Fedora: Freedom is a Feature.

Marc Wiriadisastra marc at mwiriadi.id.au
Mon Oct 15 11:15:21 UTC 2007


M Daniel R Magarzo wrote:
> El dom, 14-10-2007 a las 17:44 -0400, jkeating escribió:
>
>   
>> If this were really true, they wouldn't use Fedora at all, they would
>> use something else that has this software already in it or easier to
>> obtain.
>>
>>     
> Why not?
> It's easier to put a vendaje over your eyes than digest the reality fro
> some people..
> The last is harder indeed. 
>
> Daniel
>
>   
Do you seriously think that the only reason people install Fedora is 
because of Livna.  That thought is ludicrous Livna is an addon 
repository that supports non-free software.  While not degrading what 
they do since some contribute to Fedora as a whole.  They do not create 
the distribution at all.  The majority of the distribution is created by 
people who work for RedHat (I think) a lot also from the community.

The fact that Ubuntu has bigger numbers is due in part to the fact that 
it is easier to install than Fedora although that is changing.  They 
also offer non-free software as default.  I'm not to sure about 
PCLinuxOS but they are making a charge.  One thing that Fedora does 
which is similar in nature to Debian is that 'we' are the base for other 
distro's.  Ubuntu get there software from Debian.  We are the equivalent 
to Debian.  The big difference is that we are totally non-free in the 
sense that no repositories that are under the control of Fedora have 
non-free software.  That is a bold statement and one that deserves credit.

Fedora takes opensource software and improves it and takes it to another 
level.  Make no mistake if Fedora didn't exist the world would be worse 
off.  While Fedora can go down the path of offering non-free software I 
think I would be disheartened by this action and to me Fedora would lose 
what it stands for.

Fedora is making significant contributions to the opensource community 
in ways that should be advertised a lot more.  I for one have a lot of 
respect for the devs that contribute and while there are problems the 
dev's work hard and with little respect or thanks from the community.

The other fact is people say that well most of the devs are employed.  I 
didn't know Rahul or Jesse's job entailed working 7 days a week late at 
night all the time.  These guy's go above and beyond what the average 
person does such is their love for the distribution.  I was talking 
about it the other day I would hate having a job in the opensource 
industry because I would probably lose my family because I would work on 
it at work and then head home and work on it again.  My family would 
hate me. (I suck at time management)

Above all your criticism is welcome but your opinions should be tempered 
with respect for the people that give you a product that is FREE and 
they (the devs) strive hard to improve it.  While it may not be perfect 
they are doing the best that they can and helping them improve it is 
more helpful than saying what you product sucks I'm going to Livna.

Every new kernel I test out the wireless iwl3945 driver to see if its 
improved on my laptop.  It hasn't got the range as what the ipw3945 
driver does however I'm hopeful that it's fixed in F8.  The reason I 
test it is so I can offer feedback to the devs who strive hard to fix 
the issues.  Spend a bit of time on the fedora-devel list to see how 
active they all are and you might understand why I support this distro 
so much.  I have tested a heap of different versions of linux but 
overall I have stuck with Fedora since Fedora Core 1 because it was 
noticeable that overall the people cared about what they did.  It was 
like a badge of honour that they put out a quality product.

Thanks

Marc




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