Expecting volunteers to carry 2/3 of the load for Fedora seems a bit much.
We don't *expect* volunteers to maintain 2/3 of Fedora's packages. That is just what the numbers ended up being, and they flux often as different people either adopt or orphan packages depending on their circumstances.
I was thinking "I'll just check Slashdot and see what's new today" and all of a sudden I saw my name on the front page. I thought "what on earth am I doing on the front page of Slashdot? I haven't given an interview in quite a long time."
I realized that the interview was from Linux Format UK (at the end of the article), and checking my records, I can see that it a summary of an interview I gave at LUG Radio Live back in July.
The Baroque Cycle is probably my favorite set of novels, period. I've read the entire trilogy 3 or 4 times now, and I *still* notice new things each time through, new passages that I enjoy, and plot foreshadowings and connections spread throughout the books.
It's impossible to absorb and appreciate it all in one reading. That's both good and bad, depending on what sort of reading you want to do.
No wait, what?!? You're kidding right? The idea that the new CEO might not be a Linux user, or might not run Red Hat software is so plausible that the confirmation that he is a "Linux user" is seen as noteworthy? What the heck? Would they consider putting someone in that position who was "a Mac user" or "a Windows user" or even "sometimes uses Linux?"
Seeing as you are commenting on my blog post, let me concur with you:
*I* think it would be insane to hire someone to be Red Hat's CEO who isn't a Linux user. But I am just one Red Hat employee. Keep in mind the perspective -- shock that the CEO of your company is stepping down, and sadness because he's a great leader who everyone respects. So hearing "not only is the new guy a Linux user, but he knows and uses Fedora" would make you smile at that moment.
That is all.
Fedora 8 running on USB keys
on
Fedora 8 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
It is one of the more interesting features in Fedora -- users can build their own customized spin of the distro, and then run it on a USB key. Totally custom and portable.
GNOME, KDE, and other custom spins
on
Fedora 8 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
Disclosure: I work on the Fedora Project. I am employed by Red Hat, but I am not in corporate communications. However, here is the official statement that was issued by that group:
"Red Hat has only recently been able to see some of the terms of the original Microsoft/Novell deal, due to the belated and redacted SEC filings that were made. Based on what we have seen, the deal is not interesting to us. Red Hat continues to believe that open source and the innovation it represents should not be subject to an unsubstantiated tax that lacks transparency."
My own thoughts, that are not necessarily those of my employer:
CEOs have to be very careful about what they say in public, especially in this day and age in the US business world. Sometimes a "no comment" is the only safe answer. Personally, I do not believe Red Hat would ever make a Novell-style deal. I can't even begin to express how angry and disappointed I would be with Red Hat, and Mr. Szulik, if such a deal were to ever happen. But I don't stay up at night worrying about it, because I trust Red Hat's CEO and top management to do the right thing.
This is all specifically due to the SELinux support in Red Hat EL (and consequently CentOS and Fedora and other derivatives).
It's more accurate to describe RHEL and CentOS as derivatives of Fedora. Fedora is the upstream for all other distributions that are in the Red Hat family. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is derived from Fedora, and CentOS is in turn derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
SELinux, for example, appeared in Fedora long before it ever appeared in RHEL or CentOS.
You also still have Fedora, and everything else that is part of the Red Hat family. No deals with MSFT there.
Re:What's the story with Extras?
on
Fedora 7 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
Core and Extras have been merged into a single repository, so those names no longer exist. But what you are looking for DOES exist. It's all there in the "Everything" version of Fedora. That's an install tree that we provide at (for example):
And that's a good thing. Red Hat likes CentOS. Between CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora, there are three "Red Hat Family" distributions that meet three very different sets of needs.
Every CentOS install is an install that is within the Red Hat family. For people who don't need to be able to call up Red Hat and ask support questions (but who still need an enterprise distro), CentOS is a great choice.
