On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 9:00 AM Nicolas Mailhot
<nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net> wrote:
Le 2019-02-01 13:17, Josh Boyer a écrit :
> Fedora is a project, not a venture capital firm. Things get done
> because people do them, prove they work, get buy-in, and evolve over
> time. If that means ideas or projects start small and outside
> existing Fedora infrastructure, that's OK!
I think there is a misunderstanding of what the "Friends" Fedora value
actually means. A lot of @RH contributors are developers at core and
only see Friends in a dev context: sharing source code with others, and
to hell with distro packages, and Fedora as a binary package
distribution in general.
But, there are already lots of instances where you can collaborate on
code (the Apache Foundation, etc). Fedora isn't one of those no matter
how devs push for it to become one (sometimes our desktop friends seem
to see Fedora as some form of GNOME Foundation sugar daddy nothing
more).
I agree. Fedora is not a typical developer project. It is a
distribution project.
What "Friends" mean in a Fedora context, is being to
collaborate on
binary packages (rpms), and a best of breed integrated system, no matter
what your team size is, no matter if you do it as a hobbyist or as part
of some job, no matter what level of the software stack you're
interested in.
Maybe so. I'm not convinced that's really what "Friends" means, but
the sentiment around collaboration isn't really wrong.
Whenever Fedora chooses to deploy infra solutions that are
unmanageable
except @RH, it's hurting its core Friends value. Whenever Fedora
separates its offerings in special Editions (basically declaring "we
don't care about those other use cases") it is hurting its Friends
value. Whenever Fedora invests in deployment solutions, which can only
I disagree that is what Editions is doing.
be applied on the desktop, only applied on openshift, or whatever, it
is
hurting its Friends value. Whenever the Fedora main sponsor, chooses to
segment EL in unmanageable optional channels and modules that require
some friendly commercial help to be navigated, it's hurting its
"Friends" value (and it *is* hurting Fedora when EPEL rules are chosen
to accommodate unfriendly @RH policy).
I can't comment on EPEL. I'm only a user, not a contributor. It
works well for my uses though.
And, why am I writing all this? Because the old proprietary
behemoths
like Oracle, that justified investing in the Fedora/Centos/RHEL
ecosystem, are slowly fading away.
Really? Can you illustrate that with data? I don't mean to be
argumentative, but there is a very old, large, and blue behemoth that
just decided to plunk down a $34B investment on all of those things.
That is going to make Debian a direct Fedora competitor to attract
contributions and getting things done, when before anyone saddled with
Oracle or SAP or whatever wouldn't even look at Debian. And, because
Debian is a competent distribution, and because Debian has the same
software reach (or more) than Fedora, a huge part of the choice is going
to be made on the Friends axis.
"going to"? If you believe that Fedora and Debian are not *already*
in competition for contributions with other distros or projects then
I'm somewhat confused.
So yes Fedora is not a venture capital firm. That does not mean it
is
not competing. It's just competing for contributions, not money.
OK? I'm missing your point on this one.
Thus stating clearly how initiatives like MBI, contribute to
"Friends"
excellence, is not some form of weird request, it's a survival
requirement for Fedora as a project. That is, as long as Friends is
supposed to be a core value and a core differentiator of the Fedora
proposition.
I didn't say it was a weird request. I didn't even say it was a bad
idea! I said it's unproven and requires *further* investment on the
part of the project as a whole, which seems premature.
I can appreciate your perspective and focus on Friends to argue your
position, but it can easily be turned around as well. I would rather
see things mature in Fedora on technical merit and not because of
pitch around a social construct that frankly doesn't exist. The
Fedora project is friendly and welcoming and respectful. That doesn't
mean we're all friends nor does it mean that everyone's ideas get
equal investment.
josh