"What is the Fedora Project?"

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 12:25:25PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 10:17:45AM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> >> I bring it up because I still honestly don't know your stance on this and
> >> being the project lead it's pretty important to this discussion.  Are we
> >> excluding people or are we including everyone?
> >
> >I'm sorry I haven't been clear enough, in that case.  "Everyone" is
> >too broad and there's no way we can make release, QA, or any other
> >criteria around that definition.  Any detail, no matter how small, is
> >going to be important to somebody and for that person, might be a
> >blocker on a release.  With that target we would have a hard time ever
> >releasing something.  So:
> >
> >We should target computer-literate users who are making a conscious
> >choice to switch to Linux, are willing to help a developer debug a
> >problem if one occurs, and use their system to connect to the Internet
> >and run a general set of productivity and communication tools (connect
> >to network, update system if needed, browse Web, use our help venues
> >including mail and IRC).  These users need not be developers,
> >programmers, sysadmins, or tinkerers.  By targeting this type of user,
> >and by fixing things we're not doing right for this type of user,
> >we'll also fix a lot of other people's pain, including people in our
> >core contributor audience.
> >
> >I would like to have a much longer and more detailed set of criteria
> >for what this person needs to be able to do from the moment they boot
> >the installation media, but that's a next step.  Mairin Duffy sort of
> >started down this road and I think there's a lot we can add to her
> >description of what the user should expect to be able to do.  
> >
> >If it helps you gain clarity at all, I think Bill Nottingham and I are
> >in pretty good agreement.  If the above isn't clear to you please let
> >me know how and I'll be happy to be more descriptive. 
> 
> Considering this pretty much matches the description of the target user
> I sent out as my reply to the orginal email that started this thread, I
> think you could count me as in agreement as well.

Fantastic.  The Board came together around this as well in today's
meeting.  I will get those notes published, and a summary to the FAB
list, by tonight.  I'm running a little behind with the Fedora
Activity Day I'm hosting starting tomorrow, picking up travelers
today, etc.  But I'll get it here on the list as soon as humanly
possible.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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