I'm the submitter of the original article. I understand where your comment is coming from, but you need to keep in mind that large governmental organizations, for example, are *purposefully* quiet about their technology choices. There is a reason why they choose to sync the updates only once and then deploy them from an internal mirror. The fact that these big groups take the time to at least let us know that they are using Fedora is a good thing, not a bad one. We're making the best effort that we can to be honest and up-front about the numbers that we have, and also the places where there is some fudge factor. Isn't it a *good thing* that we provide some context, rather than just saying "x million" with no backup? Would you prefer less transparency? There are lots of areas in which Fedora can be criticized. Being transparent about usage statistics -- I don't understand why that's one of them, quite honestly.
What would be evil, and the temptation they need to avoid, is to take their server logs and start mining them for data that can be sold or used for malicious purposes
We won't do that. I have no interest in selling data about individual Fedora users. All I care about is figuring out how many people are using the software that so many folks work so hard to produce.
Well, we'll keep doing what we currently are doing. In addition, the idea currently under consideration is an OPTIONAL screen in firstboot where a user can choose to let us know more about their hardware and/or installed package set.
KEY POINT TO MAKE: If a user says "no, go away and leave me alone", we will respect that.
To anyone who wants to be part of the discussion, feel free to follow the Fedora Infrastructure list.
the day they start requiring registration or creating GUIDs is the day I give the shove to Fedora -- and I've been and RH users for 8-9 years.
As the "Fedora Project Leader", the Fedora buck stops with me, so to speak.
And I promise you that I will NEVER require anyone to "register" Fedora in order to download updates, or stuff like that.
Neither I, nor the Fedora Board, which is Fedora's governing body, will allow some sort of "required registration" in order to get the full Fedora experience.
Download. Install. Update. If that's the extent of a person's interaction with Fedora, fine by me. We hope, of course, that there will be a fourth step, that being: Contribute
But in general, this "statistic" means absolutely squat. No one is going to give a shit if 100 million people downloaded something -- Microsoft is what managers hear the most about and that's what they are generally inclined to want.
The value of these numbers is not solely determined by the degree to which the above statement is true, IMHO.
I don't really know how to prove to you that we're not doing any "evil" data collection, other than the fact that all of the conversations that have been had about Fedora and metrics have been had on publicly archived mailing lists, like the Fedora Advisory Board one, and if someone cared to go back and read the archives they could see a whole variety of ideas that were discussed -- including the ones that were specifically rejected because they would have been too invasive or "evil".
Got a specific concern? Reply and I'll address it the best I can.
The key difference, IMHO, is that in Fedora we are trying to demonstrate *where* our numbers are coming from, as opposed to just giving a number with no context.
It's also important to realize that this metric is just for Fedora Core 6, not "all instances of Fedora 1-6".
I'm the guy who actually maintains that Statistics page on the Fedora wiki.
The real "story" here is a couple of things:
THING 1 -- We're making the best effort that we can at showing the world how many installations of Fedora Core 6 we know about.
THING 2 -- We're being upfront about the assumptions and caveats that go along with that number. Quoting:
"Accuracy of metrics
We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of FC6", with the following caveats:
1. Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount. 2. Users who are behind NAT, corporate proxies, or who rsync updates to a local mirror before updating will not be counted at all.
The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations makes it quite clear that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page."
THING 3 -- We're also being upfront about how that number is generated.
I'm not trying to spin the data in any way. I'm just putting it up there, and trying to do so as objectively as possible. Anyone can draw their own conclusions, or compare it to data from other distributions, if you can find similar reporting.
Actually, the Fedora folks address that very point. Quoting from the Fedora Project wiki, and it's page on Statistics:
"Accuracy of metrics
We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of FC6", with the following caveats:
1. Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.
2. Users who are behind NAT, corporate proxies, or who rsync updates to a local mirror before updating will not be counted at all.
The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations makes it quite clear that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page."
Interesting. I'll try to respond a little bit. Happy to talk further, but it would be better to email me directly (mspevack AT red hat DOT com), since I probably won't watch this thread too much longer.
First off, I assure you I'm not "trying to hide" anything. I am *trying* to talk as honestly about Fedora as I possibly can. I don't know how I can at least convince you of that. You don't need to agree with anything I'm saying, but I'd at least like to convince you that my heart is in the right place.
