[FW: Some questions for an editorial piece on Neowin.net]

[Jonathan Roberts]

> Can you tell me what new features users could see in the next release,
> Fedora 11?

As Paul said, new features appear at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/#/FeatureList.

Probably worth noting that features for F11 won't start appearing
until post Fedora 10. Might also be worth noting, as was said on FAB
earlier today, that F10 and F11 are planned to form the base of RHEL 6
and as a result will be getting a lot of attention, particularly for
bug fixes. Of course, like always, this work will be done as much as
possible with upstream so all will benefit!

> Microsoft is currently aiming for a 2009 Holiday release for Windows 7 and
> it has been said their main rival now is Linux. Are there any concerns about
> how Fedora can compete with Windows 7 in the future and can you give any
> hints as to what features you hope to include to rival Windows?

Again, as Paul said, important to consider that Fedora and Microsoft
have two very different audiences. Perhaps should be specific about
some of the cool features that we have that appeal to desktop users,
such as connection sharing in network manager(?).

The other point I would raise is that the true killer feature of free
software is freedom. People who use a distribution like Fedora that
respects and pushes forward the development of free software are
helping to guarantee that all people have access to important
technologies, as well as guaranteeing their rights to privacy and
control over their own property.

> One of the reasons behind the popularity of Ubuntu, Fedora and openSuse is
> their improved ease-of-use, howeverLinux as a whole is still criticized for
> being too "techie/geeky". What else is being done to further improve the
> usability and ease-of-use of Fedora in the future?

Good question. I suppose we could make comments on the work that's
going on upstream with Gnome 3.0, as well as the effort being made to
integrate KDE 4 closely. But seriously, it seems this is one area that
we're paying very little coordinated attention to.

If I was really trying to spin it, I might say something like:
"Fedora's extremely close relationship with upstream projects is
setting an example for many other distributions, and we're glad to see
that some, with more expertise in this area than others, are trying to
follow our lead and deliver usability improvements through upstream
vendors."

Thanks Paul for giving this a try, and I hope you get some useful feedback.

Jon