So, Zarafa is getting a lot of press attention: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6298 some of it is fairly unflattering: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3877446/Fedora-13-Beta-... I'm a bit uncomfortable with this myself; the availability of Zarafa in Fedora seems to be being read in ways in which we certainly didn't intend it (as an aspect of commercialization, as some kind of Red Hat-parachuted feature and hence an indication of RH's future directions, etc). I'm wondering if perhaps we should pull Zarafa's mention as a 'feature' of Fedora 13, or if not that, then certainly develop a more coherent story about its inclusion, what it's for, why it's in Fedora, and the whole 'open core' angle on it... What do people think?

From experience with past releases, pulling it now will just get a lot

So, Zarafa is getting a lot of press attention: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6298 some of it is fairly unflattering: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3877446/Fedora-13-Beta-... I'm a bit uncomfortable with this myself; the availability of Zarafa in Fedora seems to be being read in ways in which we certainly didn't intend it (as an aspect of commercialization, as some kind of Red Hat-parachuted feature and hence an indication of RH's future directions, etc). I'm wondering if perhaps we should pull Zarafa's mention as a 'feature' of Fedora 13, or if not that, then certainly develop a more coherent story about its inclusion, what it's for, why it's in Fedora, and the whole 'open core' angle on it... What do people think? -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- marketing mailing list marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

First, I don't think we can pull it at this point (Streisand effect and all). Second, this (Zarafa's inclusion in Fedora) is a wonderful success story that I think we should use the opportunity to highlight that a community member (or two) worked to get this feature in the distribution. Even if we have to tell that story as a correction - it's still a powerful one, IMO.

So, Zarafa is getting a lot of press attention: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6298 some of it is fairly unflattering: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3877446/Fedora-13-Beta-... I'm a bit uncomfortable with this myself; the availability of Zarafa in Fedora seems to be being read in ways in which we certainly didn't intend it (as an aspect of commercialization, as some kind of Red Hat-parachuted feature and hence an indication of RH's future directions, etc). I'm wondering if perhaps we should pull Zarafa's mention as a 'feature' of Fedora 13, or if not that, then certainly develop a more coherent story about its inclusion, what it's for, why it's in Fedora, and the whole 'open core' angle on it... What do people think?

What I find troubling about the article is that he's not - as we did, on the mailing list when discussing the Zarafa feature - talking about the "open-core" thing. He's basically talking about being troubled because Fedora is becoming "commercialized."

So, Zarafa is getting a lot of press attention: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6298 some of it is fairly unflattering: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3877446/Fedora-13-Beta-... I'm a bit uncomfortable with this myself; the availability of Zarafa in Fedora seems to be being read in ways in which we certainly didn't intend it (as an aspect of commercialization, as some kind of Red Hat-parachuted feature and hence an indication of RH's future directions, etc). I'm wondering if perhaps we should pull Zarafa's mention as a 'feature' of Fedora 13, or if not that, then certainly develop a more coherent story about its inclusion, what it's for, why it's in Fedora, and the whole 'open core' angle on it... What do people think?

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 02:00:56PM -0700, John Poelstra wrote: > Adam Williamson said the following on 04/20/2010 09:04 AM Pacific Time: > > So, Zarafa is getting a lot of press attention: > > > > http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6298 > > > > some of it is fairly unflattering: > > > > http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3877446/Fedora-13-Beta-... > > > > I'm a bit uncomfortable with this myself; the availability of Zarafa in > > Fedora seems to be being read in ways in which we certainly didn't > > intend it (as an aspect of commercialization, as some kind of Red > > Hat-parachuted feature and hence an indication of RH's future > > directions, etc). > > > > I'm wondering if perhaps we should pull Zarafa's mention as a 'feature' > > of Fedora 13, or if not that, then certainly develop a more coherent > > story about its inclusion, what it's for, why it's in Fedora, and the > > whole 'open core' angle on it... > > > > What do people think? > > Disagree. Our feature process does not require a "coherent story for > inclusion." :) > > This feature was added to Fedora through a purely community process by a > non-Red Hat person (someone correct me if I'm wrong). There was no > "driving force of Red Hat" behind it that I'm aware of and it should > remain on the list. > > This is not the first time the press has created alternate reality out > of our feature list. In Fedora 12 the news stories were all about > Moblin (exceptioned in by FESCo after feature freeze, just like Zarafa, > by another non-Red Hatter) and how this was Red Hat's attempt to > "compete head to head with Windows 7 in the netbook space." Considering > that the owner doesn't work for Red Hat that would have been a little > difficult :) > > To me these stories show that we might need to do a better job > explaining how our releases processes work and that *anyone* (regardless > of employer) can submit a feature for inclusion in a Fedora release. > > John John just provided a great idea for a feature profile for post-release: profiling how features themselves happen. Is there currently a list of proposals where we can add that? -- Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ Where open source multiplies: http://opensource.com -- marketing mailing list marketing(a)lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

I'd like to add that this would be a great piece for a press kit as well :)