Do you expect Fedora going in ANY MANNER against Red Hat Inc.'s best interests (like... making it lose the sell of any single RHEL license)?
Sure. I get a paycheck from Red Hat. I spend 100% of my time trying to get people to use Fedora. I don't assume for a moment that everyone in the world who wants to run Linux should be running RHEL. So... yeah.
-----
*One* of the things that Fedora is used for is as a departure point, or open R&D lab, or whatever term you like, for RHEL.
But from the big picture perspective, is it correct to make that be the *first* thing that Fedora is? I don't think so.
Fedora is a complete Linux distribution, and we mean for it to stand alongside distros like Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, etc. -- and to compete with those distributions for mindshare and actual installs. We don't see anyone calling those a "beta" for anything else, even though functionally they are very similar to Fedora. And why not? Because those other distributions don't have an "enterprise" version that is closely associated with it.
I guess I would look at it this way.
When I meet someone who doesn't know much at all about Open Source or Red Hat, how do I explain Red Hat to them? If I do it from the bottom up, the focus ends up being on Fedora, with RHEL being a direct result of Fedora which is targeted to enterprises, supported, and keeps the lights on.
1) Explaining the idea of open source versus closed source, usually involves examples of IE/Outlook in comparison to something like Firefox/Thunderbird.
2) Then talk about how you can carry that metaphor all the way to the operating system. And how you've got a community of developers, users, and testers worldwide that works to build the pieces of a completely free operating system. And why it's beneficial to you as a user, even if you don't know how to read a line of code, to know that there is *someone* out there who *can read it*, and why that's A Good Thing.
3) And how does Red Hat play a role in that? Well we have a Linux distribution called Fedora, and here's how it works and here's how it's created, yadda yadda.
4) Then the inevitable question -- so.... how do you actually make any money? Then you hit them with the RHEL model, and how you can leverage all the work we do in Fedora to build RHEL. But everything hinges on Fedora!
And all of a sudden, you've answered their questions both *honestly* and in a way that accurately explains Fedora and RHEL, and how they play together.
Slashdot Mirror
Expecting volunteers to carry 2/3 of the load for Fedora seems a bit much.
We don't *expect* volunteers to maintain 2/3 of Fedora's packages. That is just what the numbers ended up being, and they flux often as different people either adopt or orphan packages depending on their circumstances.
I was thinking "I'll just check Slashdot and see what's new today" and all of a sudden I saw my name on the front page. I thought "what on earth am I doing on the front page of Slashdot? I haven't given an interview in quite a long time."
I realized that the interview was from Linux Format UK (at the end of the article), and checking my records, I can see that it a summary of an interview I gave at LUG Radio Live back in July.
The Baroque Cycle is probably my favorite set of novels, period. I've read the entire trilogy 3 or 4 times now, and I *still* notice new things each time through, new passages that I enjoy, and plot foreshadowings and connections spread throughout the books.
It's impossible to absorb and appreciate it all in one reading. That's both good and bad, depending on what sort of reading you want to do.
Zero, unless the new CEO wants to start his tenure with a mutiny in his engineering ranks.
No wait, what?!? You're kidding right? The idea that the new CEO might not be a Linux user, or might not run Red Hat software is so plausible that the confirmation that he is a "Linux user" is seen as noteworthy? What the heck? Would they consider putting someone in that position who was "a Mac user" or "a Windows user" or even "sometimes uses Linux?"
Seeing as you are commenting on my blog post, let me concur with you:
*I* think it would be insane to hire someone to be Red Hat's CEO who isn't a Linux user. But I am just one Red Hat employee. Keep in mind the perspective -- shock that the CEO of your company is stepping down, and sadness because he's a great leader who everyone respects. So hearing "not only is the new guy a Linux user, but he knows and uses Fedora" would make you smile at that moment.
That is all.
Red Hat Magazine posted a HOWTO explaining Fedora 8 booting from a USB key.
It is one of the more interesting features in Fedora -- users can build their own customized spin of the distro, and then run it on a USB key. Totally custom and portable.
For folks who are downloading, http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora is the best starting point to the GNOME, KDE, and other spins.
