Slashdot Mirror
Revealed: How Fedora And The Community Interact
bakwas_internet writes "Konstantin Ryabitsev sent a funny
message in form of a irc chat log, revealing how Fedora and the Community Interact, to the development discussions mailing list related to Fedora Core.The story also appeared at lwn.net
and OSnews."
The comments made about Redhat can be applied to many company supported projects. Now that is scary. It takes a lot more time to be "trusted" by a company than Open Source projects not run by companies. Funny, sad and scary.
We chase away enthusiastic supporters that can really help by not having a process which they can follow to get real access to these systems and make a difference.
Okay, only mark your diaries if you are Fedora inclined like me ;)
Fedora Core 2, if on schedule (which, AFAIK it still is) is due to be available from mirrors on the 17th of this month.
The actual distibution is sceduled to start going out to the mirrors on the 14th but I think the mirrors will be requested to keep it locked till the 17th.
If they don't make it to the release deadline it may lead to some IRC antics rather like the ones mentioned in the article.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I really think their quality is improving. FC2 test3 is a nice system, and I think adequately simplified for most home users. It's great that they're almost right on the edge of the major stuff (KDE, kernel, GNOME, X, etc), most distributions seem to lag pretty heavily. In additon, the access to ISOs has been pretty spectacular, not something I could say for RH8, RH9.
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Actually, what else could a software company want? Think about it, they're basically developing a product that has features that will eventually be sold to generate revenue. But the best part (for redhat anyway) is that they have a huge and completely free testing and bug-fixing population. What a deal.
One has to ask oneself, here, why one really expects to be part of a community of open source developers when the project in question is run by a for-profit company and there are thousands of people who want to help and think they can.
What I'm saying is, with the decision to split Fedora from the core product lines, Red Hat essentially removed their own motive for expending huge amounts of time in evaluating user input, particularly user-submitted code.
It's simple economics: where's the money in it? "User loyalty," you say. Really? Aren't Fedora users the ones who don't need RH Enterprise or just don't want to pay for anything? Seems to me that they're the same ones who, if they convince an employer to go OSS, will also try to do it all themselves, to avoid "evil" licensing fees.
It seems to me that Red Hat is just looking out for number 1 by not spending huge amounts of time with non-paying users; even when those users have valid input, the time involved in building a trusted developer base makes it prohibitive.
Comments?
-Ed
Web Design & Software Development
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Topic in #os: hey guyz, stop pickin on irix. /msg atnt haha. idiot. :~(
<SCO> w00t! i bought unix! im gonna b so rich!
<novell>
<novell> whoops. was that out loud?
<atnt> rotfl
<ibm> lol
<SCO> why r u laffin at me?
<novell> dude, unix is so 10 years ago. linux is in now.
<SCO> wtf?
<SCO> hey guyz, i bought caldera, I have linux now.
<red_hat> haha, your linux sucks.
<novell> lol
<atnt> lol
<ibm> lol
<SCO> no wayz, i will sell more linux than u!
<ibm> your linux sucks, you should look at SuSE
<SuSE> Ja. Wir bilden gutes Linux f? IBM.
<SCO> can we do linux with you?
<SuSE> Ich bin nicht sicher...
<ibm> *cough*
<SuSE> Gut lassen Sie uns vereinigen.
* SuSE is now SuSE[UL]
* SCO is now caldera[UL]
<turbolinux> can we play?
<conectiva> we're bored... we'll go too.
<ibm> sure!
* turbolinux is now turbolinux[UL]
* conectiva is now conectiva[UL]
<ibm> redhat: you should join!
<SuSE[UL]> Ja! Wir sind vereinigtes Linux. Widerstand ist vergeblich.
<red_hat> haha. no.
<red_hat> lamers.
<ibm> what about you debian?
<debian> we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
<caldera[UL]> no one wants my linux!
<turbolinux[UL]> i got owned.
<caldera[UL]> u all tricked me. linux is lame.
* caldera[UL] is now known as SCO
<SCO> i'm going back to unix.
<SGI> yeah! want to do unix with me?
<SCO> haha. no. lamer.
<novell> lol
<ibm> snap!
<SGI>
<SCO> hey, u shut up. im gonna sue u ibm.
<ibm> wtf?
<SCO> yea, you stole all the good stuff from unix.
<red_hat> lol
<SuSE[UL]> heraus laut lachen
<ibm> lol
<SCO> shutup. i'm gonna email all your friends and tell them you suck.
<ibm> go ahead. baby.
<SCO> andandand... i revoke your unix! how do you like that?
<ibm> oh no, you didn't. AIX is forever.
<novell> actually, we still own unix, you can't do that.
<SCO> wtf? we bought it from u.
<novell> whoops. our bad.
<SCO> i own u. haha
<SCO> ibm: give me all your AIX now!
