrote:
>Rudolf Kastl wrote:
>> from a developers point of view it doesent matter much what you
use...
>
> From a developer? Of Linux? Or of Linux software?
>
>I disagree with this statement entirely. Fedora Core is not a
>stable release. For that reason, IMO, it is unsuitable for
>doing stable software development. OTOH, if one is designing
>commercial software, and wants a test machine or two set up
>the way one projects the world will be when the software is
>ready for release, then one probably needs to have something
>like Fedora core on those test machines.

And I disagree violently with that premise.  Not everyone has the
luxury of haveing a ready test mule, one that can be broken for
extended periods of time while problems are worked out.  We do use
these machines in our everyday life.

If I can't have a reasonable expectation of doing an upgrade and having
it continue to work for the things that are important to me, then those
cd's I download and burn will never get anywhere near the drive at
reboot time.  The recent 4.0 release and its nightmares is a case in
point. There is absolutely no excuse for such a broken install that
takes a week for a guru to straighten out and a gig of downloads to fix
stuff that should have been fixed in the release before the release was
ever seeded to the servers.

IMO, those sorts of problems are running your test slaves off to other
distros in large numbers.  Yes its mostly ok to use us as lab monkeys,
but to give meaningfull results back, the lab monkey must survive the
experiment.  So lets hope that FC5, if and when, is not released ready
or not on a set schedule, but only after the showstopper stuff from the
rc's is actually fixed.  If that slides the schedule back 2 weeks or a
month, so be it.  We'll get over it.

I see us as the explorers of new ways to do things much more than fixit
guru's.  If the new way works and we like it, then it goes into the
next RHEL release, but either way what we install should work without
segfaults, gross memory leaks and other 'go way' features. X should
just work regardless of which window camp you live in.  At least one
email agent should be mature and stable, likewise at least one browser,
ftp agent etc etc.  Printing should work once configured, and not kill
3/4ths of the kde install just by hovering the mouse pointer over a
printing related item in the kde menu's as was the case for FC2 &
its broken cups.  We actually, heaven forbid, USE these machines in our
everyday life.  To expect less is an insult to us, your beta test base.

>
>> if you identify and report/fix bugs _upstream_ you are fixing the
>> stuff for all distros...
>
>For all *RHEL* distros.
>
>> theres no such thing as "distro wars" with experienced linux users
and
>> real open source developers. you seem to be rather new to the world
of
>> linux.
>
>Oh yes there are "distro wars". I just don't participate in 'em.
>
>> also for me personally fc4 is too stable and thus pretty boring for
>> someone who likes to be a bit more active with the linux community.
;)
>> i am personally helping testing rawhide because i like to have a bit
>> more challange and i love helping to make future versions better.
>
>Please don't top post.
>
>Mike
>--
>p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
>This message made from 100% recycled bits.
>You have found the bank of Larn.
>I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
>I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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