There are a few "official" links that people might find useful:
Release Summary -- http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary
Release Notes -- http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/en_US/
Fedora Project Leader's release announcement -- http://lwn.net/Articles/257644/
And of course the downloads at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/
This is the best comment I've read on Slashdot in the last month. Thank you.
The company will be called "Orange Sombrero" software. :-)
Disclosure: I work on the Fedora Project. I am employed by Red Hat, but I am not in corporate communications. However, here is the official statement that was issued by that group:
"Red Hat has only recently been able to see some of the terms of the original Microsoft/Novell deal, due to the belated and redacted SEC filings that were made. Based on what we have seen, the deal is not interesting to us. Red Hat continues to believe that open source and the innovation it represents should not be subject to an unsubstantiated tax that lacks transparency."
My own thoughts, that are not necessarily those of my employer:
CEOs have to be very careful about what they say in public, especially in this day and age in the US business world. Sometimes a "no comment" is the only safe answer. Personally, I do not believe Red Hat would ever make a Novell-style deal. I can't even begin to express how angry and disappointed I would be with Red Hat, and Mr. Szulik, if such a deal were to ever happen. But I don't stay up at night worrying about it, because I trust Red Hat's CEO and top management to do the right thing.
This is all specifically due to the SELinux support in Red Hat EL (and consequently CentOS and Fedora and other derivatives).
It's more accurate to describe RHEL and CentOS as derivatives of Fedora. Fedora is the upstream for all other distributions that are in the Red Hat family. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is derived from Fedora, and CentOS is in turn derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
SELinux, for example, appeared in Fedora long before it ever appeared in RHEL or CentOS.
You also still have Fedora, and everything else that is part of the Red Hat family. No deals with MSFT there.
Core and Extras have been merged into a single repository, so those names no longer exist. But what you are looking for DOES exist. It's all there in the "Everything" version of Fedora. That's an install tree that we provide at (for example):
x /releases/7/Everything/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linu
And that's a good thing. Red Hat likes CentOS. Between CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora, there are three "Red Hat Family" distributions that meet three very different sets of needs.
Every CentOS install is an install that is within the Red Hat family. For people who don't need to be able to call up Red Hat and ask support questions (but who still need an enterprise distro), CentOS is a great choice.
I'm the submitter of the original article. I understand where your comment is coming from, but you need to keep in mind that large governmental organizations, for example, are *purposefully* quiet about their technology choices. There is a reason why they choose to sync the updates only once and then deploy them from an internal mirror. The fact that these big groups take the time to at least let us know that they are using Fedora is a good thing, not a bad one. We're making the best effort that we can to be honest and up-front about the numbers that we have, and also the places where there is some fudge factor. Isn't it a *good thing* that we provide some context, rather than just saying "x million" with no backup? Would you prefer less transparency? There are lots of areas in which Fedora can be criticized. Being transparent about usage statistics -- I don't understand why that's one of them, quite honestly.
We won't do that. I have no interest in selling data about individual Fedora users. All I care about is figuring out how many people are using the software that so many folks work so hard to produce.
Well, we'll keep doing what we currently are doing. In addition, the idea currently under consideration is an OPTIONAL screen in firstboot where a user can choose to let us know more about their hardware and/or installed package set.
r astructure-list
KEY POINT TO MAKE: If a user says "no, go away and leave me alone", we will respect that.
To anyone who wants to be part of the discussion, feel free to follow the Fedora Infrastructure list.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-inf
As the "Fedora Project Leader", the Fedora buck stops with me, so to speak.
And I promise you that I will NEVER require anyone to "register" Fedora in order to download updates, or stuff like that.
Neither I, nor the Fedora Board, which is Fedora's governing body, will allow some sort of "required registration" in order to get the full Fedora experience.
Download. Install. Update. If that's the extent of a person's interaction with Fedora, fine by me. We hope, of course, that there will be a fourth step, that being: Contribute
The value of these numbers is not solely determined by the degree to which the above statement is true, IMHO.
