So what I'm really after is what sets Fedora Cloud apart from every
other distro cloud image.  What usecases is it better at than {Ubuntu,
SuSE, <whatever>}. 

Given that logic, Fedora should stop everything but Atomic.  The Cloud image should be Fedora optimized for the cloud instance experience, just like Workstation is Fedora optimized for the desktop user experience. It shouldn't be massively different for Cloud than Server, b/c the use case between Server and Cloud isn't that large. 

Fedora should have a "typical" answer for what use cases are better than XYZ distro, that isn't dependent on a (frankly) edge use case like a container specific platform.  Atomic is a new and interesting thing, with a very small and specific purpose and design.  That's a good thing and shouldn't be used as an argument against the Cloud image.  Or even as a comparison. 


> Depends: for end-users, it could mean a smaller bill each month on storage.
 

I'm not a fan of this argument for minimizing the Cloud experience as the real cost of "magnetic" storage in most cloud providers is small.  If pulling Python saves 1GB of on disk installed OS space, then users in a AWS environment save $0.24 a month / server in the most expensive storage in the most expensive region (Sao Paolo if you're curious).  And I'm sure we aren't shaving that much off the image.  I have to think the level of engineering required to majorly redesign things around minimization efforts are likely mis-placed if end user cost is the main metric.

That's where the Stack&Env WG work is important for us, as it could become
an asset against our other offers.

This ^^^  I'm a firm believer that the SCL work that got dropped is a huge value when we want to talk about differentiating Fedora as a Cloud or Server platform.  The ability to cleanly separate system requirements from end-user platforms is huge.  I think the Cloud SIG should be jumping up and down on getting SCLs back on track.

- Matt M

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Joe Brockmeier <jzb@redhat.com> wrote:
> On 07/10/2015 12:59 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
>>
>> The atomic image is squarely targeted at being small, and for running
>> containers.  It is somewhat positioned as a CoreOS solution.  With
>> that being the case, I'm curious how the cloud image is different and
>> not a repetitive image simply not using the atomic mechanisms.
>
> That's sort of a key difference -- atomic == I can't just dnf install
> things. cloud == I can add on what I want the way I'm used to doing.
> (e.g., not containerized)

Yes, absolutely.  However, if that is the only difference then I'm not
sure how compelling it is when you compare it to all the other images
provided elsewhere that let you do that already.  Conversely, atomic
is compelling _because_ of the Atomic platform.  Atomic has novelty
(for now), decent technical advantages, and a lot more marketing
behind it.

So what I'm really after is what sets Fedora Cloud apart from every
other distro cloud image.  What usecases is it better at than {Ubuntu,
SuSE, <whatever>}.  How should it be positioned so the people want to
use it over those, etc.  Fedora, in the Cloud space, is still behind
in market share compared to the rest of the Linux world.  I'm really
curious if that can be overcome, or if instead the focus should be on
Atomic entirely because it has a better chance.

(To be fair, Workstation and Server also have the same questions to
answer in comparison to their peers.  However, they have both history
and familiarity on their side.  Fedora has traditionally been a
"desktop" OS and Server can feed off of RHEL which dominates the
enterprise space.  Cloud doesn't share that luxury.)

josh
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