Core BrainStorm

[Tim Burke]

Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:

>
>  
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>>- With the more rolling release model of Extras, how does that fit
>>  in with building CD images, or grouping of packages? Do we
>>  offer services that build Extras CDs on-the-fly? Do we have
>>  generated Extras isos at Core release time, and never afterwards?
>>  Do we allow third-parties to make their own Extras isos with
>>  scripts (or infrastructure) that we provide? (Cue the Trademark
>>  policy!)
>>    
>>
>
>My take: we figure out favorite collections and build ISOs for each of
>them.  Making sure they all "work" in conjunction with Core could be
>tricky -- but we could perhaps ask prominent community folks to "release
>manage" their favorite collections.  In the long term, we allow anyone to
>create their own collections as well, perhaps using the tools and rules
>that we end up developing to maintain the favorite collections.
>
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This is a tough compromise between general usefulness and customization.

One of the advantages of having so much in core is that for more naieve 
end users, more things will "just work" because the dependencies are 
present.  This ease of use fosters increased adoption.

If we go to the extreme where core is stripped down, and then commonly 
used stuff is off in extras which have been composed by an infinitely 
random set of custom isos, then for the naive user, there will likely be 
lots of frustration.  This dependency trauma results from too 
fine-grained break up of Fedora into custom isos.  Don't get me wrong, 
for the narrow audience that custom isos would be tailired to, thats 
great, and should be allowed.  Whether it should be the main approach is 
what I question.

I'm wondering if a compromise approach of having several functional sets 
as Bill suggested would be the preferred approach.  For example, moving 
office/document processing apps onto a single iso.  Following that 
approach there may be about 7 separate isos; but at least everyone has a 
common understanding of what those ISOs are.  Whereas its harder to get 
a common understanding of what the "office edition", "hpc edition", 
"database server edition", etc, really means.