I don't really know how to prove to you that we're not doing any "evil" data collection, other than the fact that all of the conversations that have been had about Fedora and metrics have been had on publicly archived mailing lists, like the Fedora Advisory Board one, and if someone cared to go back and read the archives they could see a whole variety of ideas that were discussed -- including the ones that were specifically rejected because they would have been too invasive or "evil".
Got a specific concern? Reply and I'll address it the best I can.
The key difference, IMHO, is that in Fedora we are trying to demonstrate *where* our numbers are coming from, as opposed to just giving a number with no context.
It's also important to realize that this metric is just for Fedora Core 6, not "all instances of Fedora 1-6".
I'm the guy who actually maintains that Statistics page on the Fedora wiki.
The real "story" here is a couple of things:
THING 1 -- We're making the best effort that we can at showing the world how many installations of Fedora Core 6 we know about.
THING 2 -- We're being upfront about the assumptions and caveats that go along with that number. Quoting:
"Accuracy of metrics
We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of FC6", with the following caveats:
1. Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.
2. Users who are behind NAT, corporate proxies, or who rsync updates to a local mirror before updating will not be counted at all.
The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations makes it quite clear that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page."
THING 3 -- We're also being upfront about how that number is generated.
I'm not trying to spin the data in any way. I'm just putting it up there, and trying to do so as objectively as possible. Anyone can draw their own conclusions, or compare it to data from other distributions, if you can find similar reporting.
Actually, the Fedora folks address that very point. Quoting from the Fedora Project wiki, and it's page on Statistics:
"Accuracy of metrics
We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of FC6", with the following caveats:
1. Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.
2. Users who are behind NAT, corporate proxies, or who rsync updates to a local mirror before updating will not be counted at all.
The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations makes it quite clear that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page."
Interesting. I'll try to respond a little bit. Happy to talk further, but it would be better to email me directly (mspevack AT red hat DOT com), since I probably won't watch this thread too much longer.
First off, I assure you I'm not "trying to hide" anything. I am *trying* to talk as honestly about Fedora as I possibly can. I don't know how I can at least convince you of that. You don't need to agree with anything I'm saying, but I'd at least like to convince you that my heart is in the right place.
Do you expect Fedora going in ANY MANNER against Red Hat Inc.'s best interests (like... making it lose the sell of any single RHEL license)?
Sure. I get a paycheck from Red Hat. I spend 100% of my time trying to get people to use Fedora. I don't assume for a moment that everyone in the world who wants to run Linux should be running RHEL. So... yeah.
-----
*One* of the things that Fedora is used for is as a departure point, or open R&D lab, or whatever term you like, for RHEL.
But from the big picture perspective, is it correct to make that be the *first* thing that Fedora is? I don't think so.
Fedora is a complete Linux distribution, and we mean for it to stand alongside distros like Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, etc. -- and to compete with those distributions for mindshare and actual installs. We don't see anyone calling those a "beta" for anything else, even though functionally they are very similar to Fedora. And why not? Because those other distributions don't have an "enterprise" version that is closely associated with it.
I guess I would look at it this way.
When I meet someone who doesn't know much at all about Open Source or Red Hat, how do I explain Red Hat to them? If I do it from the bottom up, the focus ends up being on Fedora, with RHEL being a direct result of
Fedora which is targeted to enterprises, supported, and keeps the lights on.
1) Explaining the idea of open source versus closed source, usually involves examples of IE/Outlook in comparison to something like Firefox/Thunderbird.
2) Then talk about how you can carry that metaphor all the way to the operating system. And how you've got a community of developers, users, and testers worldwide that works to build the pieces of a completely free
operating system. And why it's beneficial to you as a user, even if you don't know how to read a line of code, to know that there is *someone* out there who *can read it*, and why that's A Good Thing.
3) And how does Red Hat play a role in that? Well we have a Linux distribution called Fedora, and here's how it works and here's how it's created, yadda yadda.
4) Then the inevitable question -- so.... how do you actually make any money? Then you hit them with the RHEL model, and how you can leverage all the work we do in Fedora to build RHEL. But everything hinges on Fedora!
And all of a sudden, you've answered their questions both *honestly* and in a way that accurately explains Fedora and RHEL, and how they play together.