<ibm> whatever. lamer.
* ibm sets mode +b SCO!*@*
* SCO has been kicked from #os (own this.)
But Red Hat's disfocus/distraction in enabling true community involvement (beyond testing and packaging) hasn't kept them from cranking out an excellent distro in Fedora.
Slashdotters have to admit: Red Hat hasn't abandoned their non-paying users after all.
Color HTML-ized version
He didn't reverse them. Perhaps you should read the article again, and note how most speakers are directing what they say (a common IRC tactic). When it was copied and pasted and posted, the browser is seeing the nick in the angle brackets and thinking "Oh! Mis-formed HTML! I'll ignore that!" and not showing the nick of the speaker. A common mistake. Specifying "Code" as the post type for the slashdot comment allows the nick to remain:
<oss_crowd> rh_dev: what can we do to help with Red Hat Project?
<rh_dev> oss_crowd: uh... file bugs and help test things.
<oss_crowd> rh_dev: didn't we always do that?
<rh_sales> hey, all, if you really want a stable system, don't use
fedora project. It will eat your brane. Buy RHEL instead.
<rh_dev> rh_sales: stfu
--- rh_pr removes voice from rh_sales
RH Fedora is a success with respect to #1, but has failed at #2. I run RH Fedora and it seems to be a reasonable stable and up-to-date distro, and tries out features like SELinux. As other people have pointed out, FC2 is on target and should be released soon.
But as far as #2 goes it is a failure. There has been no integration with Fedora.us and, as the dialogue shows, RH still decides on all the packages and defaults in a relatively closed way.
Some people have asked why RH, being a for-profit company, could open up development. There seems to be an obvious answer: so the community could help it more. RedHat could still exercise a high degree of control as long as it contributed heavily to the new community project. That's why many people were excited at the new structure---it implied that RH was still committed to develop the distribution, but would make sure that the community was heavily involved as well. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth their effort to "open it up."
I've been using Fedora since day 1, and quite honestly I love it. I haven't played with the pre-release Core 2 stuff yet, but Core 1 runs like a dream.
As far as the interaction with Red Hat, think about it this way: What other distro allows you to post a message to a mailing list and get an answer from Alan Cox himself? Red Hat genuinely interacts with the users, listens to them and tries to help them.
I can't even count how many times I have seen the Red Hat guys help users who clearly aren't running any of their Enterprise products.
"RedHat et. al need to meet release deadlines because they have to shove out "the latest and greatest" to make $$$. Debian has no such problems - that's why Debian Stable puts all other distros to shame when it comes to reliability and stability. It may not have all the whiz-bangs, but it is *_rock solid_*."
RedHat makes no money on Fedora whatsoever. Fedora essentially *is* "RedHat Unstable". RedHat's stable line is their bread-and butter.
"Debian has no such problems - that's why Debian Stable puts all other distros to shame when it comes to reliability and stability."
I have had no problems with Fedora Core 1 with either reliability or stability. My system has been up for months without issue.
"It is rock solid. No holes, no bugs, nothing."
Bullshit. Software *always* has bugs, and it *always* has security holes.
"Debian has a *VERY* firm concept of a release - that is, a Debian relase is *STABLE*."
Translation: Debian doesn't regularly release with fresh packages. Their only releases are filled with stale packages like GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2. Their "testing" release is actually an ongoing release which constantly changes.
Sorry, Debian nuts. Your favorite distro frankly sucks from a business sense.
If you want to run modern packages in a business setting, Debian makes it far more difficult to keep every system in sync. With Fedora, you can run Fedora Core 1 on every system and recieve security updates as they are released - just as you can with Windows. With Debian, you have to run Stable if you want a single set of packages with only security upgrades.
The whole "Stable"/"Unstable"/"Testing" thing runs completely counter to the rest of the industry. Microsoft releases a new OS every few years and then only releases incremental bug-fixes and security upgrades. Thus, when you are running "Windows XP", you are running a specific set of packages with a specific configuration system and specific interface. How is a business supposed to get support for "Debian Unstable"? Are they supposed to thell the support company the versions of every package on their system? What if they want to get security upgrades without signifigantly changing their system?
With Debian, a business would be forced to use Stable if they wanted a stable, supported platform. Unfortunately, stable is filled with old packages. Fedora Core 1 is tested and stable. You can call up LinuxCare (or another corporation), tell them that you are using "Fedora Core 1", and get support for configuration and other issues. You can't do that with Debian Unstable.
"That said, this is why most people in the know *do* run Debian Unstable and apt-get update && upgrade daily, because it is desktop where stability is not as mission critical."
You just admitted that Debian's releases are so old that people "in the know" are using an unstable release. With Fedora, you get a tested, polished release with modern software. There isn't a need to worry about your packages changing (or not working) tomorrow because you ran "apt-get update && upgrade". You can get security patches and still keep everything the way it is.
(apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade once / day usually ends up doing around 20+ packages)
RedHat isn't formally supporting Fedora anyways, so I don't get it, what is the incentive?
Let me be the first to say I'm a big Debian fan. I use it on several computers. However, using Debian unstable on my main workstation for about a year was not the most pleasant experience. I don't remember everything, but I'll list a few of the more major annoyances:
1.) Some of us really don't want to download 20 (or over 100) packages, many of them the same update as last week, just to stay up to date with security holes.
2.) Though Debian fans love to say "just use unstable if you want the latest", Debian unstable is often _not_ faster than Fedora or Mandrake at getting the latest version of X, KDE, GNOME, or many other applications. IIRC, it took some time before Debian unstable got KDE 3. Yes, you can add additional sources (which I, actually, do with FC1 on my main workstation now to get the very latest KDE - kde-redhat)
3.) Debian Unstable is not the first priority of the Debian Security project. As such, I wouldn't trust a Debian unstable computer with any directly open ports to the internet, as even the latest "apt-get upgrade" may not fix security bugs that are fixed in Debian stable.
4.) At times, Debian unstable can truly be unstable. For a few weeks sometime last year (January?), KDE broke. A workaround was found a short while later, but it took a few weeks for the packages themselves to be fixed. Depending on what you have installed, Debian unstable can feel rather buggy.
All of this led me to install Debian stable on my computer last spring, which stayed until I got a new computer this February. I found that so long as I grabbed the latest KDE from kde.org's unofficial Debian packages, the system felt pretty new. However, I started to wish for a more updated feel with regards to fonts (which often look terrible in Debian, especially unstable, and I'm not the only one who couldn't quite figure out how to fix them). A more updated application set and the same ability to apt-get a bunch of packages made Fedora feel really nice on my new workstation. Fonts are beautiful, and the kde-redhat project does a nice job of packaging up the latest and greatest KDE. When I do apt-get upgrade, I often get some larger or non-essential upgrades, but it doesn't seem to be the quantity that I went through with Debian unstable. I didn't have to put much fuss into getting my system to look great _and_ have the niceties of the apt system.
I kept browsing the Debian-devel mailing list, hoping to see some sign of when we might see a new release, but some legal and technical issues seem to be pushing it back quite a ways. Therefore, I'm now a believer in the "Debian for the server" mentality. Never before has my desktop looked and functioned so cleanly, with OpenOffice now using some KDE widgets (thanks to the packaging from kde-redhat, I wouldn't have realized it was available otherwise). There was a strange problem with Mozilla in Debian where the occasional line of text would have part of the characters "shifted" a few pixels, which was very distracting. That made me switch to Konqueror way back when, and I still don't use Mozilla much at home - but it's nice to know that in Fedora the Mozilla fonts look great.
Sorry for the long rant, but I think I've got a decent perspective of one user who's tried both Debian unstable, stable, and Fedora on the desktop, and to me it just isn't worth the hassle to use Debian.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Offical support and direction was difficult to come by. "Read the docs," they said, but there was precious little written about how we were to proceed. Common questions were: how should we communicate, where should we host the project, how do we best get our product to integrated into the RH environment. All the "offical" Fedora components were hosted on RedHat's own CVS server and had entries in RedHat's official Bugzilla site. What about our project? We're writing for Fedora, for RedHat. We were even given the go-ahead by RH staff. Now when do we get CVS and Bugzilla? We want to start building here.
RedHat staff has been "very busy" trying to answer our questions and satisfy our reasonable requests. Apparently there's red tape everywhere--legal and logistical issues enough to make a man cry. Stuff can be fixed, but it takes time.
We sit and twiddle our thumbs hoping for some answers. Status updates are few and generally cryptic. RedHat is still "very, very busy" and is apparently making progress.
In the mean time, other commitments have commanded my time and I've had to abandon my post as a Fedora developer--at least for now. Now I look back and wonder how much I actually got to contribute.
It was a wonderful environment. Your work was almost guaranteed to be included in the distro (assuming you were filling a posted need). And I, a nameless nobody in the Linux world, had on multiple occasions asked questions and gotten prompt, insightful answers from both Eric Raymond and Alan Cox. I really felt like I was doing something important.
But the delays and disorganization, good heavens. What frustration is was to try to get any offical assistance or direction from RedHat. Their developer support infrastructure was nonexistant at best. To borrow an old metaphor, they were building a passenger jet in the air with Fedora, and we the passengers expected to be joining something a little more ..erm.. functional than we experinced.
Fedora's not a bad idea. It's a great idea. I was (and still am) fairly excided about the whole prospect. But it would have been nice if RedHat had prepared itself and built some sort of support system before bringing the rest of us on board.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925