Pitching Fedora to Desktop users who already want Linux

[Nicu Buculei]

Michael DeHaan wrote:
> 
> I was talking with a user who did not want to look at Fedora or an EL on 
> the desktop where they work for the following reasons, and was looking 
> at using Ubuntu.   Naturally knowing that really there is almost no 
> difference in these (Gnome is Gnome) and they didn't even need the 
> non-free codecs, I figured I would pass on the comments in hopes that 
> this would be useful to someone else.


There is a ton of things beside GNOME: the amount of included drivers 
and hardware support, the amount of tutorials and screencasts spread all 
over the web, the configuration tools etc. Even the hype.

> Their Comments:
> 
> (A)   Fedora is too much of an upgrade process every six months.     
> This is interesting to me because Ubuntu comes out at about the same 
> rate.   I did not think they were talking about LTS releases, but are we 
> pitching the ease of things like preupgrade enough?     How do we get 

I don't think preupgrade makes a difference. If they need to to an 
upgrade, preupgrade or not, they still have to do the upgrade work.
Maybe you have a better change emphasizing that the life of a Fedora 
release is in fact longer, at about 13 months (release N does not 
obsolete release N-1, but N-2).

> more desktop footprint out there -- not just in home users, but also in 
> companies where there is mindshare (and future contributors) to be 
> won?   How do we make Fedora seem less fragile even as it tries to be 
> the "best of what works now"?  It's clearly a fine desktop.   Not much 
> is required in a desktop.  The whole phrase is kind of silly even as I 
> mostly just want a web browser and an editor, and most everyone else 
> does too :)

By the contrary, desktop is hard, it needs a lot of polishing and fine 
tuning.

> (B)   Comments that Red Hat, not Fedora, was disinterested in the 
> desktop -- therefore they were less interested in Fedora as they didn't 
> see an investment.   Clearly not true.   I don't see this being 
> applicable because it's a capable desktop, we invest well in it, and 
> Fedora cares very much about this.   Again, how do we pass on that 
> message?  Again, nothing technical is IMHO required, it's mostly about 
> dispelling those statements.


Sorry, but you lose here. Beyond all misquoting, see this relatively 
recent answer from the Red Hat CEO:

"They're [Canonical] primarily a desktop provider. We're primarily a 
server provider. Those are pretty different skill sets. I welcome Ubuntu 
everywhere. Let them get desktops all over the place."

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10002150-92.html (but it was 
all over the web).

> In the context of fedora-marketing, I'm wondering how we can deal with 
> this image that -- as far as I can not tell, is not descriptive of the 
> distro.

I am afraid that even fedora-marketing does not have a clear definition 
of what Fedora is. Quote from our front page:

"Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in 
free and open source software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, 
modify, and distribute. It is built by people across the globe who work 
together as a community: the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project is open 
and anyone is welcome to join.

The Fedora Project is out front for you, leading the advancement of 
free, open software and content. "

> I want to see Fedora everywhere, corporate desktops and making Microsoft 
> go away seems to be a noble goal (it's free) with huge advantages to 
> Fedora (huge contributer and mindshare base).  Let's figure out what it 
> takes to make that happen.

-- 
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