The Fedora Core Pruning project, Re: some minor Core pruning

[David Eisenstein]

Michael J. Knox wrote:
> David Woodhouse wrote:
> [snip]
> 
>> The default MTA should be included in Core, and the others should be in
>> Extras unless they provide functionality which isn't available from the
>> default MTA.
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> +1 on that reasoning. However, the road to a concluse agreement on which
> app to provide the said functionality in core, I doubt, will be easy :)
> 
> But then again... does it really matter? The goal is to have the lines
> between FE and FC to be pretty much transparent for the end user, so
> when I build a server and install postfix if it comes from FE instead of
> FC I couldn't care

I have a problem with this so-called "goal" to have the lines between
Fedora Extras and Fedora Core become pretty much transparent for the end
user.  If this is a goal, I am not seeing us going about it in a compre-
hensive way.

What end-user(s) are we talking about here?

Some folks do not have broadband Internet connections.  They have dialup
internet of 40 kbps download speed at best.  Some users may not even have
*any* network connection.  How, then, is Fedora Extras useful to them,
unless it, too, is packaged somehow on physical media alongside Core?  Does
Fedora have that as a goal?

Further -- I see much glibness about saying, "Throw this over to extras.
Throw that over to extras.  Extras can take care of it."  I understand
there appears to be some community-wide consensus that it is a "Good
Thing"®™ to reduce the size of Fedora Core.  (I am afraid I don't know
Mr. Extras - can he handle all these new packages?)

But I thought that The Fedora Project was about creating value (and perhaps
attractiveness) to the end-users.  What kind of end-user polling or testing
is being consulted here to come up with these decisions as to what the
end-users want and need and don't want in Core?  I am seeing lots of
programmers weighing in on the decision-making processes (of what goes and
what stays, for example), but I am not seeing the evidence of any kind of
end-user polling, Usability Testing or other metrics being sought nor applied.

In the back of my mind, I'm beginning to call Fedora a "Programmer-
friendly" distribution.

Who needs users?

	Regards,
	David Eisenstein